Blood and Gold

Abridged
Author: Anne Rice
Narrator: Derek Jacobi
Genres: Horror, Fiction
Publisher: Random House (Audio)
Date: October 2007
Length: 6 hours
Ratings:
  • Book Rating: 4/5
Formats:
  • CD

Overview

The Vampire Chronicles continue with Anne Rice's spellbinding new novel.

Out of the pages of the Vampire Chronicles steps the golden-haired Marius, true Child of the Millenia, once mentor to the Vampire Lestat, always and forever the conscientious slayer of the evildoer, and now ready to reveal the secrets of his two-thousand-year-long existence in his own intense voice.

Born in Imperial Rome, imprisoned and made a "blood god" by the ancient Druids, Marius is the baffled yet powerful protector of Akasha and Enkil, Queen and King of the vampires, in whom the core of the race resides.

We follow his through his tragic loss of the vampire Pandora, his lover and fledgling creation. Through him we see the fall of pagan Rome to the Christendom of Constantine, and the sack of the Eternal City by the Visigoths. We see him sailing to the glittering city of Constantinople.

Worlds within worlds unfold as Marius, surviving the Dark Ages and the Black Death, emerges in the midst of the Italian Renaissance to create magnificient paintings and a vampire—the boy Armand.

Moving from Florence, Venice, Dresden, Paris, and the English castle of the secret and scholarly order of the Talamasca, the novel reaches its dramatic finale in a jungle paradise where the oldest of the vampires reigns supreme.

Reviews (1)

Blood and Gold

Written by Sharon S on November 14th, 2005

  • Book Rating: 4/5

I love Anne Rice's books but was disappointed that this was abridged. Her stories have so much depth I could tell immediately that it was cut back. Interesting story although Marius was never one of my favorite vamps it does explain a lot about him.

Author Details

Author Details

Rice, Anne

"Anne Rice was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University and is the author of nineteen novels. Her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, was published in 1976 and has gone on to become one of the bestselling novels of all time. It was in Interview with the Vampire that Rice first introduced her vampire, the Vampire Lestat, to the world.

Rice continued her vampire saga in The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief and Memnoch the Devil. These novels, collectively known as ""The Vampire Chronicles,"" have great mainstream and cult followings and are widely assigned in high school and collegiate English and philosophy classes. Her latest novel, The Vampire Armand, follows Pandora and continues Rice's new series of vampire tales. Rice is also the author of The Witching Hour, the first book in a trilogy about a clan of witches (the other novels in this series are Lasher and Taltos). Her other works of fiction include The Feast of All Saints, Cry to Heaven and The Mummy; the contemporary erotic novels Exit to Eden and Belinda (written under the name Anne Rampling); and stylized, pornographic novels known as ""The Beauty Books,"" which include The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Punishment and Beauty's Release (written under the name A.N. Roquelaure). Her books have sold over 100,000,000 copies worldwide.

Rice wrote the screenplay for Interview with the Vampire and has also written a screenplay for The Witching Hour.

Rice lives in New Orleans with her husband, poet and painter Stan Rice, and son Christopher."