Anne Rice's Servant of the Bones

Anne Rice's Servant of the Bones

Plot: Azriel, Servant of the Bones. He is a ghost, demon, angel - in love with the good, in thrall to evil. He pours out his heart to us, telling his astonishing story when he finds himself - in present-day New York City - a dazed witness to the murder of a young girl and inexplicably obsessed by the desire to avenge her. Azriel takes us back to his mortal youth in the magnificent city of Babylon, where he is plucked from death by evil priests and sorceresses and transformed into a genii commanded to do their bidding. Challenging these forces of destruction, Azriel embarks on his perilous journey through time - from Babylon's hanging gardens to the Europe of the Black Death to Manhattan in the 1990's. And as his quest approaches its climactic horror, he dares to use and risk his supernatural powers in the hope of forestalling a world-threatening conspiracy, and redeeming, at last, what was denied him so long ago: his own eternal soul.

My Review and Thoughts:

Anne Rice has away with taking the very fabric of history and painting a pure piece of art come to life in her written style. She is mind numbing when it comes to creating characters and stories that are so thick with history and passion and the very nature of existence is classified into her writing and her characters. Her story telling blows my mind. I have been a fan of Rice for a very, very, very long time. I grew up with Interview with a Vampire being my first book by her and then consuming all of her dark horror novels, from Witches to Mummy's to vampires she is able to weave a perfect woven fabric of imagination into a whirl pool of storytelling that is beyond any other writer.

When she writes the descriptive nature and the imagination on page sends the reader in sort of an ecstasy. Page after page the blood flows and the mind becomes apart of the story when she writes, it creates a tone of expression that sends the reader into a frenzied state of enlightenment as you consume the words she tends to write in her books.

Rice is a true writing god in many of her novels, a nature of words and story that only she knows how to do. Many of her works are one of kind pieces of history into the modern realms of horror in a sensuousness way that does not let go. So begins this novel by her about the story of Azriel which is a character I will never forget, an interesting character that works and doesn't work in many details.

Now I did not really like this book and I don't want that to sound negative because the book is very interesting and will hold a lot of readers. Many will like this book but I just could not get into it like her other works. I felt at times I was reading a history book and not a Rice book even though lots of her books have history as back stories I felt this one was to thick for my taste.

Many readers are going to love this book I just felt it was slow and drawn out and dare I say a little boring for me but like I say for others it might work I just felt it did not have enough there to hold the reader and it felt like the writing was just following an outline of a history paper with twists, but yet not enough twists. I also felt some of the writing was re-used from other works such as Interview with a Vampire or her other vampire chronicles.

Some will like some will not, I for one felt it lacked, had some great moments but just not enough for my taste. I often felt while reading it the writer struggled to write it just like the reader struggles to read it. I think the hardest thing I end up realizing is the concept of these mythical beings, these walking dead or ghost or witches just showing up in these books finding someone to write their story and it's like the scribe just says okay lets rock n' roll, it worked for Interview with a Vampire because it was unique and one of a kind and now it just seems a little far fetched to follow and the whole let me tell you my story is so over done and also comical at times.

I don't want to sound too negative about this book because I liked some of it because it had its moment and worked in back story and neat odd characters it just seemed to fall flat for a Rice novel.