In sum, Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis

[bironic]

- I'm glad the library only had it on 7-day loan because it pushed me to keep reading when I might have trailed off

- All in all, I'm glad I did finish it, because the last sections, unlike the rest, recaptured a shadow of what made the earlier books enjoyable

- The narrative picked up 250 pages in

- The vampires I care most about (Marius, Armand, Lestat, Louis, etc.) finally had a few small, memorable moments ~400 pages in

- The book could have been titled Vampires: Midichlorians -- or, sorry, Folic Acid and Nano-Luracastria

- The uncovered "science" of vampirism and the nature of its Core made no sense; even Lestat admitted he couldn't hold the explanation in his head, and the vampire physician-scientist Fareed threw up his hands and said he may as well have studied theology

- Let us not speak of the pseudohistory & technology of Atlantis and the surrounding human settlements

- I also don't want to read the word "mammal" for a while

- Did I mention the bird people of Bravenna? *shakes head*

- ETA: Ohhhhhh God I forgot about the part where a disembodied arm grew a mouth on its palm and crawled back over to its previous owner to suck on his nipple uggggh

- The writing needed help. The first half dragged, nothing happened without at least two people recapping it, there were too many poorly fleshed-out characters (same as in Prince Lestat), tensions that seemed like they would culminate in major conflicts instead fizzled, those climaxes that did come rose and fell in the middle of chapters without much catharsis, and Rice kept doing this weird thing where narrators repeated characters' names in their comma-filled thoughts. Here are samples from a particularly egregious few pages near the middle of the book:

Roland was startled, Roland who would do well to stop talking altogether, Roland turning around and around as all the draperies of this great room went up in flames, as the dark oak paneling began to blister and smoke.

--Rhoshamandes, p196

It seemed [...] that without Benedict, nothing really meant anything to him, that it had been Benedict, poor sweet Benedict, who kept him alive, not human blood and the power of Amel forever changing his cells from human to immortal--just Benedict, Benedict's need and Benedict's love, and all the other passions of Rhoshamandes had gone up in flames, just as surely as if Benedict had used the Fire Gift as he left Rhoshamandes forever.

He thought of the Prince. He saw his smiling face; he saw his brilliant, flashing eyes; he heard the timbre of his voice. Had Rhoshamandes ever had such passion for living as the Prince had, the Prince who had already died and risen again in his short pampered vampiric life, the Prince who fed off the love around him as surely as he fed off blood, the Prince who declared love for that demon thing Amel that had brought Rhoshamandes to his ruin!--the Prince who was untouchable as long as Amel remained inside him.

--Rhoshamandes, p198

"The Prince is broadcasting now," said Roland. "The Prince is inviting them to call in. The Prince says he will invite them all to come to the Chateau. The Prince will arrange everything."

--Rhoshamandes, p198

He talked of his grief, his pain, of those he'd loved, loved for so long, now gone, of his paradisal palace being destroyed, and of all the things within those walls he'd collected over the years, destroyed, and how he'd gone off to Roland, Roland who had been his old friend from times when Pompeii had been a thriving city, and of how Roland had taken pity on him and how, thanks to Roland, the blood of the strange non-human Derek had restored him.

--Lestat, p201

He wasn't frightened anymore. Not now. Not with Kapetria holding him in her arms. He wasn't frightened. Oh, how beautiful she was, his Kapetria, with her hair swept back into a braid pinned to her head, in her fine saffron silk blouse and sleek black skirt, legs sheathed in translucent black nylon, and feet so dainty in her high-heeled shoes, Kapetria here, the real Kapetria sprung to life in a cloud of French scent, her mouth rouged, and eyes as dark as the night sky above them. No, no longer afraid.

--Derek, p??

It made sense for Derek, who latched on to Kapetria after years of trauma, to think that way, and I suppose it made sense for Rhoshamandes too, who felt Benedict was the only thing he had left to live for; but not so much for the others. It made me think of Faulkner and The Sound and the Fury: I wish Rice had had Derek think in these anxious, post-traumatic, obsessive repetitions while giving others their own distinct styles. Nor was it a consistent enough style throughout the book to be fully explained by the next point.

Where that repetition worked for me was when Rice described the linguistic patterns of Atlanteans and then, one time, had [spoiler character] slip from speaking ordinary modern English into that old language, which I thought was actually quite lovely.

Before I continue, let me try to give you some idea of the language of Atalantaya. It was highly repetitive, and could be very precise, and was usually spoken in a sort of rapid chanting. For example, when they lifted me out of my bed and pointed to the portals opening on the forest realm, the Parents said things like "Behold the world, our world, the beautiful world of Bravenna, the perfect world of Bravenna. Behold it. Behold this beauty. Behold the world of Bravenna in which you have been created. You are children of Bravenna. Behold the trees, behold the leaves, the light of the sun, behold your Parents. Love and obey your Parents. You are People of the Purpose, born for Atalantaya and one purpose."

--Kapetria, p241

Yes. Yes, that's it. To alter me and to make me immortal as a Replimoid they used a string of synthesized elements which I extracted and studied and reworked and finally saw and knew and broke down and made into luracastria, all these elements originally of Earth, made by me into luracastria, behold the chemicals, behold luracastria, beautiful luracastria, injected back into myself, luracastria, into me, behold luracastria, sing the song of luracastria in me, a new synthesis, and when the chemical stores in the Creative Tower went up in flames and smoke, behold the flames and smoke, when the rolling explosions went off one after another and the walls poured down like syrup into the flaming water, I went up in flames, broken apart...hands, arms, and legs and head all blasted apart, I could still see it, behold all the parts of me swallowed by flames, the tiniest parts of me sizzling and turning black and my torso blown into fragments, engulfed in flames, but the "I" of me went up and up and up and when my skull exploded "I" was free.

--Amel to Lestat, pp329-330

In all: Worth having read the second half. Marius gave Lestat a fierce hug, Lestat kissed some men, and Armand showed some young-boy vulnerability, and that was pretty much what I was there for. Still uninterested in most of the series' theological and philosophical debates (In this case: What are souls? Is suffering noble, evil or a way for aliens the Church to exploit people?), even though the conclusion of this book can be read as an embrace of humanism. Equally unable to stop reading these books in search of those brief moments of character- and relationship-based Feelings.

ETA: Goodreads reviews that made me laugh: Devann, Tammy

Comments

[mific]

"the part where a disembodied arm grew a mouth on its palm and crawled back over to its previous owner to suck on his nipple uggggh"
Oh c'mon, Rice totally ripped that off from SGA!

Have you read Blindsight by Peter Watts? It's the most sci-fintake on vampires ever, and rather dark, but very well written and gripping. Not typical tropey stuff though. It's free at his site: http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

[bironic]

Oh, cool, thanks for the rec.

I thought of Wraith hand-mouths too! The nipple part might be more from the SGA kink meme, though. :) :)