User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Of all of the vampire chronicles this is by far my favorite. If you have seen the movie and were not impressed. It's ok because neither was I. The movie is nothing like the book in any way. The book goes into detail and answers a lot questions. Goes into detail of the family tree and tells you how Akasha and Enkil became to be. I love every single part of this book and it really was a page turner for me. I love everything from the twins, to Armand and Daniel. Everything! All of these characters are so beautifully put together I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading about vampires.
Rating: really liked it
This was the book that pretty much killed my desire to read anything more by Rice. Only 3 books into the Chronicles and I was already weary of her style. As it was, the book was so dull that it took me ages to finish it.
I despised a great deal of the new characters and their stories, but as usual, I enjoyed the history (particularly Egypt) where certain stories took place. I could not stand the inclusion of the whole Talamasca thing and found myself rolling my eyes whenever that mess came into play. And Louis fan that I am, I was disappointed to see so little of the character I had bonded with in the first book.
Not a book I would care to ever read again.
Rating: really liked it
I read a lot of Anne Rice in the 80s, both her Vampire Chronicles and her Mayfair Witches series. I always find her very readable and there is always some dark beauty in her prose. However, like most series the quality tend to drop off after three or four volumes, the authors either begin to repeat themselves or try something radically different or experimental which does not work. As far as
The Vampire Chronicles is concerned I think Ms. Rice has done a bit of both, and I lost interest after the fifth volume Memnoch the Devil.
Most readers of
The Vampire Chronicles agree that the first three books of the series are the best. I would go as far as to say that these are the best vampire fiction I have ever read. Bram Stoker has nothing on Anne Rice as far as literary talent is concerned. Stephenie Meyer does not even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath.
OK, enough useless preamble. I reread
The Queen of the Damned as part of my Halloween horror binge. I have long neglected the horror genre in favor of sci-fi, fantasy and even mainstream fiction. It never occurred to me to reread the first two
Vampire Chronicles books Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat because I still remember the stories very well even decades after reading them (the Tom Cruise movie adaptation is even more fresh in my memory).
The Queen of the Damned however, is only remembered in term of broad plot outline, and I the denouement totally escaped me. I think this is because there is so much in this book. It is more epic is scale and more complex in structure and characterization.
Akasha. Art by by Klodia007
In the previous book The Vampire Lestat Lestat, the rebellious star of the Chronicles has become a rock star with hit albums (I think he made some kind of hair metal with weird lyrics). His vampiric brand of metal mayhem has the unfortunate effect of waking up Akasha the original vampire, with megalomaniac tendencies. Soon she is dispatching young (or crappy) vampires left and right with her mental powers and human males in general are on her (s)hit list. Who can stop the most powerful vampire ever? I won’t spoil it for you, but it is probably not whoever it is you are thinking of.
There are long flashback chapters where the narrative is set in ancient Egyptian time where the human queen Akasha is turned into the first vampire almost by accident. This part of the tale involves good and evil spirits, cannibalism and curses, it really is quite riveting. The sections set in the modern world is almost as exciting, Anne Rice’s world building and vampire mythos is some of the most vivid fantastical creation ever. I particularly like the Talamasca, the secret society for investigation of the paranormal where Fox Mulder would feel right at home.
Anne Rice’s prose always go down well with me, I particularly like her description of the elation and shame of vampire feeding:
“When they drank the blood they felt ecstasy. Never had they known such pleasure, not in their beds, not at the banquet table, not when drunk with beer or wine. That was the source of the shame. It hadn't been the killing; it had been the monstrous feeding. It had been the pleasure.”
Akasha by Deathstars69
Her descriptions of characters are always quite vivid:
“Her skin was white and hard and opaque as it had always been. Her cheek shone like pearl as she smiled, her dark eyes moist and enlivened as the flesh puckered ever so slightly around them. They positively glistered with vitality.”The Queen of the Damned is definitely worth rereading if you have read it ages ago like I have, of course if you have not read it before it is even more of an imperative though I would recommend reading the previous two books in the chronicles first. This should not be much of a hardship as they are seriously gripping reads. That said if you were to read it as a standalone I think it would still be quite understandable.
A great read from first page to last.
Notes:• Fans of Twilight may find this interesting:
• The 2002 movie adaptation is indeed a mess, but Aaliyah actually did a good job, and she died soon after the movie's release, poor girl 😢
Aaliyah as Akasha
Rating: really liked it
This was the best one of them all. It fills in all the holes and makes for a fascinating read. The only character who didn't seem to fit in with the story was the Baby character who killed her mother and father. The only thing I could figure out was that she gave us Anne Rice's ideas of the afterlife. That you just go up into a wonderful loving place with all the people in your life even if you were a horrible person. The rest was sheer creativeness. That a vampire could be so ancient and complete he/she didn't need to kill anymore was cool. The idea that an ancient making a new vampire made a "super" vampire was cool also. And Lestat was right, Louis does whine a lot! :)
Rating: really liked it
I started my reading adventure with Anne Rice vampire novels and I'm still very much enjoying them. However the news of her death made it a little difficult to finish this book and do a review. Had to take a little break not to get influenced by my feelings for the real events and wait a little until i could get fully invested in the story itself. I enjoyed her writing and that it wasn't has romance heavy and cringy as I thought the series was before reading it. Will definitely continue on with the series
Rating: really liked it
I like books. I like reading them, writing them, sleeping with every word I have ever read staring down at me in a legacy of comforting language. I have only ever in my life put down two books without finishing them, and throughout this whole torturous affair I had to continuously remind myself that I don't want that figure to reach three. In short, this was slow, painful and pointless, more of an elongated love affair with Rice's beloved Lestat than any honest attempt to, y'now, educate or entertain her audience. I wish I hadn't started it, because then I could have read something else.
Plot? There is effectively none. The whole thing is told through a series of side-stories and flashbacks, with the actual conflict resolved in a handful of pages at the back end of the book, about two or three hundred after I started actually, verbally yelling at the thing to get to the point already. Nothing at all is accomplished; Rice cleans up her mythology a little bit and injects a bit more vampiric superpowers into her fictional crush Lestat. This, more than anything, is what grates about the story. Every character spends far too much time worrying over Lestat. It is an elongated aggrandizing, a chance to reiterate just how attractive, devilish, powerful and irresistible the irritating little godlet is. Every other character spends far, far too much time worrying over him, and each mewling phrase sticks out of the narrative like a staple in a quiche. Even the titled Queen of the Damned herself, who at points showed the potential to be a well-realized character with a handful of villainous virtues and flaws, is inevitably defeated because Lestat is just too damned beautiful for anyone to resist. It's tiresome, it's awful, and it makes me angry - because there ARE hints, here and there, of surprising narrative potential, if only when the author pulls her head out of her own ass long enough to write a chapter that has absolutely nothing to do with her favorite dead, white masturbation fodder.
Skip it; watch the movie if you must, it's shorter.
Rating: really liked it
The Queen of the Damned is the third book of the successful "Vampire Chronicles" saga by the author Anne Rice. For me, it's a novel that is impossible to understand without reading "Lestat, the vampire". In this chapter, Rice immerses you in the bowels of the origin of vampires and the myths and legends of the ancient Egypt. Akasha is The Queen of the Damned, an exotic, dangerous and trapped in a remote time character. Rice guides us in a world of strong contrasts where darkness and evil mix in an almost inseparable way with hope and kindness. The Queen of Damned is a book that I recommend to all fans who have begun to discover the books of Anne Rice and for those who have not yet done so! (PD. If you have watched the film try to forget it, in my opinion, is one of the worst book adaptations of all time! ;D)
Spanish version:
La Reina de los condenados es el tercer libro de la exitosa saga "Cronicas Vampíricas" de Anne Rice. Para mi es una novela que es imposible de entender sin haber leído "Lestat, el Vampiro". En esta novela Anne Rice nos sigue sumergiendo en las entrañas del origen de los vampiros y de sus mitos y leyendas más ancestrales hasta transportarnos a épocas tan remotas como las del antiguo egipto. Akasha es la reina de los condenados, un personaje exótico, peligroso y atrapado en un tiempo remoto. De nuevo Rice consigue hacernos sumergir en un mundo de fuertes contraposiciones en el que las tinieblas y la maldad se mezclan de forma casi indisoluble con la esperanza y la bondad. Un libro que recomiendo a todos los fans que hayan empezado a descubrir los libros de Anne Rice y para los que aún no lo hayan hecho! (pd. Si has visto la película intenta olvidarla, para mí es una de las peores adaptaciones que nunca se han hecho de un libro).
Rating: really liked it
I kept waiting for it to get interesting but it never did. It got stupider and stupider until I thought my brains were leaking out. If I were on a desert island with nothing to read but this book, I would scratch out old 80's pop lyrics with a twig in the sand before trying to read this dreck again.
Rating: really liked it
The Vampire Chronicles — Anne Rice’s seminal work — keeps getting better. While I was lukewarm on
Interview With the Vampire (though my reading of its sequels has deepened my appreciation of that dark little novel), I quite enjoyed
The Vampire Lestat and was blown away by
The Queen of the Damned. This novel shows Rice getting a firm grip on her vampires; she juggles action and exposition (and angst — oh, the angst!) expertly here, never allowing the story’s pace to flag. Not once was I bored or wanted to skim, as has been the case at times in the previous two Vampire books.
At the end of book two, Lestat awakened Akasha, the Queen of the Undead, from a six thousand-year slumber, and upon wakening she yearns to rule with an iron fist. The worlds of the mortal and immortal alike are in peril; some Vampires are spared from certain death . . . why? What is She saving them for? Read and find out.
This book features, on top of many exquisitely horrific moments, some superb character development. Marius, Armand, Pandora, Jesse, Daniel, the Twins . . . I loved these characters, one and all, and can’t wait to read about them in future volumes. Lestat and Louis’s relationship is also brought full circle in a heartbreaking callback scene to
Interview With the Vampire. I was choking back the tears when reading that.
What can I say, I had a blast with this book. I will soon be starting volume four!
Rating: really liked it
I didn’t enjoy this book quite as much as the first two in the series but it is a thoroughly entrancing read nonetheless! Rice has such a way with words, she writes so beautifully and it amazes me more with each book I read by her. I enjoyed the more historical aspect of this one, getting to know the background of the vampires and how they came to be was incredibly interesting. My only complaint is the shifting POVs, normally I’m a fan of multiple POVs but it just didn’t work with this book for me!
Rating: really liked it
3 StarsReview:So, my review is once again… really long. I can’t help it! I have so many thoughts! I’m trying to at least divide these up as much as possible so that you all can choose which sections interest you and just read those if you don’t want to read the whole thing :-)
Things I Disliked/Things I Didn’t Mind but Others Might Dislike:
– A lot of the writing choices in this series are strange. For example, the book started off with Lestat breaking the fourth wall, explaining how he was going to tell us the story of what happened since the ending of the last book. He even explained how he was going to jump to other characters’ perspectives (though that made more sense when I got to the end). And in every book so far, at least one character has explained their entire life story out loud to someone else.
– There’s also a lot of fluff. The characters really like to wax lyrical and over-explain things. But I’m guessing this is just Anne Rice’s style.
– There were a lot of POVs, not all of which seemed necessary. BUT while I didn’t care for some of the POVs (Jesse’s, Pandora’s), I loved others (Daniel’s, Khayman’s), and I did enjoy getting such a well-rounded view of events and getting to know everyone better.
– The book was slow and meandering, and not a lot actually happened. We didn’t even get to the concert until like halfway through. Then things got interesting at the concert. Then things slowed down again. This book seemed to be mostly backstory about various different vampires and how vampires came into existence.
Things I Liked:
– Not only are all the characters so complex, these vampires are so not-human. They masquerade as human, but they’re not. The way they think and feel is so different.
– All the relationships are so complex too. I also find it so interesting the way all the vampires are psychically connected. That makes for interesting connections and interactions among them. And it’s nice when they actually care about each other, like how Pandora and Santino both cared about Marius enough to trek through the frozen tundra to save him.
– It was cool getting to see the characters from other perspectives, to see the way other characters saw them. It helped me understand and get to know all of them better. Especially since every POV is so deep and biased that I sometimes don’t even realize something about a character until another points it out. It’s like every new POV causes me to reconsider my thoughts and feelings about things.
– This has got to be the most unique, complex, well thought-out explanation for vampirism, how it started, why it works the way it does, etc. that I have ever seen.
– I loved the ending. Well, part of it— *SPOILER* (view spoiler)
[The way they all overcame issues among themselves and came together, agreeing to always meet up again. (hide spoiler)] *END SPOILER*
– This is more of a neutral thing than a like or dislike, but all these characters are so forgiving. I mean, I don’t know that I’d have forgiven them for some of the things they’ve done to each other. But I guess, when you’re immortal and have a limited choice of fellow immortal beings to befriend and keep away the loneliness and madness, it makes sense.
My Thoughts on the Characters (there might be *SPOILERS* in this section):
– Armand. I stand by my assessment that Armand is awful. However, he’s also the most entertaining of the vampires so far because of how Anne Rice really plays with the whole “old immortal who can’t keep up with changes and doesn’t understand modern times” thing. Like, on one end of the spectrum, you have Lestat who can seemingly adapt to anything; he rises from the ground after who knows how long, and within a couple weeks, he’s decked out in leather, riding a motorcycle, joining a band, writing songs, planning out music videos, typing up his own memoir, and basically taking over the human world as a rockstar. Meanwhile:
Once Armand had dragged Daniel out of bed in New Orleans and shouted at him: “That telephone, I want you to dial Paris, I want to see if it can really talk to Paris.”
Technological inventions began to obsess Armand, one after the other. First it was kitchen blenders, in which he made frightful concoctions mostly based on the colors of the ingredients; then microwave ovens, in which he cooked roaches and rats. Garbage disposers enchanted him; he fed them paper towels and whole packages of cigarettes.
Back to him being awful though, I’ve talked about the things he did in previous books already, and in this one, he basically ruined Daniel’s life and sanity (before he finally turned him). First, he basically just told Daniel that he was going to stalk him and possibly kill him, unless he proved to be interesting. That went on for a while, and poor Daniel lived in constant fear, on the verge of madness. Then he stopped for a bit, Daniel started feeling sane and well again, only for Armand to swoop back in and tell Daniel he loved him and that Daniel was his now and that, from now on, he could do what he wanted during the day but would spend his nights with Armand. He even made Daniel have sex with people while he watched. I really don’t think I’d call it consensual given how controlling Armand was of Daniel, and Daniel himself said he would be aroused during but feel resentful after. Armand was horribly manipulative (but that’s nothing new), and Daniel was horribly exhausted from years of being dragged around, made to go along with all of Armand’s whims. However, I think Armand cares more about Daniel than he’s ever cared for any other living being (there was Marius, of course, but he literally belonged to Marius, and I think he only felt love for Marius because he was beautiful and otherworldly and the first one to treat him with compassion, so I’m not really sure how I feel about that). And that’s… kind of sad. That this is love to him. That this is how he treats the person he cares about most. And I can’t help but wonder if Daniel actually loves him back or if he just feels what he feels because of his obsession with immortality/vampires and the crazy way Armand essentially took over his life. But now that Daniel is vampire, Armand seems to be treating him better at least.
Oh, and let’s also not forget that Armand treated Lestat horribly in the past, but as soon as Akasha woke and started killing vampires but sparing the ones closest to Lestat, Armand wanted Lestat’s protection.
But like I said, he’s entertaining. And complex. And some strange part of me likes him despite everything he’s done. I guess I feel for him. In a way, he’s a bit like Claudia in that he never really got to have a normal human life before being turned.
– Daniel. I found Daniel just as complex and interesting as all the others, but he was a bit of a hot mess. As a human, he was obsessed with immortality and vampires and then Armand to the point that he’d just stop eating and wander around a city half-mad and/or near-death until Armand sent someone to rescue him. Once he got what he wanted, I have to agree with Marius’s description that Daniel was basically drunk. He was just perpetually fascinated and amused by everything. He didn’t even have the sense to feel worry when Akasha was incinerating all the vampires around them.
– Khayman. I felt bad for him. Khayman was so old, one of the oldest, and he was just so lonely. The poor man just kept trying to be friends with every vampire he came across. He offered his name freely, he tried to help them, etc. He did a terrible thing in the past, absolutely, but he admitted that and regretted it and only did it because he would’ve been killed otherwise and someone worse would’ve just been commanded to do it anyway, so I was able to like him for who he is now. I’m happy he finally has a coven of sorts.
– Marius. I felt bad for him too, for different reasons. He took on this heavy, thankless burden of watching over Akasha and Enkil for so many years. Then, when she woke, she mocked him, destroyed his home, and nearly destroyed him but spared him only because of her feelings for Lestat. I could understand why Marius felt bitter. But he was still kind-hearted and couldn’t even hold onto that bitterness for long, plus he still didn’t want anything bad to happen to Lestat or to anyone. I like his compassion, patience, and wisdom.
– Maharet. To put it bluntly, Maharet has been through some shit. Yet she never let it break her. She even found a way to avoid the despair and madness that claims all the other vampires, either causing them to go into the fire or into the earth. I don’t know that I felt much connection with her, but I admired her.
– Lestat. I’ll give Lestat credit—he stood up to Akasha and told her that what she was doing was wrong, knowing full well that she could and might kill him. But then, so did Marius, Gabrielle, Louis, and Maharet, so this act of morality doesn’t really make him special. He wasn’t really my favorite person in this novel, I guess, since more than ever it was apparent how reckless Lestat was. He wanted to have attention and to start a war and never actually stopped to think how many innocents might harmed in the process. And he said himself that when he wants to do something, he’s going to do it, regardless of rules or anything. In a way, I relate to his rebelliousness, the way he won’t just sit back and accept it if he doesn’t agree with someone. But I’m also a fairly rule-following person the rest of the time, so sometimes I find his rebelliousness annoying. I also didn’t understand how he could love Akasha (then again, he didn’t know the whole backstory). But he does bring all the drama and fun to these books.
– Akasha. I hated Akasha. Her ways of twisting everything around and creating delusions out of desperation to make herself seem better, to make things go her way, to make things fit with what she wanted to believe, was taken to an extreme because of what she is, but it was a realistic mindset. And that was what made her even more awful to read about.
– Gabrielle. Oddly enough, despite hardly having a part in this book, Gabrielle has grown on me. She’s fiercely loyal to Lestat; she even did little things just to try and make him happy at the end. And really, she goes off into the wilderness and keeps to herself, not causing problems with anyone (other than those she kills, which I can accept since she needs blood to survive).
– Louis. I feel like a lot of people don’t like him, but I do. I like how human Louis is, and I too would be the one scolding Lestat for being too rebellious. I feel like we could get along.
Overall Thoughts:
Yes, there were some negatives to this book, mostly that it was slow with a lot of fluff, but I still think it was worth it. I think all three books so far have been worth it because these are some of the most unique and complex characters I have ever read about!
*I’ve read this book multiple times. This review was written after my 2nd read.*
Reread Ratings:No Rating (1st Read – mid/late 2000s)
3 Stars (2nd Read – 2017)
Recommended For:Fans of Books 1 and 2 in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Anyone who likes beautiful yet deadly vampires, descriptive writing, and amazingly complex characters.
Original Review @ Metaphors and Moonlight
Rating: really liked it
I am completely in love with this series. I love the way that Anne Rice weaves a tale, her writing is so hypnotic.
This book continues from the events of the Vampire Lestat, which gave an introduction to Akasha, the Queen of the Damned, and her back story in ancient Egypt. This book takes the tale further and explains the supernatural origin of vampires as a species. The book stepped away from Lestat's point of view in the Vampire Lestat, and takes us through the minds of various vampires as they tell the story of Akasha and the mystery of the redheaded twins.
What a great story, I can't wait to continue with the rest of the books in this series.
Rating: really liked it
Prior to reading the Queen of the Damned I only knew a handful of things about it. I knew that everyone RAVED over the book. I knew that Aaliyah had been cast for the movie and died during the filiming of it. But mostly, being the metal junky that I am, I knew that the soundtrack was the bee’s knees featuring Korn, Static-X, Deftones, Disturbed, Lincoln Park and other awesome bands that rocked my world at the time the movie was coming out. I actually never watched the movie- being the purist that I am- I wanted to read the book first. But I listened to that soundtrack a whole lot.
This book is jam-packed with information. As an audio book it was a little hard to follow and overwhelming at times. I am not ashamed to admit I had to look it up on Wikipedia to make sure I was getting the story straight before trying to write this review.
I’ll skip over most of the details and give the rundown of what really got my motor going.
OHMYGODTHEAWESOMENESSTHATISTHEBEGINNINGOFVAMPIRES.
Yup.
And in case you want that in English- the creation of vampires was the coolest fucking thing on the face of the planet. Pre-Egyptian royalty, witches, cannibalism, evil spirits, heads being severed, brains being eaten. I mean come ON people. Shit does not come cooler than that. It just doesn’t.
I really can’t get too much into the story without telling you all of it, so that’s all I’ll say about it.
With as confusing as it was as an audio book I still really enjoyed the story being told. I loved learning about the origin of the vampires and how it had been warped over time by the whispers of legend. It was quite fascinating. Simon Vance did an incredible job, once again, as narrator- you may have better luck reading it as a physical book rather than listening to it.
Rating: really liked it
I really liked this book and all the interwoven stories and characters. I actually liked Akasha until she kept blabbing on and on about her 'plan' of killing all the men of the world. I can see why they killed her... She should have just went along with them, maybe she would have lived longer. I liked Jesse a lot, her character was really interesting. The Claudia cameo was awesome, and the diary excerpt was cool. Kind of made me want Anne to write a full length Claudia diary. This book was a really good addition to the series. I wished Lestat's musical career would have lasted longer. Louis and Gabrielle being in this book was good also, I never get tired of those characters. They rank up there for me. I also liked Maharet and her twin sister was pretty bad-ass. All she had to do was push Akasha into a glass wall to kill her, the glass chopped her head off. Then... they ate her brain and heart to keep the vampires alive. GOOD GOOD book. I could write a whole lot more, but yeah.
READ THIS BOOK!!!
Rating: really liked it
Lestat has rocked the vampire world with his music and his book revelations. But his voice has reached far more than he imagined – it has come to the ears of Akasha, the first vampire, the Queen of the Damned. For the first time in millennia, she has woken up
And she has plans – plans for Lestat, plans for the world of vampires and plans for all humanity.
It falls for a few ancient vampires to try and stop her as she unleashes carnage to realise her vision of what the world should be.
This book is 460 pages long. And like every Anne Rice books I’ve read to date it could easily be half that or less. I cannot even begin to describe the amount of redundancy and repetition there is in this book.
Usually when we get a character, the author will describe a bit about them, give some insight into their background and let the rest develop as the story progresses. Not Anne Rice. In these books we get a character and before they do anything even slightly relevant we have to have their life history. Not just their life history, but if we’re really lucky, we get their ancestry back 3 generations (at least) as well. It’s boring, it’s dull, it’s utterly irrelevant to anything resembling the plot.
I can’t even say there’s much in the way of coherent plot here anyway. A large part of the book involves recapping the last book. We have the dreams of the twins that just serve to be ominous foreshadowing – but are repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated over and over. I really can’t stress how repetitive this book is – this same dream is recounted not just from multiple sources but then multiple times from each source. And this is a theme throughout the books, we have multiple sources all thinking about Lestat and his music – but all thinking exactly the same thing about Lestat and his music. So we get the same thing over and over
And when people finally gather together their grand plan is EPIC EXPOSITION. Seriously, people being slaughtered, Askasha raging away and the gang gathers to have 2 solid nights of storytelling. The most long winded, repetitive story telling imaginable. Face the enemy with long winded folktales!
Then there’s the characters – all of who’s point of view we are treated to in ridiculous length – most of which are utterly irrelevant. At least Louis and Gabrielle and Armand have some history in the story and we don’t see too much from their POV, they’re recognised as being spectators. But the rest? What exactly was the point of Khayman? He just kind of sat in a corner and was ineffably sad. But we got pages and pages from his POV. Jesse? What did Jesse actually do? What was the point of her? What was the relevance of her Great Family? But she was there, her POV, her chapters worth of backstory was dragged up, we roped in the Talamasca for more pages of pointlessness – because none of it was relevant. None of it added to the overall plot. None of it added to the ending. None of her history or story was really relevant. And Daniel – another character inserted with a painfully long backstory and history with Armand who, like Louis and Gabrielle and Armand and Jesse, ended up being nothing more than a spectator for the – and I use the term loosely – action. These characters are not part of the story, they’re spectators, it’s like stopping a play in the middle so we can hear the biography of Mrs. Jones in the 3rd row of the theatre. It doesn’t matter, I have no reason to care, it’s pure padding
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