Merrick (Vampire/Witches Chronicles)
by Anne Rice
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anne RiceEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-10-02
ISBN: 0345422406
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of Merrick (Vampire/Witches Chronicles)
Book Review: oh,,come on....
Summary: 2 Stars
This book was stupid,short and senseless.This was the worst book I have ever read...It was difficult to keep reading this book.I would recommmend that you not read this book.To make this book better it could have been longer.This whole book is like an introduction to some vampire book....after reading the whole book I fine myself asking the question,when is the story going to start?
Here is the main plot:We again meet Louis, Lestat, and David. They are followed by the beautiful witch Merrick, an offshoot of the Mayfair clan, who knew David when he was a mortal man working as a member of the Talamasca. Louis seeks Merrick's help in resurrecting the spirit of Claudia.
This novel is a major turning point for Louis: he attempts to commit suicide by allowing himself to bake in the sun. The other vampires, including Merrick, David and Lestat, find him and restore him by showering him with their preternatural blood.
Most of the novel is a rather long flashback detailing David and Merrick's adventures. Readers meet Merrick's malevolent sister, Honey Isabella or Honey in the Sunshine; Merrick's mother, Cold Sandra; and the Great Nananne, a powerful witch whose very presence is enough to frighten and instill respect in Talbot.
One notable adventure involves a journey to Central America, which Merrick is compelled to undertake by dreams of Oncle Julien (or so she thinks). Merrick and David find the cave where Matthew had contracted a fatal disease. David is surprised at the malevolence of the spirits in the cave and conjectures that they are protecting some great treasure. Merrick leaps forward and finds the treasure: a beautiful jade mask. By looking through this mask, one can see ethereal spirits as if they were corporeal. The two Talamascans see a mysterious spirit who resembles a priest. David then falls deathly sick, though Merrick does not. The two escape the treacherous cave, with David growing weaker by the moment; he is shuffled from hospital to hospital and is eventually cured of the disease.
At the very end of the book, Merrick reveals her grand scheme. It was she who, from the very beginning, had used her potent magic to draw David and Louis inexorably towards her so that she would receive the Dark Gift of vampirism.
Because Lestat (along with Louis) have given Merrick their blood, the Talamasca Elders threaten to wage war on the vampires. David Talbot tries to placate them with a final letter, warning that Lestat's enmity is more than the Watcher society could handle. He writes, "You have made yourselves an interesting adversary to one who loves challenges, and it will require all of my considerable influence to protect you individually and collectively from the avid lust you have so foolishly aroused."
In this novel, it becomes clear that one of the largest myths of the Vampire Chronicles series is in fact false. Throughout the series, it seems that a witch's powers are lost upon his or her transformation into a vampire. However, Merrick does not experience this loss...enjoy....Nigel
Summary of Merrick (Vampire/Witches Chronicles)
In this mesmerizing new novel, Anne Rice demonstrates once again her gift for spellbinding storytelling and the creation of myth and magic, as she weaves together two of her most compelling worlds? those of the Vampire Chronicles and the Mayfair witches.Just when you thought it was safe for a bloodsucker to go out in the dark in New Orleans, along comes Merrick Mayfair, a sultry, hard-drinking octoroon beauty whose voodoo can turn the toughest vampire into a marionette dancing to her merry, scary tune. In Merrick, Anne Rice brings back three of her most wildly popular characters--the vampires Lestat and Louis and the dead vampire child Claudia--and introduces them to the world of her Mayfair Witches book series.
It is Louis who brings about the collision of the fang and voodoo universes. Louis made Claudia a vampire in Rice's classic Interview with the Vampire, in which she was destroyed, and now he's obsessed with raising her ghost to make amends and seek guidance from the beyond. (Claudia physically resembles Rice's young daughter who died of a blood-related illness. Rice nearly died of a diabetic coma in 1998, and writing Merrick turned her excruciating recovery into an exhilarating burst of creativity).
Vampire David Talbot lobbies Merrick to call Claudia's spirit and slake Louis's guilt, but Talbot winds up in the grip of an obsession with the witch. You see, Talbot, unlike most vampires, lived 70 years as a human, so his sexual response to humans is still as strong as his blood thirst. Merrick can cast spells to make men crave her, and Talbot is tormented. After she reads his palm, he muses, "I wanted to take her in my arms, not to feed from her, no, not harm her, only kiss her, only sink my fangs a very little, only taste her blood and her secrets, but this was dreadful and I wouldn't let it go on."
The secrets of Merrick are dark and sensuous, but the book is a romp animated by Rice's feeling of coming back to life through the magic of a literary outpouring. The narrative flashes back to the past, to an Indiana Jones-ish adventure in a Guatemalan cave, and to scenes from many other Rice novels. It may be helpful to read Merrick with the Rice-approved guidebooks The Vampire Companion and The Witches' Companion at hand.
After many books, Rice's grand Vampire Chronicles tale was in peril of getting long in the tooth. Merrick Mayfair's magic represents an infusion of fresh blood. --Tim Appelo
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