Prince Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles #11) - Anne Rice

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It is really sad to write that this was one of my least favorite books from the series.

First of all, it is important to stablish that this book was a project to kinda re-invent the vampire chronicles, because it is not a direct continuation of Blood Canticle. The story is supposed to be a modern continuation of what happened in Queen of the Damned. I say modern because I think it happened 2014 or 2015, whatevs it’s modern times with iPhones and computers and some sort of vampirical artificial insemination, yup…

I kinda understand Rice’s intend to attract new readers and perhaps to think how a bunch of ancient, really ancient fartbags will manage to survive or idk, live in the modern world. But frankly, since Lestat’s adventure with his rock band and all the pages were he whined about the old world and bla bla bla… why make a more modern book? At least I think of “the old world” when I think of Rice’s vampires, not Lestat blogging or listening to his old hits on Spotify. (BTW, thank you Queen of the Damned movie, for one of the greatest OST eva, just the soundtrack, erase the whole footage of the movie, thanks)

Setting that aside for a moment, LOL, we have a bunch of vampires dying, bursting into flames like by the fire gift. So must of the old and ancient are scared that they are also gonna die. That’s when our hero enters the story, trying to convince everyone to fight the only person they think is capable of what is happening, Akasha. So he reunites with all his friends from old, Louis, Armand, Pandora, twins Mekare and Maharet, Rowan from the Mayfair Witches, Marius… like 20 vampires ajaja, so they set up like, sort of a vampire council to decide how to proceed. Regardless of the threat that Akasha is, there is also another problem. A voice that everyone starts hearing, a voice inside their heads. Of course everyone fears it, because it has never happened before. But that is no problem for our brat prince, at least not after dealing with old gf Akasha.

To summarize, this is the main plot. But as beautiful as it sounds to a die hard fan, a lot of issues come with the story, I’ll go with my 2 main ones:

Rice’s quill (or how to survive an extremely descriptive author?): There is no easy answer, I mean the first 2 or 3 books kinda get you into the mood of the author’s writing, but when I lost it completely was in Memnoch the Devil, her christian era. So I was kinda into it, for the time I was reading the series. But Prince Lestat came so many years later, and I was not ready for it. Basically half the book was about boring recollections of the past, old characters without any importance to the plot, they were not even mentioned later on, LOL. Then we have like full chapters dedicated to a single character, and their story, how they came to the DARK GIFT, so no. Believe me, I was expecting some sort of memories of the characters I enjoyed reading from previous books, but this was annoying, because there was not actual reason for them on the development of the main plot.

Sons and protégées: I do not want to spoil anything, because I truly believe than you guys have to discover your own likeness or not to all the books available. I’ll try to do my best. So later on we have the story of Viktor and Rose, oh my dear Anne, I thought there was enough with Claudia and then Benji, and now you bring some sort of The Cursed Child thing with biological sons and adoptive daughters. Really? Lestat being the brat vampire that he is, is considered mature enough to to handle once again… progeny? IDK, when reading this part I was completely devastated and disappointed and sad, LOL.

Finally, the outcome, what I think is my fav part. Kidnapping, gore, violence, blood spilled, human explosions, dismemberments, all sorts of funny things. Of course our hero is the one who saves the day, and by unanimity Lestat is crowned prince, Prince Lestat of all remain vampires.

Getting back to my resentment, LOL, by the end of the book we have our beloved, with human soul, vampire Louis. Despite him being an ungrateful bastard for not appreciating the choice Lestat never had…. aaww. I liked him a lot. But somehow this idea of only killing “the bad ones” reminds me of a sparkly vampire. And I mean, being honest… thank god Rice’s vampires are not real. Because being an honorable saint, is really difficult nowadays, everyone can be pray to them.

An then it’s over, no more homo erotic stories, no more gothicnes, IDK, everything that I loved about Rice’s vampires kinda got lost in this book. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? We are always told not to expect anything. But it was hard, really difficult, when I finished Prince Lestat I did not know what to do. The 9 yo boy who watched for the first time a beautiful Brad Pitt playing Louis in the 1994 movie. The one who fell in love with those fiery eyes. The one who did not know why that character, male character was so appealing to him… was disappointed, kinda jaded.

I was definitely happy to read Lestat again, of course I was, but at the end Prince Lestat by Anne Rice on my very personal POV was not Rice’s best work.

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3/5