occult

I was somewhat apprehensive about another Vampire novel. In my opinion, the "Chronicles" should have stopped with "The Vampire Lestat", with the last three being utterly useless (Queen, Body Thief and Memnoch). But this novel (or novella as Mrs. Rice has called it) was an entertaining read. "Pandora" demonstrates Rice's ability to write a story from thorough historical research. She can, and did, bring the ancient Roman world to life as she chronicles the life of Pandora before her conversion into a vampire. This was a better representation of the ancient world than Azrael's Babylon in "Servant of the Bones", both Rome and Antioch are portrayed in living detail. Rice also depicts Pandora as a strong, independant character able to argue philosophy and recite Homer and Ovid on one occasion, and on the next use her cunning and intellect to survive alone.

It is too bad that Rice ruined such a fine character by making Pandora a Vampire. The last quarter of the book (after Pandora is made in to a Vampire)becomes the typical vampire faire. She slowly becomes the two dimensional supporting character that was introduced in "Queen of the Dammed". The last 25-30 pages were unnessary and did not hold me.

All in all, this is a good book. I highly reccomend "Pandora" for the beautiful writing and decription of the Ancient Roman world the characterization of Pandora. Rice really did her homework on this one. It is a shame that Pandora dies a typical vampiric death.

I am very pleased with this work from my beloved Anne. It draws many a framework around the questions that Lestat left unanswered. We have to remember how the old Queen Akasha works. She was evil and that is all she knew about life, mortal and immortal. Pandora was thrown about in some of the previous tales of the Vampires. She was supposedly a reincarnated immortal that was seeing visions of her past life when she came begging to marius to make her into a vampire once more. This book gives the real truth to that and I feel describes the queen even more than in Queen of the Damned. Which more a book about Lestat's growing from a fledgling into a real immortal child of the millenium. This is an excellent book and leaves much room to work on future tales of other vampires. I have never been so wrapped into a series of novels by any other author and I appreciate all the great work that Anne Rice puts into these stories. All the people that hiss and boo this book are just wanting another gory Stephen King book to make a movie out of. If that is what you want then I suggest that you go and read some of his over glamorized books and cry about those when you return to Rice's future writings. Thank you Anne for all of your time given to us fans. I hope that people will grow up and realize how wonderful that this book is and appreciate it for all that it is. To all you faithful fans out there, I hope to read your reviews about Armand, and all of her continuing successes..........Thank you to all and Peace be with everyone... Jesse Ferguson True Fan

Don't get me wrong. I love Anne Rice, and the Vampire Chronicles are among my favorite books ever. However, in reading the other vampire books, one is ever re-reading things we already knew. When you read Lestat, Armand, Marius, and Louis, the tales are so intertwined that sometimes, it gets a little redundant. Pandora is a nice change. We don't know much about Pandora from the other books aside from the fact that she is old, and she is Marius' fledgling. When she recounts her life story for David Talbot in this book, it is refreshing in that sense, because it is entirely new, but it is also refreshing in the sense that Pandora is not as wimpy as her male counterparts. No, no, not the homoerotic thing. The weeping thing. How often do the male vampires weep at the sight of a Botticelli, or at the sound of a musical piece? They cry and lament over everything! Not Pandora. Pandora is made of tougher stuff. She has a backbone. Sure, she has a sensitive side. A very sensitive side. However, we know that she is not going to stain her dress with blood tears because she is lost in artwork or music. As usual, Rice makes you feel as though you are living in Ancient Rome, and her grip on historical accuracy is forever impressive to me. The story is not focused on how Pandora became a vampire so much as the events leading up to it, which is also a nice change because that story has been told before a number of times. The only reason that Pandora gets a 4 in my review is because it just seems that more could have been said. This is rarely a complaint I have about Anne Rice, but I wanted to know more details about her life between Marius and the modern era.