Anne Rice fans rejoice!

[Peter McCoy]

http://www.annerice.com/msg092604b.htm

The important part in that article:

'Let me report that the musical, the Vampire Lestat, with the score by Elton John and the lyrics by Bernie Taupin, and a whole group of splendid people is coming along magically, providing all kinds of lessons to me as I am in daily email contact with one of the top bosses, whom I have come to totally love. '

Thats Anne Rice's own words. I doubt when completed and running the show will reach Liverpool, but I'd be willing to travel down to London to see the show should it make its way across the pond.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I've got a bad feeling about this :\

[Charley]

I'd much rather watch Cannibal the Musical

[Morgan Evanar]

My heart is as full as a baked potato!

Voting no to vamp musicals.

[Gav Mortis]

It does sound lame.

[Zasz Grimm]

Originally posted by Morgan Evanar
My heart is as full as a baked potato!

Voting no to vamp musicals.

[Pierce Tondry]

Shoot me before I assimilate any more information on this travesty of humanity.

[Peter McCoy]

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/82554.html

A little more info on the actual musical in the link above. To be honest, I think it has real potential - everything's down to opinion in the end. I'll wait and see how it turns out rather than reinact my pre-AvP behaviour.

[Sejah Haversh]

You mean she can't just stick to polluting the literary world with tripe, now she has to assault the performing arts, too?

[Dasquian Belargic]

Originally posted by Peter McCoy
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/82554.html

A little more info on the actual musical in the link above. To be honest, I think it has real potential - everything's down to opinion in the end. I'll wait and see how it turns out rather than reinact my pre-AvP behaviour.

So, just to clarify... which book is the musical based on?

[Loki Ahmrah]

The Vampire Lestat

[Dasquian Belargic]

My least favorite of the books :(

[Shawn]

That's my favorite of her books, actually. Still not interested in a musical, though. Also, after that whole amazon.com debacle, I don't think I'll ever be sending money her way again. It was completely unprofessional for her to insult her readers like she did.

[Loki Ahmrah]

What did she do? :\

[Shawn]

Here's a link (http://www.s92258250.onlinehome.us/fusion/readmore.php?news_id=50) to the enormous rant she posted on Amazon.com, abusing the reader reviews section so she could trash people who posted negative reviews of her latest book, Blood Canticle.

There's some foul language contained in the link, so be warned.

[Loki Ahmrah]

Unprofessional, definately.

Nevertheless, there are stupid readers out there with narrow-minded, occassionally blind views who will be prepared to post complete, unfounded crap about a novel because they didn't like or couldn't understand it. Yes, everyone is more than entitled to their opinion but not everyones opinion is worth the words it uses up.

I'm not a reader of her novels and I haven't read any of her reviews on Amazon but I can sympthise, I think. While what she has done is very, very ill-advised, I have to admire her for being so bold.

There is a counter argument, I would like to add against her favour. One of the best recent pieces of advice I've been given about writing is: "Your reader is very intelligent, don't insult that intelligence."

She has either failed as a writer and written poorly or expects the readers to only see the novel from her perspective which is, conversly, very narrow-minded of her.

There are a lot of stupid readers out there, millions of them are on the internet everyday, but maybe one of them is Anne Rice.

I'm not sure what to think, really. :\

[Shawn]

Originally posted by Loki Ahmrah
I'm not a reader of her novels and I haven't read any of her reviews on Amazon but I can sympthise, I think. While what she has done is very, very ill-advised, I have to admire her for being so bold. I think everyone can sympathize. However, there will always be at least a few people who post outrageously negative reviews. As a professional, you have to expect this. Lashing out like she did is a very big taboo; It won't serve to convince anyone that she's some literary genius and everyone else is too stupid to understand her book - it will only serve to raise animosity between herself and her readers.

At the time she posted that, the overwhelming majority of the reader reviews were very negative, so it's a very real possibility that the book simply wasn't very good (or would at least be considered that way by most readers). Thus, it's downright insulting to criticize someone for using Amazon's reader review section exactly how it was intended.

Neil Gaiman had this to say on the subject: (http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004/09/de-gustibus-and-how-to-reply-to-bad.asp)
I think Anne Rice going on Amazon and lambasting her critics was undoubtedly a very brave and satisfying thing for her to do, was every bit as sensible as kicking a tar baby, and, if ever I do something like that, please shoot me.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

..wait, Anne Rice has fans?? O_o

[Dasquian Belargic]

Originally posted by Lilaena De'Ville
..wait, Anne Rice has fans?? O_o

Anne Rice is a nutcase, but I am a fan of what I have read from the Vampire Chronicles and Mayfair Witches series' :)

[Lilaena De'Ville]

;) I was just kidding. I've never read any of her books, but one of the gals here at work has read just about every single one and loves 'em.

[Shawn]

Interview with the Vampire: Not bad. Definitely a defining piece that changed the way vampires were portrayed. I honestly felt the movie was a little better, but it wouldn't have existed without the strong source material.

The Vampire Lestat: I do think this was my favorite. This was the book that turned Lestat from the demonic antagonist that Louis portrayed him as to an interesting, complicated character. It also introduced much of the mythology surrounding vampires in her world.

Queen of the Damned: Meh. She tried to jump into 3rd person storytelling and it's obvious that she's not very good at it. It was largely devoid of emotion and its segmented method of storytelling didn't work too well, IMO. However, I did like how it explained so much in regards to the history and mythology of vampires.

Tale of the Body Thief: Mostly a filler book. Lestat spends a couple of days as a human being and making commentary on how odd human functions seem to him now.

Memnoch the Devil: A little better than TotBT. Gets pretty religious at points, so that may be a turn off for some. A decent read if you're bored and you want a vampire fix.

I haven't read Pandora in a very long time, but I recall enjoying it. Very romantic, in the classical sense of the word. It's kind of like a history lesson, but with hearts getting ripped out. ;)

So yeah. The first two books are the only ones I can really recommend, and the third is an ok read if you're interested in the history and mythology she's spun. I also think she has some serious sexual issues she needs to stop trying to work out in her novels.

I might add that, despite what she may think, she seriously needs to let an editor go over her work. She's no Hemingway - who, by the way, did use an editor.

[Zasz Grimm]

Did you read The Vampire Armand? Or did you rather not like it?

I found it quite enjoyable, along with most the rest of her books that I've read. Armand's tale was..interesting. Of course, if a small, tad-bit of homo-eroticism isn't your bag, you'll have to skip a few pages.

[Shawn]

The books I listed are the ones I've read.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Pandora is my favorite by far. I find Lestat kind of boring, to be honest - mostly thanks to The Vampire Lestat. I had a really hard time trying to read that :\

[Dalamar DeSang]

Are you ready to laugh? I havent read any of them!! Stephen Kings Dark Tower Serie's is pretty cool though. Robert Jordans books. DragonLance series. To many to list. Just about every comic that has ever came out. ;) I love the Watchmen series. I also like Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Frank Millers stuff. I Just read Everything Eventual, Dark Tower 1,2,3,reading the 4th now. 5,6,7 are all still in hardback. Gonna cost me!! arghh. But I have to know how this ends!!!


Gun them down Roland!!;)

Back on Topic ( I enjoyed the movies though I thought the second one took away from the first one. Which I thought was more carefully made.)