This was an odd read for me, mainly because I've only read Interview With the Vampire before now, so jumping from book 1 to book 11 was quite a massive leap. Luckily for me, but probably not for followers of the entire Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice spends a ridiculous amount of time recapping previous events in the series in the first few chapters. I imagine, if I had all this information already, this may have become a DNF, but instead I got exposition-heavy but useful material.

Let's be blunt: Prince Lestat is RIDICULOUS. Every character is an overly emotional, omnisexual dandy who cries blood tears. Everybody falls in love with each other in the blink of an eye. Anne Rice says "preternatural" in pretty much every sentence. I don't know if the other books follow this pattern, but I didn't get this much flowery melodrama from Interview. Perhaps because Interview was completely from Louis' perspective, whereas Prince Lestat is full of character perspectives which, frustratingly, are all the same! The only characters I got any distinct personality from were Lestat himself (for better or worse) and the fabulous Gabrielle. Add on top of that the terrible Rose and Viktor, and you should have a recipe for pretentiously-trashy disaster.

Yet I give it a decent review. Why? Because when the plot FINALLY gets going, it's a lot of fun. The central idea of The Voice is an intriguing and well-realised one, and it felt like something new and different. Plus, all my criticisms above make it an enjoyable read. Once you come to accept the flaws, you can laugh along with them. Maybe if I knew more about the Vampire Chronicles, I'd feel differently, but for now I was just happy to be along for the silly ride.