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Interview with the
Vampire by Anne Rice ISBN: 0-7088-6073-7 Used paperback copies $4-5 each (covers may differ from the one shown) Also available by Anne Rice: The Vampire Armand (new) $8 The Vampire Lestat (used) $6 The Queen of the Damned (used) $6 |
In the now-classic novel Interview with the
Vampire, Anne Rice refreshed the archetypal vampire myth for a
late-20th-century audience. The story is ostensibly a simple one: having
suffered a tremendous personal loss, an 18th-century Louisiana plantation
owner named Louis Pointe du Lac descends into an alcoholic stupor. At his
emotional nadir, he is confronted by Lestat, a charismatic and powerful
vampire who chooses Louis to be his fledgling. The two prey on innocents,
give their "dark gift" to a young girl, and seek out others of
their kind (notably the ancient vampire Armand) in Paris. But a summary of
this story bypasses the central attractions of the novel. First and
foremost, the method Rice chose to tell her tale--with Louis' first-person
confession to a skeptical boy--transformed the vampire from a hideous
predator into a highly sympathetic, seductive, and all-too-human figure.
Second, by entering the experience of an immortal character, one raised
with a deep Catholic faith, Rice was able to explore profound
philosophical concerns--the nature of evil, the reality of death, and the
limits of human perception--in ways not possible from the perspective of a
more finite narrator. While Rice has continued to investigate history, faith, and philosophy in subsequent Vampire novels (including The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, Memnoch the Devil, and The Vampire Armand), Interview remains a treasured masterpiece. It is that rare work that blends a childlike fascination for the supernatural with a profound vision of the human condition. --Patrick O'Kelley |
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Grimoire by Kim Wilkins ISBN: 0-09-183918-1 Used, paperback, VGC $7 |
For centuries, magicians have compiled grimoires to call up demons. In Victorian London, one ambitious warlock, Peter Owling, designed a book of shadows to summon the Lord of the Demons - Satan himself. The plan backfired, Owling was killed and the book was ripped into four pieces and sent to the far corners of the earth. One fragment wound up in a shipment of books destined for the Colonies. Now, at Humberstone College, a converted 19th-century Gothic convent in Melbourne, a power-hungry group of academics is reassembling Owling's grimoire, bent on the pursuit of eternal life. But they have reckoned without the interference of three twenty-something masters students: Holly, Prudence and Justin. When Holly makes contact and falls in love with the ghost of the young man who was once Owling's assistant, the academics begin to fear that their dark secret - the grimoire which is so near to completion - is not as safe as they had previously thought. |