Pandora

In a new series of short and mesmerising vampire novels, Anne Rice, the mistress of the genre, conjures up some of the most charismatic and terrifying from her pantheon of the undead.

David Talbot, the vampire survivor of Memnoch the Devil, calls forth Pandora in modern-day Paris to tell her own story. Two thousand years old, she was a mortal girl in ancient Rome at the time of Ceasar Augustus, before her powerful family faced treachery and ruin. As a follower of the secret blood-tainted cult of Isis, Pandora had to flee to Antioch. And there a mysterious Roman exile - another dark genius of the Lestat chronicles - drew her still further into the ancient Egyptian rites which rule their desires.

Through the fall of Rome and a brief encounter in another glorious, decadent era, their tempestous affair has bound her ever closer with ties of blood and necessity. Now centuries later, as the Vampire Lestat lies motionless in a New Orleans convent, Pandora wants to find her lover again, drawn on a mission that could unleash still greater mysteries.

Pandora ~ Chatto & Windus 1998 (UK)

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 Millenia, 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 mesmerising 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.

Pandora ~ Knopf 1998 (US)


	In a new series of short and mesmerising vampire novels, Anne Rice, the mistress of the genre, conjures up some of the most charismatic and terrifying from her pantheon of the undead. David Talbot, the vampire survivor of Memnoch the Devil, calls forth Pandora in modern-day Paris to tell her own story. Two thousand years old, she was a mortal girl in ancient Rome at the time of Ceasar Augustus, before her powerful family faced treachery and ruin. As a follower of the secret blood-tainted cult of Isis, Pandora had to flee to Antioch. And there a mysterious Roman exile - another dark genius of the Lestat chronicles - drew her still further into the ancient Egyptian rites which rule their desires. Through the fall of Rome and a brief encounter in another glorious, decadent era, their tempestous affair has bound her ever closer with ties of blood and necessity. Now centuries later, as the Vampire Lestat lies motionless in a New Orleans convent, Pandora wants to find her lover again, drawn on a mission that could unleash still greater mysteries. Pandora ~ Chatto & Windus 1998 (UK) 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 Millenia, 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 mesmerising 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. Pandora ~ Knopf 1998 (US)	Pandora ~ Chatto & Windus 1998 (UK)
		Pandora ~ Knopf 1998 (US)
		Pandora ~ Arrow 1999 (UK)
	Twenty Six Years with my Beloved Immortals ~ Pandora Now this book, in spite of all that is dark in it, was fun to write from start to finish, Pandora, though a sad figure in The Queen of the Damned, reveals in her own tale great strength and a sense of humour about her mortal sexuality and her ultimate fate as a vampire. Writing Pandora plunged me into the history of ancient Rome, and I was bound and determined to have every fact correct as to the time of Caesar Augustus and conditions in Rome and in Antioch. No small feat, but I adore this kind of thing. Pandora moves on a landscape that is real, and her difficulties in achieving independence were painstakingly drawn and full of intentional hilarity. I cherish things about this book and they are too numerous to mention. One example is Pandora's adoration of the goddess Isis, a worship in which the rational Pandora surrenders her logic completely. Another thing I cherish is Pandora's grief for her family when she is all alone in the empty house in Antioch. The way the novel incorporated Pandora's strange dreams - this also was something I hold close to me. Of course, when I started the journey with Pandora, I had no idea there would be so much irony or rebellion in her. When she ultimately encounters the vampire Marius - as all readers of the Chronicles know she will do - she makes fun of him. I was so happy. Marius is a grand character and I adore him. But in those early decades, he did deserve some humour. Another thing which I enjoyed about this novel was the beginning - in Paris - where David Talbot persuaded Pandora to tell her story. David, who had once been the Superior General of the Talamasca, the Order of Psychic Scholars, was destined to become the scribe of the vampires, and though he recorded Lestat's words for Memnoch the Devil, his job of drawing out the others begins with Pandora. Anne Rice
DoktorZhivago Design ©2001 ~ doktorzhivago@pepperpot-productions.com