Author: Anne Rice
Series: New Tales of Vampires #1
Genres: Paranormal, Classics, Gothic
Publisher: Mass Market Paperback
Release: 1998
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 344
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BLURB:
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 Millennia, 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 mesmerizing 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.
EXPECTATIONS: Pandora was actually the IT book for me that got me reading whole Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. I know that theoretically you do not have to read Vampire Chronicles to read Pandora but I am very weird that way that I have to read all books by their order and so I wanted to read Pandora ever since I touched The Vampire Lestat. Tbh I think it has been more than 10 years now...I feel old.
THE WORLD: Pandora is titled as a first book in different series but really it is the same world we are familiar with from the Vampire Chronicles. It even has same characters. Basically the main idea is that after David was made into a vampire he meets Pandora and asks her to write her story. And so we move back to old Rome and Greece and how Pandora met Marius.
CHARACTERS: By now Pandora was such an IT character for me that I could not help but go with massive expectations into this book. And I am telling you from the beginning that I was a bit disappointed. I mean I did like Pandora, I think she is the best female character of Anne Rice but she still went on a bit of average for me. She really seems as a really interesting character for half a page but then she goes on doing something or discussing the topic that just makes you want to roll your eyes. Also her relationship with Marius...so up till now Anne Rice never really talked about it in detail and you get this idea that Marius and Pandora had this epic relationship beating all the ods but then you start reading Pandora book and you get just a few details. They meet, declare love and next thing you know it's 'we spent 200 years together'. Why would you do this? After such a huge anticipation...I guess just another disappointment by Anne Rice. At least Marius was same whiny as before so no disappointment there, not that anybody would really have different expectations after Blood and Gold.
ROMANCE: As I already mentioned over all ten books of Vampire Chronicles Anne creates this illusion that Marius and Pandora had an epic relationship. True love that beats all the ods. Well if you want to read about that look somewhere else. Anne does not bother to write about this in this book.
GOOD: I really like old Rome and from historical part it was rather entertaining.
BAD: I think this book could have been so so much more. I feel like Pandora was very flat character and exactly same by the end as in the beginning. I really wish we had at least a bit of character development...
OVERALL: I feel cheated. I waited to read this book for more than ten years and I only get this average story. I went through whole torture of Vampire Chronicles and yet...just another average story of Anne. Well I guess at least it wasn't as bad as Blood Canticle...But really if you want to read Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles just read Interview with a Vampire, Queen of the Damned and Blackwood Farm and be done with it. The rest is not worth the time or nerves for that matter.
What do you think about PANDORA?
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