Ann Rice: Is she loosing her touch?

[NATAS_miss_understood]

[color=darkred]When I was in fifth grade (which was like six years ago caz I'm a junior now) I was wandering in the 75% off section of a local bookstore. There I found this book. It was Ann Rice's Memnoch the Devil. I read this book at two in the morning during my spring break and fell in love with Rice's dark world. I then spent all the money that I had buying all the Vampire Chronicles. I loved the first five books, but after memnock her books seemed to go down hill. I don't know if it's her lack of an editor or maybe just that I've grown out of her writing, but I haven't been able to get through her last three or so vampire novels. What is everyone else's opinion on Mrs. Rice's work. Is she loosing her touch?????

[Robert E Lee]

[color=darkred]When I was in fifth grade (which was like six years ago caz I'm a junior now) I was wandering in the 75% off section of a local bookstore. There I found this book. It was Ann Rice's Memnoch the Devil. I read this book at two in the morning during my spring break and fell in love with Rice's dark world. I then spent all the money that I had buying all the Vampire Chronicles. I loved the first five books, but after memnock her books seemed to go down hill. I don't know if it's her lack of an editor or maybe just that I've grown out of her writing, but I haven't been able to get through her last three or so vampire novels. What is everyone else's opinion on Mrs. Rice's work. Is she loosing her touch?????

I've always considered her as unadulterated supermarket trash literature, so I can't really tell you.

[den]

Uhm, I've read a few of her books, as well as her pseudonym Anne Roquelaire, Sleeping Beauty series. NOT all it's cracked up to be for sure, quite boring at times. I just think she's overhyped and is now format predictable like Steven King.

[Tabac]

...but I liked her Cry From Heaven about the castrati singers in Europe and her Feast Of All Saints about the quadroons of New Orleans after the Civil War.

[Jozanny]

I rather liked Interview With The Vampire as a decent piece of commercial fiction that had something to say about otherness, alienation, the passage of time, and the deceptive allure of evil. I rate it higher than anything out of the King franchise, but the rest of her work seems hypermanic in tone and fails to deliver on that frenzy it sets up.

In one of my own bizarre moments I sent a letter to her PO Box with a critique laced in with personal revelation--I can't quite say why--maybe I was hoping she would better invest what seems to be her repressed hysteria--or maybe I wanted to see if she'd respond--but I received a polite form letter from an assistant with a glossy bookmark. On Charlie Rose she seemed like any other writer tends to seem, except that the repressed hysteria was there, while they discussed her earlier atheism and her book about Jesus as a child.

I stopped keeping tabs on her after I saw that interview--but her co-mixture of Catholicism and supernatural fantasy seems just too much over the top. I was told the child vampire in Interview was based on a daughter who is deceased from leukemia. Maybe that explains the manic voice in some of her work, maybe not.

[JBI]

I think, what ever touch she had, she lost a long time ago. I remember once reading an anecdote about how she lost it over interviews of one of her new books on Amazon, and started responding angrily to readers' reviews. In truth, I found Interview with a Vampire alright (I was about 12, and sex seemed more interesting in literature then (though I guess it is still interesting). After finishing it, I tried the next one Lestat, but it seemed to be the exact same, so I dropped it 40 in.

Seriously though, as a writer she has her niche, but not much else. She really hasn't matured incorrectly, or lost anything, simply run out of ideas. For plot heavy stories, one must have a purpose in mind, and not just dish out installments in a series, hoping readers will keep on going.

[Shalot]

I read Interview With a Vampire when I was a freshman in high school and loved it. Then i read the The Vampire Lestat and thought it was horrible. The way it was written reminded me of the book "Flowers in the Attic" which I tried reading but couldn't finish when I was in the sixth grade.

Then I read "Queen of the Damned" and loved it. And after that, I couldn't get into anymore of the Vampire Chronicles. I did read The Witching Hour, Lasher, and Taltos...those were okay, but as I read them I could imagine them being broadcast as a bad Lifetime movie or a TNT Original Movie. Mainly it was summertime and I was bored. I probably wouldn't have read those books otherwise.

Interview With a Vampire was the best. I don't know why she favored Lestat as a character. All her other books focused on him and I thought Louie and Claudia were more interesting. I also thought her tale of how the Vampires came to be in the third book was interesting, and that's really why I liked Queen of the Damned. Otherwise, I was disappointed with the stories that focused on Lestat.

[Idril]

I think with Anne Rice if you've read one of her books, you've read them all. I first read Interview With A Vampire and like Shalot, loved it and I really enjoyed the next two books in the series, with Queen... probably being my favorite of the 3. However, as I read the next couple in the series I realized...these were all, basically, the same book. She's so incredibly repetitive. Lestat is bad...Lestat is powerful...Lestat has blonde hair... good lord there are only so many times you can read that and it stays interesting and relevant. :rolleyes: I think she created an interesting world for her vampires but once created, she couldn't seem to do anything new with them, just recycle the same plots, the same characters, the same emotions.

And I do agree that she's kind of lost her mind a little bit, lost her sense of humor and her sense of perspective and that's always disappointing. Not that she was ever a great, serious writer but what she did, she did well...for awhile anyway.

[Nightshade]

I was digging out vampire books at work yesterday and the lady I was serving was saying basically what Idril said, that Rice is very repetitive, I did attempt to read The Vampire Lestat but just couldnt get into it. Truth is as I was telling this lady that today all of a sudden vampires are very much the in thing. We are only a small library I figure we have about 8 series of vampire books aimed at adults only with crossovers into the romance section, thats not counting warlocks, witches, werewolves,demons and other miscellaneous supernatural-mythological beings raging from minor greek deitys to the fey. ANd thats just the romance crossovers... you then have more 'proper' scifi/fantasy books, the more action packed lets explode everything 'blockbuster' type books like the Kelly Armstrong, which truth to tell is the type I preffer. Did I say we also have almost a dozen one offs and did I mention dragons?
THen we have about Darren SHan and a couple of other vampire series for the kiddies, and then crossing over into teenage we have Meyer's books obviously but quite a few others too.

I forgot to say that vampire books halso got them selves into general fiction and chicklit with like of DAvidson's undead series- hugly popular.
So I guess my point is Rice has been overtaken by waay too many newcomers and shes been left behind.

Did I say one of my favourites are the Hendee sibling's series? GOod proper fantasy sagas and no sex scenesclutering up the book, its really more incedental the vampirisim then anything else. :D

[JBI]

All of those fantastical tropes seem to become "popular" with writers. Take Orcs and Goblins and Hobbits and Dwarfs. Those are still being written about, but have been around for decades, some millennium.

As a genre, fantasy and horror suffer from being perhaps the least original. That is because they are trying to dig at what isn't there, and anything truly imaginative isn't really understandable by the public. They must adapt a common theme, character, creature, and setting to sell their books, rather than make anything up.

That being said, if we look at a genre, such as "literary fiction", they do a similar thing. The main difference though, is that in lit fiction you are putting up more of a mirror to the universe (to use Abrams's metaphor for classical poetry) and are creating a somewhat distorted projection of reality to be reflected upon. Speculative fiction purposely distorts reality, but still needs to be understood. As a result, genres create genre clichés, and build off of those, instead of creating original ideas. That is why if they are romance, they follow a romance convention, but add speculative elements, which are rooted in our mythos. Or that is why fantasy novels seem to have heroes and wizards, and all the other Jungian clichés.

All ideas come from somewhere - speculative fiction self-destructs itself by relying on things that aren't real for its ideas, as apposed to things that are real, but are hidden.

[Dark Muse]

Personally I love Ann Rice, and I loved everyone of the books of the Vampire Chronicles. Though the very last one Blackwood Farm, I thought was a bit disappointing, I feel that, that book was her way of telling the readers that she was done with the Chronicles, and that chapter in her writing career was closed.

I think when you become something of a Cult Classic, it is hard, becasue if you than want to try and do something else, you risk loosing some of your readerships, if they come to want a certain thing from you.

But I am loyal to Ann Rice no matter what she writers. I have almost all of her books, and thought both Cry to Heaven and Feast of All Saints (non-vampier books) were fabulous.

I also really enjoyed the Witching Hour books.

I pretty much love everything I have read by her.

[Jozanny]

All of those fantastical tropes seem to become "popular" with writers. Take Orcs and Goblins and Hobbits and Dwarfs. Those are still being written about, but have been around for decades, some millennium.

As a genre, fantasy and horror suffer from being perhaps the least original. That is because they are trying to dig at what isn't there, and anything truly imaginative isn't really understandable by the public. They must adapt a common theme, character, creature, and setting to sell their books, rather than make anything up.

That being said, if we look at a genre, such as "literary fiction", they do a similar thing. The main difference though, is that in lit fiction you are putting up more of a mirror to the universe (to use Abrams's metaphor for classical poetry) and are creating a somewhat distorted projection of reality to be reflected upon. Speculative fiction purposely distorts reality, but still needs to be understood. As a result, genres create genre clichés, and build off of those, instead of creating original ideas.

Yes and no JBI:) I think you are being a little unfair to science fiction, which at its best is equal to the challenges posed by modernism. Calvino fits into both worlds conveniently, but there are also masters like Theodore Sturgeon, Phillip K Dick, and some of Arthur C. Clarke. They pushed the boundaries and the daring of the genre.

I think it is Dick, in fact, who published an early morality tale on American racism which has very little *science fiction* in it and instead offers a credible alternate reality about a small black man operating a white puppet. And Rod Serling did a fairly decent job of making The Twilight Zone twig the American psyche, and for the contemporary reader there is Stanislaw Lem.

But fantasy, from which both King and Rice have arguably been dethroned, is difficult not to trivialize, yes, especially if the intent is to horrify. At her best Rice manages it because she evokes the horrific, rather than engaging in repulsive graphics, like the punk-horror author Charlee Jacob, but where Rice fails is in her attempt to tie standard camp-horror tropes, like vampirism and ghostly spirits, and maybe Wiccan sensibilities as well, to established Catholic doctrine. Memnoch was terribly silly in this respect, as the Church isn't going to ordain her for having Lestat drink the blood of the Incarnate--and as to her flirtation with serious theology, which she discussed on Charlie Rose, I wish her well, since neither academia nor her fans take her efforts seriously.

But genres do tend to have cross-pollenations which defy expectations, so one has to be careful when asserting literary realism and genre is superior.

[mortalterror]

As a genre, fantasy and horror suffer from being perhaps the least original.

Forgive my skepticism JBI, but you don't strike me as being the fantasy and horror type. When faced with delicate questions about the relative strengths and weaknesses of popular fiction you have a tendency to resort to broad generic statements, as if your experience there were limited. That is to say, I don't think you have the necessary experience in this area to back up your statements with particulars from King, Rowling, Asimov, Bradbury, Lovecraft, Dick, Poe, Ellison, Heinlein, Zelazny, Gibson, Clarke, Matheson, Shelley, Stevenson, Stoker, and Jordan. I don't think anybody with even a slight familiarity with those genres could call them unoriginal. They have many flaws, but lack of originality is rarely one of them. You might even say that they suffer from an overabundance of that characteristic. You said in your first statement that you read Interview With the Vampire. Why don't you limit your remarks to that work or borrow examples from it to make a broader comment about the horror genre as a whole?

For my part, I liked Anne Rice well enough in high school, but that was ten years and many miles ago. I doubt I would enjoy them as much today, but since I haven't read the last decade of her new stuff, I don't feel fit to sit in judgement on the woman. I will mention however, that there are many sublime pieces of fantasy and horror fiction already enshrined in the canon. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came witness the possibilities for the horror genre in modern English verse, and as for fantasy itself you can go back to Apulius and his Golden *** in the time of ancient Rome for examples of high literary merit. But perhaps my remarks are misplaced and you were confining your opinions to contemporary literature. If so, I beg your pardon.

Drkshadow03 made an interesting post a while back on his blog about the differences between genre fiction and academic literature which I think could shed some light on this case. "The focus of genre writing tends to be the story, the actual content, while literary writers have their prose to fall back on if their story fails." (http://beyondassumptions.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/appearance-is-everything-in-fiction-strike-a-prose/) For the most part, I agree with his assessment. Genre fiction has a tendency to be more story centered, and it's audience is comprised of those people to whom narrative has a major appeal. You, and please correct me if I am mistaken, seem to be more of a rhetoric enthusiast, which explains your nearly universal condemnation of all things genre. Perhaps your frustration is with the lack of experimentation in the prose and the way that it can be made subordinate to other storytelling elements within the novel. Just a thought.

[curlyqlink]

As a genre, fantasy and horror suffer from being perhaps the least original.

Strange but true. I have a soft spot for sci-fi, but am so often disappointed with it; it is the least imaginative of imagined worlds.

A lot of these genre writers (Ann Rice included) unfortunately can't resist beating an idea into the ground. They have a fun idea for a book, and turn it into a trilogy. Maybe even a seven-part "trilogy".

[JBI]

Honestly, the names you mention Mortal Terror, of which I have read 3/4, are half decent, but those aren't the most read books in Fantasy literature, and seem to be "crossover" books, appealing more to literary types.

You won't find most of those guys in the Fantasy section of the bookstore, nor would you find the "average" fantasy fan reading them. As good as Calvino is, I wager most the convention-going fantasy fans haven't heard of him.

There are always exceptions to every rule in literary statements, but for the most part, fantasy seems to adhere to its generic constructs, and lack originality.

I wouldn't also assume I haven't read fantasy, because that isn't true; I have actually read quite a bit of fantasy, most of which mediocre, and started (though rarely finished) countless other volumes. I like to think myself familiar with all the major players of fantasy, though not a fan of any of them.

Of course, we get good fantasy popping up in strange places. Crowley, LeGuin, and perhaps Peake, but for the most part, the shelves are cluttered with such names as Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, Rowling, Paolini (or however the kid who wrote that hideous Eragon series is named), King, and Erikson. Occasionally you get an author with interesting ideas, like Guy Gavriel Kay, but I think I extend to much credit to him - he is alright as a 3rd rate poet, but as a novelist his ideas don't have the prose-style development to back them up, and we need to make excuses, calling him "at least better than other fantasy writers." Still, one strains to find a popular, yet good fantasy writer, who regularly is affiliated with the genre.

[mortalterror]

You are right. I shouldn't make assumptions about what other people have read. My apologies. But I think that likewise you underestimate the so called "common reader." I know people who read fantasy and sci-fi, and their tastes can be very eclectic. One girl I know who reads LOTR holds several literary degrees and can just as easily discuss Dante as Harry Potter. I know a high school drop out who prefers reading online japanese fanfics but when asked can offer some very insightful remarks about Beowulf. I don't know anyone who confines themselves entirely to Dragonlance novels.

If the books I mentioned aren't in the sci-fi/fantasy section of the store and Vonnegut has been adopted by the elitists, I don't know who is to blame. People claim that philosophy never gets results, that it's just a bunch of unanswered questions debated over and over again, but when philosophy does answer a question it ceases to be a philosophical question and gets co-opted by science or some other field. In the same way, whenever fantasy or sci-fi has a success people stop classifying it as sci-fi and move it to another part of the bookstore. Good-bye, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Good-bye, 1984. Seriously, you know there's a Swedish nobel laureate who wrote an epic poem about a lost spaceship? I'd love to see what he did with that.

[JBI]

Vonnegut isn't really a speculative fiction writer, per say, he falls more closely on satire, and black comedy.

The reason books get moved from the fantasy section of the bookstore is because they want to be made more accessible to people who may actually be interested. The way the bookstore is set up is done for a reason - to make more money. If the books were thought to sell better on the fantasy shelves, they wouldn't have moved them. Genre in itself is a marketing plot, and when something no longer can be marketed to its traditional genre audience, it gets moved. When something transcends what is expected, and becomes "original", or perhaps un-genre-esque, it gets moved, so that people who may be interested may enjoy it.

[Etienne]

JBI is absolutely right. My brother only buys thing from the "fantasy" section, and having the Best-seller tag is a sure sign of appreciation to him.

And I can honestly say, from having checked what he is reading out of curiosity, that what he is reading is complete, utter crap. And I don't even mean "LOTR is fine but Tolkien writes crappy prose", I mean those books he reads are utter crap from Alpha to Omega.. I couldn't believe how cheesy, boring, predictable and crappy the stories were. That's not even mentioning the prose, but that I do not even need to mention, I guess.

[mortalterror]

Vonnegut isn't really a speculative fiction writer, per say, he falls more closely on satire, and black comedy.

The reason books get moved from the fantasy section of the bookstore is because they want to be made more accessible to people who may actually be interested. The way the bookstore is set up is done for a reason - to make more money. If the books were thought to sell better on the fantasy shelves, they wouldn't have moved them. Genre in itself is a marketing plot, and when something no longer can be marketed to its traditional genre audience, it gets moved. When something transcends what is expected, and becomes "original", or perhaps un-genre-esque, it gets moved, so that people who may be interested may enjoy it.

If I understand you right, you've expounded two methods of categorizing literature. 1)Genre fiction is what genre fiction readers read. Or put more generally, a book is defined by who reads it and for what purpose, rather than by it's content. 2)A book is categorized by it's physical placement inside of a commercial bookstore. Can you think of a reason why either of these suppositions would not be true?

[blp]

Losing is spelled with one 'o'. One. Only one. 'Loosing' is a different word, meaning letting loose [looss]. Sorry, but I'm sick of seeing this mistake all over the internet.

[Etienne]

If I understand you right, you've expounded two methods of categorizing literature. 1)Genre fiction is what genre fiction readers read. Or put more generally, a book is defined by who reads it and for what purpose, rather than by it's content. 2)A book is categorized by it's physical placement inside of a commercial bookstore. Can you think of a reason why either of these suppositions would not be true?

Because when they are categorized, that's the meaning these categories have. Language only has the value attributed to it by the community who use it. So until some kind of officially accepted definition of what those genres encompass is accepted by the said community, the categorization only has the value of whatever is referred to when it's used, this basically means the two cases mentioned.