The Queen Of The Damned (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) » (THIS EDITION IS INTENDED FOR USE IN SCHO)

Best known for The Vampire Chronicles, a series of dark, hypnotic novels steeped in Gothic horror, Anne Rice now applies her vivid storytelling skills to Christian fiction, most notably an acclaimed series based on the life of Christ.

Once again, as she did with Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice reveals the starling world of the undead.  

And now, this world of dark pleasures and glorious decadence comes to life in a tale that takes us back 6,000 years to the shacking creation of the first vampire - Akasha, Queen of the Damned.  Akasha's story unfolds across the ages and around the world - from the dawn of civilization to the present day, from Egypt to the Himalayas, to Paris Peru, and finally to California.  There Akasha faces her ancient, vengeful enemy, and the fate of all the living dead - and the living as well - id decided.

Publishers Weekly

The cult audience for Rice's two previous vampire novels, Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat , will undoubtedly broaden with this third book, which features the same characters and a more complex plot. As before, Rice tells her story in fine melodramatic style, overwriting with zest and exuberance: the text pulses with menace, mystery and violence, and with sensuality verging on erotica. Here Lestat and all other vampires pay the price for his obsessive need for fame, his reckless honesty in describing the ``blood drinkers'' among us, and his frenzied rock concert in San Francisco. Lestat's kiss has awakened Queen Akasha from her 6000 year sleep. She immediately begins a wholesale slaughter of most of the world's vampires, sparing only a small remnant (including Lestat) who she expects will join her in a crazed crusade against male mortals. Meanwhile, vampires and psychic humans around the globe are having the same terrifying dream in which twin red-haired women weep over the body of another woman, whose eyes and brains are on a plate nearby. As Rice gradually reveals the significance of the dream, she also focuses on Jesse, who works for the Telamasca, a secret society that collects data on those with paranormal powers. Though she ingeniously pulls together the various plot strands, Rice then almost loses the reader in philosophic overkill. She regains her verve in the final chapter, however, promising yet another mesmerizing installment of the Vampire Chronicles.