Servant of the Bones
by Anne Rice

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Book Reviews of Servant of the Bones

Book Review: Them bones, them bones, them gold bones...
Summary: 1 Stars

A genii arrives at a man's house one night, and relates the story of his life (and afterlife), and a weird tale it is too. Azriel was a young Jewish boy in Babylon, who had the unusual gift of being able to talk to the god Marduk. He permitted himself to be turned into a living gold statue, a human sacrifice for the sake of the Jews -- but things go horribly wrong when an old witch curses and murders him. Now he is no longer human, but a powerful spirit that isn't an angel or a demon.

Azriel spends centuries sleeping inside his own gold-encrusted bones, occasionally getting woken up to do something for his masters. Then he's suddenly out and about -- and there's no master. He witnesses the murder of a young girl, who recognizes him as "the Servant of the Bones." The angry Azriel is determined to unravel the mystery of why the girl was murdered.

"Servant of the Bones" follows the format of the Vampire Chronicles: an incredibly attractive immortal relates his life story to a listener (who, oddly enough, never seems to need the bathroom during the long oral bio). But the grandeur and richness of her other writings is missing here.

Rice seems to be aware that her plot is too short and thin to be an entire novel. So she stretches it with lots of filler -- current events (no Bill-Clinton worship, please), her late husband's incomprehensible poetry, and endless descriptions of Azriel's skin, hair and eyes. Her usually colorful, sensuous prose is weirdly lifeless and dull here. And the plot is glacially slow.

Most strangely of all, Rice starts playing fast and loose with religion and history. And devout followers of Judaism will probably be grinding their teeth: the faithful are shown as self-righteous, slobbering fanatics, while the hero worships other gods and shares prostitutes with his dad. She bangs readers over the head with her assertions that there were many versions of the Old Testament. And Rice tries to bring Azriel to the present by a story-line about terrorists, murder and a cult, but the present-day story-line feels tacked-on. It's like a supernatural Bond flick.

But it doesn't exactly help that Azriel is not a terribly interesting character at all. Over the centuries he never develops a personality, and his actions seem pretty random. Why is he so besotted with Esther? We never know. The villain is cookie-cutter, and most of the supporting characters (including the narrator) are utterly forgettable.

This story is a complete misfire for Rice, and a bewildering squandering of her considerable talents. Her dull characters and weird views on Old Testament history are only a few of the problems in the turgid, colorless "Servant of the Bones."

Summary of Servant of the Bones

Family Saga Books

• Subjects > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Family Saga
• Horror
• Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Psychological Thrillers
• Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy