Freak369's Full Review: Katherine Ramsland and Anne Rice - The Vampire Com...
I’ve been writing this review for a while now, not sure how I could go about writing a review that could do this book justice. Anne Rice is one of my favorite authors; not just for the topics she writes about but for her presentation, passion and limitless imagination. While the Vampire Chronicles series isn’t classified as horror [but rather fiction] she has many followers in the horror community. I came across the The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles in early 1994, I was in absolute awe of the book when I first saw it – the size of it and the eerie green color of the cover simply screamed buy me… buy me.. buy me. The The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles is presented in several chapters; the largest being the dictionary – however this isn’t the main reason I had to have this book. It contains every character, location, crossing over and vampire related object you could possibly think of. Reading one of Anne Rice’s books out of sequence isn’t impossible but it does leave you asking more than a few questions.
Contents
Abbreviations
One page – simply the listings of the books in the series with the abbreviations. What I thought was a waste turned out to be a blessing, for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what BT stood for – duhhhh - Tale of the Body Thief
Introduction
The brief five page introduction covers a massive spam of information including the overview of the Chronicles and how The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles came to be. The author, Katherine Ramsland, notes that the main reason for the books creation was to give the readers “the big picture” and to create the ultimate reference book. When you look at this book as a whole it’s really more of a reference book than a dictionary since it includes photos, maps, drawings and excerpts from the series.
Dictionary / Reference Pages
This is the bulk of the book – 482 of the 507 pages to be exact. While a majority of the entries in this section deal directly with Anne Rice’s series it also includes such commons things as ‘dreams’, ‘eyes’, ‘tree’ and ‘heart’. These common and seemingly simple words are added for reference to characters, actions, emotions, symbolism and to further explain certain scenarios.
With 90% of all the entries you will find them defined not according to the normal dictionary explanation but rather how they correlate with the books. It also goes into great detail as to what book it is referring to as well as specific characters or events.
Places and locations, both fictional and fact based, are also listed here. These entries usually include a picture or drawing, facts about the structure and how they fit into the series. One of the nice things is that you are also given a direct reference to the book and page where the entry can be found. This was a great help when I came across the Jefferson Memorial in The Vampire Companion for the life of me I couldn’t remember it ever being mentioned – it was in The Tale of the Body Thief on page198.
For me, this book helped piece together some of the characters and events that had truly puzzled me. I had always wondered exactly when Claudia and Louis were born [mortally], who had created Nicholas [made him into a vampire] and how old Lestat was when her became a vampire. Thanks to this book I found my answers. I also had a better understanding of some of the places in the historic French Quarter. Seeing the illustration of the buildings really helped me to understand the urgency in finding safety from the daybreak – it wasn’t mentioned that they had to travel about seven blocks.
Time Line
At first I thought this was also a waste of paper – until I saw some of the information I was looking for [as mentioned above]. It chronicles the creation of the series in 4000 B.C. and carries you through 1992. It not only lists the events of the characters – it lists the real life events of the series such as publication dates and information. If you’ve skipped a book in the series - read this section first so you have the abbreviated storyline to assist you.
Empire Atlas
Another useful tool provided to give you, the reader, a better understand of the areas in which the series takes place. While some of the maps are current some are from a historical perspective. The most impressive is the Gathering of Immortals [p. 503] - it has the map of all continents referenced in the books as well as the travel details of each of the characters featured in this showdown of blood. Eight vampires [immortals], departure cities and destinations are clearly presented – this was an unexpected surprise to see but very much welcomed.
Bibliography and Illustrations Credits
Not exactly excitement but a crucial portion of the book. The illustration credits are fantastic if you want to further research a particular artist. You are also given a brief biography of the author, Katherine Ramsland. It wasn’t until this section that I saw she penned another book about Anne Rice; Prism of the Night: A Biography of Anne Rice.
Pricing
The U.S. price for this book is listed at $29.95 but most retail stores offer it with a 10 – 20 % discount. I did see Waldenbooks offer 50% off this book is you purchased two other Anne Rice titles but I’m not sure if that offer has since expired. Canadian price is $38.95 but I am sure that this too has been reduced by at least 10%.
The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles is available in several formats. The hard cover version has several covers that changed during pressings and editions. The paperback version is also available with several different covers however the green and black ones are hard to find. I did see this listed as an audio book but couldn’t fathom someone searching through the tapes to find one word in particular.
I highly recommend this book to any fan of Rice’s vampire series; even if you’ve read every title front to back fifty times – you will find this book simply captivating. As I already mentioned, it provides a gateway into Anne Rice’s writings to help further explain some of the more complex and recurring characters.
The copy that I have is a hard cover first edition, released in October 1993. The cover is fully detailed; the illustration is that of a gothic doorway accented in a dark eerie glowing green. The letters and images are embossed [raised] and it makes a great first impression when you see it for the first time. The inner jacket provides a brief description of the book and the back cover gives examples of the words contained in the reference section.
The pages of the book are light cream in color, something that most people overlook. The bright white pages of some books – especially those with illustrations – tend to take away from the images, photos or drawings. Not the case here, they are absolutely perfect for this type of publication. Some people might wonder why I add these details to my book reviews – in this day and age of internet shopping it’s these little details that might just convince someone to buy the book – sight unseen.
Written with the full cooperation of Anne Rice - and now with more than 1,200 entries - The Vampire Companion offers an insightful exploration, apprec...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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