The Vampire Chronicles   (book)

The Vampire Chronicles: Volume 1

This book is a collection of the first three books in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and The Queen of the Damned. Although these books are about vampires, there are a lot of things about them that are completely unrelated to blood-sucking that are good. There are in-depth explanations and explorations of relationships between different types of characters; there are situations where two eras are compared by way of vampire(s) who lived in one or both; there are engaging environments that any Hollywood set designer would love to be able to re-create. The setup for all three books is quite good too, all three of them having been written or dictated by a vampire. I guess what I'm saying is if the vampire theme bothers you but you can get past it, there is some good stuff there.

As far as the movies go, I've only seen Interview with the Vampire once, and I wasn't really paying attention, and I haven't seen any of Queen of the Damned (which I heard was a horrible movie, but I'd like to see it anyway). My favorite thing about the books was the different characters (who were quite well set up) and watching their interactions with each other. If I had to recommend one of the three books, I think it would have to be Interview with the Vampire since the other books make so much more sense once you've read that one. The points that stuck out the most for me about the other two were that The Vampire Lestat is more intellectually interesting and Queen of the Damned is more of an action suspense mystery type thing. Which is probably why it got made into a movie.