Pandora (New Tales of the Vampires) - Softcover

Rice, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345422384 ISBN 13: 9780345422385

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1998

Synopsis

Anne Rice, creator of the Vampire Lestat, the Mayfair witches and the amazing worlds they inhabit, now gives us the first in a new series of novels linked together by the fledgling vampire David Talbot, who has set out to become a chronicler of his fellow Undead.

The novel opens in present-day Paris in a crowded café, where David meets Pandora. She is two thousand years old, a Child of the Millennia, the first vampire ever made by the great Marius. David persuades her to tell the story of her life.

Pandora begins, reluctantly at first and then with increasing passion, to recount her mesmerizing tale, which takes us through the ages, from Imperial Rome to eighteenth-century France to twentieth-century Paris and New Orleans. She carries us back to her mortal girlhood in the world of Caesar Augustus, a world chronicled by Ovid and Petronius. This is where Pandora meets and falls in love with the handsome, charismatic, lighthearted, still-mortal Marius. This is the Rome she is forced to flee in fear of assassination by conspirators plotting to take over the city. And we follow her to the exotic port of Antioch, where she is destined to be reunited with Marius, now immortal and haunted by his vampire nature, who will bestow on her the Dark Gift as they set out on the fraught and fantastic adventure of their two turbulent centuries together.

Look for Anne Rice’s new book, Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, coming November 29, 2016.

About this title

Review:

Fans of the ever-popular vampire tales are treated to a journey through ancient Rome as they hear the story of Pandora, and how she became a blood drinker. The mellifluous voice of British actress Janet McTeer makes for a dreamlike telling of the first-person narrative which takes place in the days of Tiberius, Ovid, and an empire that is starting to turn in on itself. Listeners learn of the cunning and impassioned narrator's happy days of growing up in the house of her father, a respected Roman statesman, her forced escape to Antioch and her dreams and visions of an Egyptian queen that foretell her fate. As well as the tumble of violent and supernatural events that lead to her beloved Marius sinking his teeth into her beautiful neck. Pandora's box it now seems is a sarcophagus! While Rice's usual chill and suspense seem somewhat removed given the period setting, the author paints a particularly rich picture of daily life in the Roman empire through the characters' discourses on contemporary issues of the day, and their actions in response to real historical events. --Anne Depue (Running time: 3 hours; 2 cassettes)

From the Back Cover:

"This is Rice in top romantic form."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"SEDUCTIVE . . . [RICE] HAS RETURNED TO THE SOURCE OF HER BEST WORK, her sexy and invincible vampires. . . . Pandora is a superheroine: beautiful, of course, but also smart, fearless, independent, lusty, resourceful, and so pumped up at the end of her breathless narrative, she takes off for New Orleans, hot on the trail of Lestat and Marius."
--Booklist

"EERILY VIBRANT . . . The title character is a highborn woman of Augustan Rome who later names herself after the Pandora of mythology, opening her own box of surprises. Sitting in a modern-day Paris café in the aftermath of a fresh kill, the vampire Pandora accepts the challenge of recounting her history and immediately sets to work, filling the blank pages of an elegant leatherbound notebook. . . . A wealth of narrative twists and period detail."
--The New York Times Book Review

"RICE'S MOST BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN WORK . . . A BOOK THAT CELEBRATES THE WONDER OF THE WORLD ON EVERY PAGE."
--Raleigh News & Observer

"TANTALIZING."
--Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0345422384
• ISBN 13: 9780345422385
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 368