Merrick : a novel / by Anne Rice.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780679454489
- ISBN: 0679454489
- ISBN: 0676973310 :
- Physical Description: 307 p. ; 25 cm. : ill.
- Edition: 1st trade ed.
- Publisher: New York : A.A. Knopf, 2000.
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Subject: | Witches > Fiction. Vampires > Fiction. |
Genre: | Fantasy fiction. Occult fiction. Horror fiction. |
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Available copies
- 3 of 4 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Prince Rupert Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 4 total copies.
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Prince Rupert Library | RICE (Text) | 33294001155191 | Adult Fiction - Second Floor | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Monthly Selections - #1 July 2000
Midway through the Oz series, Frank Baum bogs down. The characters palaver a lot, traipse down roads of brick and other stuff, experience a few humdrum happenings, and gather at the end to feed, all without the ghost of a good plot putting in an appearance. Perhaps Rice is in similar doldrums in her series set in New Orleans and other venues that are Ozlike in their imperviousness to real-world events and personalities and are inhabited by people who, like Oz's, never age and die. Of course, those people are un-Ozlike vampires, and, okay, some other important characters do age and die, despite being powerful, un-Ozlike witches. But this installment of Rice's vampires-and-witches saga is as tepid as The Road to Oz. Vampire David Talbot looks up witch Merrick Mayfield to get her to raise the spirit of a little-girl bloodsucker whose demise tortures conscience-stricken fellow vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac. Two-thirds of the book later, they have not yet begun to try to retrieve the wee mosquito's shade. Instead, they are stumbling through Guatemala in a flashback, looking for pre-Olmec temple treasures left behind by an earlier expedition of Merrick's and presumably unplundered by Indy Jones types. Yawn, yawn. In the end, David and his master, the vampire Lestat, have to enlist Merrick in their ranks for her own good, after which she and David, at least, feed. Baum got his spirits back for the last Oz books he wrote. May Rice's revive, too. ((Reviewed July 2000)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2000 October
Spooky stories for the seasonLike the vampire, lovers of horror tales have appetites that can't always be sated with a single offering. Anthologies are a natural home for the terror tale, from creature-feature film festivals to the bloody pulp stories of the fabled EC Comics to chilling short story collections by the likes of Poe, Lovecraft, and others. In that spirit, prepare for a trio of terrible tomes that dish up a steaming stew of screams, just in time for Halloween.
Julie Myerson's Laura Blundy invokes the Victorian age when penny novelettes brought a chill to cozy reading rooms and carriage windows barely screened the stench of decay in the gaslit streets. In this startling and engrossing book, the title character recounts in a matter-of-fact, almost detached manner, the many shocking events in her young life. After the sudden death of her storekeeper father, Laura becomes a homeless orphan. As one of London's invisible underclass, she is raped by one of her social betters, and circumstances force her to give the child she bears to an orphanage. Struck by a carriage while wandering the filthy streets, Laura is confined to a hospital bed, where infection forces the amputation of one of her legs by a charming young surgeon.
Laura Blundy is replete with imagery that brings shudders even as it fascinates. Visions of a hanged murderess, dead children, and an operating theater that resembles a torture chamber bombard but never overwhelm the reader's senses. As Laura reveals the events of her life in candid yet disjointed fashion, the reader is led to believe she harbors a depravity of her own, but that conclusion fails to herald the final revelations in this fascinating tale.
The horror in Anne Rice's Merrick, (Audio), occurs on an entirely different level, but is no less sensual and terrible. Returning once again to the mystery-shrouded streets of New Orleans, Rice continues her saga of the vampires Louis and Lestat, and of David Talbot, the narrator of the story who grew to old age and then became a vampire in the body of a younger man. Into this world steps Merrick Mayfair, distantly related to Rice's Mayfair Witches and a powerful psychic and magician in her own right.
In her inimitable, beautiful prose, Rice relates Merrick's youth and education, the spirits that haunt her, and her relationship with David Talbot as man and vampire. The story opens with a meeting between Talbot and Merrick, the first in 20 years and the first since Talbot's own transformation into a vampire. Talbot calls on Merrick to raise the spirit of Claudia, the child vampire from Rice's first vampire novel, for Louis, who feels haunted by her.
Talbot goes into the meeting wary of the consequences of raising ghosts, and deeply aware of the temptation of giving the gift and curse of vampirism. The desires of vampires, of the scholarly society into which Merrick was recruited by Talbot while he was still a mortal man, and of Merrick herself mingle and lead to sometimes startling developments.
Readers familiar with Rice's intricate world will be thrilled at the interactions between some of her greatest creations. Those experiencing Rice's work for the first time will find the rich detail imparts more than enough background to ensure deep involvement in the intriguing story.
Joining the grand tradition of horror anthologies is a new offering of supernatural stories edited by poet Roger Weingarten. Ghost Writing brings together 21 haunted tales by such acclaimed modern writers as Peter Straub and John Updike, who contributes the tale of a New England town and the ageless Indian who has taken part in town life seemingly since its founding. In other stories, the spirit world on the other side of a mirror offers haven for the spirit of an abused wife, and a trio of boys have their favorite prank interrupted by the ghost left behind by those who build roads. In Weingarten's own contribution, a ghost clarifies a family curse.
Each of these books reminds us that a good scare can come from the sight of blood or the knowledge that blood, or something more sinister, lies unseen beneath the skin.
Gregory Harris is a writer and editor in Indianapolis with a vast book, music, and video collection that includes many horror titles. Copyright 2000 BookPage Reviews
- Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2000 July #1
The Queen of the Vampires offers one of the more wobbly works in the Vampire Chronicles.After a 40-page opening of heavy exposition (a glance backward that adds little but reminds us of the major players), the big attraction here is the return of gorgeous baby vamp Claudia, the 70-year-old in a 7-year-old's body, cremated a quarter-century ago in Interview with the Vampire (1976). Lestat also returns, though, sadly, Rice keeps these two lively creations offstage until the end. Again set in New Orleans, Merrick tells of octoroon Merrick Mayfair, an orphan raised among voodoo folks but now taken under the wing of David Talbot of the Talamasca, an ancient order of psychic scholars, so her powers of witchcraft might be studied. We follow her through her first 34 years as the Talamasca's top scholar and earner while Lestat goes comatose but for the joys of his Mozart CDs. Ravishingly handsome Louis de Pointe du Lac, his closest companion, worries that Lestat blames himself for Claudia's death and that her spirit is in torment. Louis wants Talbot to have Merrick use her magic to bring back Claudia and free Lestat from his torporâbut first Talbot must take Merrick to a lost Guatemalan temple to recover a jade mask for this purpose. Talbot, at 75, had an affair with young Merrick, but because Lestat won't make Merrick a vampire, Talbot sees their love as doomed. Then Merrick seemingly falls for Louisâbut Louis won't give her the Dark Gift either and lead her into Lestat's coven. Rice whets our appetite for the wondrously seductive child, Claudia, then, to delay satisfaction, offers us Merrick's childhood and young womanhood instead. But when Claudia does show up and Lestat awakes, both are minor figures in a thickly descriptive tapestry that engages only in bursts.Rice has recovered from some gaily slipshod work, but this feels first-draftish, as if e-mailed straight to the printer without a second thought, while the arch dialogue already feels a hundred years old.First printing of 750,000; Book-of-the-Month Club main selection; Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection; Literary Guild selection; Science Fiction Book Club main selection; Doubleday Book Club featured alternate selection Copyright 2000 Kirkus Reviews - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2000 June #1
Witches and vampires collide in Rice's latest, which stars the beautiful Merrick, descendent of a New Orleans society of octoroons and quadroons. Merrick learns that her ancestors are the Great Mayfair witches from ordinary-guy vampire David Talbot. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2000 September #1
Replete with witchcraft and Gothic intrigue, as well as theological sentiments and a tale of the Guatemalan jungles, this seventh substantial installment in Rice's popular "Vampire Chronicles" series continues the fascination with vampires and their darkly romantic lives. Narrated once again by the fledgling David Talbot, the book introduces Merrick, a potent witch with the usual irresistible charms, who aids David in a request involving a desperate Louis a request that climaxes in disaster and alters Louis profoundly. Although an intimate account, with its focus on Lestat, Louis, and David and their interaction with Merrick, this volume (like much of Rice's recent work) lacks the resonance and vivid passion of her earlier writings (Cry to Heaven, The Feast of All Saints). These beloved vampires have grown so much more distant and unapproachable. However, Lestat's revival is a welcome ember, and a plot twist involving the Talamasca ensures the continuation of the "Chronicles" and sparks hope for a return of the old flair. Owing to inevitable demand, Merrick is a required purchase. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/00.] Ann Kim, "Library Journal" Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2000 August #2
The 22nd novel from the dazzlingly popular vampire chronicler (The Vampire Lestat, The Witching Hour, etc.) brings her familiar undead characters into New Orleans's underworld of witches, and then to the jungles of Central America. Charismatic, biracial Merrick Mayfair comes from a New Orleans caste bound up with traditions of voodoo; she's also descended from the powerful Mayfair witch clan. Once a supernatural detective, now a vampire himself, narrator David Talbot took care of Merrick when she was in her teens, but hasn't seen her in years. Rice-watchers will remember Talbot and the Mayfairs, and also the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac and the girl Claudia, who now torments Louis from the afterworld. When Louis asks Talbot to raise Claudia's ghost, Talbot pleads with Merrick to use her rare talents and to revisit the past they share. Can Merrick really conjure the dead? Should she? What of the unspoken erotic charge between Talbot and Merrick? What secrets lie in the magical artifacts Merrick will have to find, and then to wield? And what do they have to do with her dead parents? This volume merges several long-running plots; the first chapters sag with the weight of their exposition, and the prose seems overheated even for Rice. Vampire fans will no doubt plunge on, however; soon enough, Merrick must revisit the Guatemalan rainforest, where she traveled as a young girl, to locate a secret treasure trove of ominous ancient runes. Displaying her imaginative talents for atmosphere and suspense, Rice creates a riveting scene that shows Merrick's awesome magic at work. A potent cameo from the vampire Lestat, with whom the fabled series began, leaves hints of more dark tales to come. 750,000 first printing; BOMC and Science Fiction Book Club main selections; Literary Guild selection; QPB alternate; Doubleday Book Club featured alternate. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.