This was an absolutely fantastic addition to the vampire genre. What made it so brilliant was that it wasn't necessarily about vampires; it was about what happens to humans who are made immortal, given the power to take life, and expected to use it. It was fantastically dark and often quite twisted but never in a way that felt forced or unnecessary. In many ways I felt that Anne Rice was building on the themes that are alluded to in Gothic classics such as Carmilla or Dracula; namely, the use of vampires as a way to explore 'sexual deviancy'. In that way, it is very much a product of its time; much more explicit and its intentions in its implications than the books written a century earlier, but with somewhat outdated attitudes towards homosexuality. From a queer studies perspective, it's very interesting to look at the attitudes in this era. The time between Stonewall and the HIV crisis of the 1980s is a critical and fascinating one, so it's interesting - if at times demoralising - to read something which keeps these themes mostly as prominent undertones.