Anne Rice Of Love And Evil

Borchardt, Alice: The Silver Wolf, New York Random House Publishing Group 1998
0-345-42360-7 AS NEW CONDITION

Alice Borchardt turns away from her romantic fiction and takes a cue from her sibling Anne Rice in her wickedly delightful werewolf fantasy tale, The Silver Wolf. Carnage, romance, a cast of thousands, and lots of fur - what more could you possibly want in a fantasy novel? Author Douglas Clegg takes a look at this wild genre-breaker, which may be the breakout Borchardt has long deserved. Alice Borchardt has written some lyrical fiction in her novels Beguiled and Devoted, but with this new novel, she has what is often called in the trade a breakout book. This usually means a book that is the best, biggest, most expansive novel from a writer who has yet to break into the bestseller lists. With The Silver Wolf, Borchardt has, I believe, just reached critical mass with her fiction. The Silver Wolf is a richly textured, lush epic of history, romance, and fantasy, all interwoven like a beautiful tapestry. This is a novel not to be missed, particularly if you're a fan of Borchardt's sister, Anne Rice. Although Borchardt definitely has a voice distinct from - and less horrifying than - that of her more famous sibling, The Silver Wolf is a novel that, like The Vampire Lestat or Rice's recent Pandora, is ripe and delicious in its panoramic view of history and the fantastic beings who inhabit it. A thread of strong romance flows through The Silver Wolf, despite its supernatural trappings. For lovers of romantic paranormal fiction, werewolf lore, and ancient history toldwith bravado, Borchardthas written a winner. The Rome of the Dark Ages is gorgeous in its decay and dying glamour. Regeane, a stunning waif, has a blood legacy of both royalty and supernatural darkness. Her parents were cousins to the Emperor Charlemagne, which is as much a curse for her as it is a blessing. There are those who will use her for political means by forcing a marriage that she does not want. But a lycanthropic tendency also runs in her blood: Regeane is a werewolf. Her uncle, Gundabald, who had a hand in murdering Regeane's werewolf father, treats her as a prisoner in order to ensure that she will marry according to the royal decree. Gundabald's brutality toward her is matched by that of the Roman world Regeane finds herself in after her protective mother's death. But even on this journey and struggle that becomes her life, as she learns both the good of her wolf self and the evil of the human world, she can't deny the strong chemistry she feels with the barbarian she is meant to marry. Lest you think that The Silver Wolf then descends into scenes of carnage, rest assured, it is first and foremost a fantasy tinged with romance in a historical setting. A great many scenes of life in the raw do occur in this story, but the nobility of the human and animal spirits that emerges lifts the reader from the darkness of Regeane's life. Regeane is torn by loyalties, both to family and within her own soul, but what takes over this novel is its baroque atmosphere and the passion and obligation that pull at Regeane. True love among her own kind is her only possibility for happiness and finding her place in the world. A cast of thousands populates this epic novel, and Borchardt lovingly sketches the dozen or so of the most fascinating of them. The outcasts who befriend Regeane, including Antonius, the leper, and Elfgifa, the young Saxon child Regeane cares for, enrich this tale. But the character that comes most brilliantly to life is Maeniel, the barbarian lord who must accept the marriage with the penniless Regeane for his own political purposes. This is fantasy at its best, and storytelling that is vivid and engaging. I loved this book, and for those who relish a swashbuckling story of the supernatural, Alice Borchardt delivers. Her history is colorful and lively, and her supernatural love story is enchanting. Highly recommended. - Douglas Clegg Douglas Clegg is the author of numerous horror and suspense novels, including Dark Of The Eye and The Children's Hour. His recent critically acclaimed short story "O, Hardcover 6- 1/2 x 9-1/2"

[SW: Werewolves -- Fiction, Rome (Italy) -- History -- 476-1420 -- Fiction, Young women -- Fiction, Historical fiction, Fantastic fiction]

Details

Borchardt, Alice: The Silver Wolf, New York Random House Publishing Group 1998
0-345-42360-7 AS NEW CONDITION

Alice Borchardt turns away from her romantic fiction and takes a cue from her sibling Anne Rice in her wickedly delightful werewolf fantasy tale, The Silver Wolf. Carnage, romance, a cast of thousands, and lots of fur - what more could you possibly want in a fantasy novel? Author Douglas Clegg takes a look at this wild genre-breaker, which may be the breakout Borchardt has long deserved. Alice Borchardt has written some lyrical fiction in her novels Beguiled and Devoted, but with this new novel, she has what is often called in the trade a breakout book. This usually means a book that is the best, biggest, most expansive novel from a writer who has yet to break into the bestseller lists. With The Silver Wolf, Borchardt has, I believe, just reached critical mass with her fiction. The Silver Wolf is a richly textured, lush epic of history, romance, and fantasy, all interwoven like a beautiful tapestry. This is a novel not to be missed, particularly if you're a fan of Borchardt's sister, Anne Rice. Although Borchardt definitely has a voice distinct from - and less horrifying than - that of her more famous sibling, The Silver Wolf is a novel that, like The Vampire Lestat or Rice's recent Pandora, is ripe and delicious in its panoramic view of history and the fantastic beings who inhabit it. A thread of strong romance flows through The Silver Wolf, despite its supernatural trappings. For lovers of romantic paranormal fiction, werewolf lore, and ancient history toldwith bravado, Borchardthas written a winner. The Rome of the Dark Ages is gorgeous in its decay and dying glamour. Regeane, a stunning waif, has a blood legacy of both royalty and supernatural darkness. Her parents were cousins to the Emperor Charlemagne, which is as much a curse for her as it is a blessing. There are those who will use her for political means by forcing a marriage that she does not want. But a lycanthropic tendency also runs in her blood: Regeane is a werewolf. Her uncle, Gundabald, who had a hand in murdering Regeane's werewolf father, treats her as a prisoner in order to ensure that she will marry according to the royal decree. Gundabald's brutality toward her is matched by that of the Roman world Regeane finds herself in after her protective mother's death. But even on this journey and struggle that becomes her life, as she learns both the good of her wolf self and the evil of the human world, she can't deny the strong chemistry she feels with the barbarian she is meant to marry. Lest you think that The Silver Wolf then descends into scenes of carnage, rest assured, it is first and foremost a fantasy tinged with romance in a historical setting. A great many scenes of life in the raw do occur in this story, but the nobility of the human and animal spirits that emerges lifts the reader from the darkness of Regeane's life. Regeane is torn by loyalties, both to family and within her own soul, but what takes over this novel is its baroque atmosphere and the passion and obligation that pull at Regeane. True love among her own kind is her only possibility for happiness and finding her place in the world. A cast of thousands populates this epic novel, and Borchardt lovingly sketches the dozen or so of the most fascinating of them. The outcasts who befriend Regeane, including Antonius, the leper, and Elfgifa, the young Saxon child Regeane cares for, enrich this tale. But the character that comes most brilliantly to life is Maeniel, the barbarian lord who must accept the marriage with the penniless Regeane for his own political purposes. This is fantasy at its best, and storytelling that is vivid and engaging. I loved this book, and for those who relish a swashbuckling story of the supernatural, Alice Borchardt delivers. Her history is colorful and lively, and her supernatural love story is enchanting. Highly recommended. - Hardcover 7 x 9-1/2"

[SW: Werewolves -- Fiction, Rome (Italy) -- History -- 476-1420 -- Fiction, Young women -- Fiction, Historical fiction, Fantastic fiction]

Details

Rice, Anne: Servant of the Bones, New York Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1996 ; fester Einband / hard cover; Schutzumschlag / dust cover; 1. Ed. ISBN: 0679433015
0679433015 Near Fine

I6 - DJ is mylar protected. DJ has some light wrinkling on the top and bottom of the spine, some label residue on the back, and light shelf wear otherwise very good. Book has light shelf wear otherwise fine. He is ghost, demon, angel-in love with the good, in thrall to the evil. He pours out his... First Edition Very Good Hard Cover 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall; First Edition

[SW: FICTION HORROR AZRIEL SERVANT BONES]

Details

Anne Rice. Servant of the Bones. Knopf,
0679433015 From Publishers Weekly Neither a vampire nor a witch nor a mummy, but a genie provides the focus of Rice's latest (after Memnoch the Devil). The queen of high-decadent gothic deviates from her formula of interlacing spirituality and carnality here: only in the novel's latter pages do lusty sensuousness and brisk pacing leaven a series of cerebral metaphysical struggles. This unusual approach arises from the central dilemma of the story. "Servant of the Bones" Azriel is a "genii" who, until his emergence in 1995 New York, is only a shell filled with spirit, not a corporeal presence ripe for Rice's usual dark eroticism. In the novel's first half, Azriel tells his tale: born a Hebrew in Babylon at the time of Cyrus, he is sacrificed in order to free his people, his body boiled down to golden bones. He then is cursed by a necromancer to be bound to the bones. Over the millennia, he is a spirit at the beck and call of a series of "Masters" who possess his casket. When Azriel calls himself into human form in the present day, he encounters plastic, airplanes?and the Temple of the Mind, a cult of computer-created creed that threatens to kill two-thirds of the earth's population. Azriel's emergence as a sensual being and the suspense generated by the Temple's Last Days project will help readers to forget the book's initial 300 pages, in which they must track Azriel from swirling particles to thickening flesh. Yet Rice's impeccable research into science, history and Jewish scholarship will probably leave readers impressed and entertained. 1,000,000 first printing; BOMC and QPB main selections. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Library Journal Departing from tales of witches and vampires, Rice (Memnoch the Devil, LJ 4/15/95) tells of Azriel, a young Jewish man in ancient Babylonia who must mystically take on the form of the god Marduk. He is instead transformed into a spirit, destined to travel through time, summoned forth periodically by a Master, for whom he brings wealth and power. At the end of the 20th century, however, Azriel finds that he has developed the power to summon himself and work for good and the love of others. Ancient Babylonia is fascinating, but when Rice cuts to the present and Azriel's battle with a modern madman's attempt to rule the world, she falls into the mundane. Rice is also too fond of her descriptions of Azriel's fullness of life. This becomes tedious, slowing the pace, as does the use of two first-person narrators. Rice readers will demand it, but will they like it. -?M.J. Simmons, Duluth P.L., Minn. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Review Farewell, bloodsuckers! Hail, Azriel the Ghost! So thinks the reader plunging into Rice's latest supernatural epic, in which Azriel, the Wandering Babylonian Ghost who cannot die, replaces Rice's familiar casts of vampires and witches. The first half of the novel shows Rice (Memnoch the Devil, 1995, etc.) at her descriptive best, her purple pen limning Babylon's hanging gardens, golden passageways, and jeweled clothing. Young Azriel, a Jew who works for the Babylonian priests and whose best friend is the god Marduk, is murdered by a magician who coats Azriel's bones with heavy gold: Throughout the ages any magician who owns the bones can call forth Azriel, a rebel ghost and impudent genie. Rice imaginatively describes in depth the swimming spirit world of competing gods and ghosts who, unseen, walk the streets of Babylon, and the reader surrenders happily to their presence amid the ancient splendor. Azriel hops and skips through the centuries and through a number of masters until suddenly, seemingly unsummoned, appearing before a Fifth Avenue clothing store in time to see wealthy young Esther Belkin murdered, Azriel quickly kills the three assassins who've driven ice picks into her. But why is he here in this reelingly strange modern Babylon of skyscrapers and hurtling taxis? It's soon clear that Esther's death is the sacrifice of his own daughter to God by multibillionaire televangelist Gregory Belkin, high priest of the Temple of the Minds. Gregory has a worldwide following and is about to wipe out much of the earth's population so that he can "rise from the dead" and become the globe's Messiah. Can Azriel stop him? The novel is dedicated to GOD, who may find Rice's modern-day scenes plotted waveringly as she paddles about. Lesser readers may wish she'd stayed in Babylon, where their suspension of disbelief and her imaginative energies are at their strongest. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Product Description In a new and major novel, the creator of fantastic universes of vampires and witches takes us now into the world of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the destruction of Solomon's Temple, to tell the story of Azriel, Servant of the Bones. He is ghost, genii, demon, angel--pure spirit made visible. He pours his heart out to us as he journeys from an ancient Babylon of royal plottings and religious upheavals to Europe of the Black Death and on to the modern world. There he finds himself, amidst the towers of Manhattan, in confrontation with his own human origins and the dark forces that have sought to condemn him to a life of evil and destruction..

Hardcover, Very Good

Details