Summary
AMC+ has been expanding its Immortal Universe franchise, dedicated to televisingthe world of writer Anne Rice, and luckilyAnne Rice filled her career with numerous intriguing publications to dig intowhile watching the shows.Between 1976 and 2018, Anne Rice authored 36 novels. In 2022, a novel she co-authored with her son, Christopher, was released two months after her death. Among these works are abundant gems for fans of Immortal Universe shows, far beyond justThe Vampire Chronicles, whichInterview with the Vampireis steadily adapting.
Interview with the Vampireseason 2blew critics away and with season 3 coming up,real obsessives may enjoy looking into some of Anne Rice’s other serieswith a supernatural spin. Likewise,Mayfair Witchesstarted airing in 2023, adapting Rice’sLives of the Mayfair Witchesbook series and proving the TV potential of Anne Rice content. Season 2 is approaching, and those with a penchant for the fantastical world of the Mayfairs may well be interested in some of Anne Rice’s back catalog.
All 13 Books In The Vampire Chronicles Series, Ranked
Anne Rice’s legendary The Vampire Chronicles book series, featuring the vampires Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt, ranked.
8The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned (1989)
The Mummy Is An Excellent Entry Into The “Horrormance” Genre
The Mummy, or Ramses the Damnedis a sexy horror novel by Anne Rice diving into the world of Ancient Egypt, so fans of this era shouldn’t hesitate to give it a go, andfans of the erotic tone of the Anne Rice TV shows may not be disappointedeither. Written one year afterThe Queen of the Damned, one gets the impression that Anne Rice had damnation on her mind in the late ’80s. It’s a fair comment, bearing in mind Anne Rice’s fixation on spirituality throughout her career.
The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned
#1
1989
#2
2017
#3
2022
The reason this is a good recommendation for fans of the Immortal Universe shows is the ample overlap in theme and tone.The Mummy, or Ramses the Damnedexpands on Anne Rice’s budding expertise in the horromance genre.This novel scares and seduces at the same time, likeInterview with the Vampiredid so well andMayfair Witchesbegan to accomplish. Ramses is a new breed of supernatural love interest, which readers may be able to correlate withInterview with the Vampirecharactersin a few ways.
7Angel Time (2009)
A Book That Coincides With Rice’s Return To The Church
This is perhaps one of Anne Rice’s less commercial novels, butthose who enjoyedInterview with the Vampire’ssearing criticism of Christianity may find in this book some powerful and surprising contextforInterview with the Vampire. The resonance of Lestat’s criticism of religion inInterview with the Vampirecan’t be understated. Loss of faith and alienation in religious circles is a bold, humane theme for the show to dare to dive into, and hugely relevant to the queer community it is doing so well at representing.
This is the kind of redemption Anne Rice explored for her vampires in the last few books inThe Vampire Chronicles.
Angel Timeis the first book in Anne Rice’sThe Songs of the Seraphimbook series, one which coincided with Anne Rice’s return to the church. Readers ofThe Vampire Chronicleswill be no stranger to Anne Rice’s meandering ruminations on faith, with book five,Memnoch the Devil, giving what may be a closer approximation to this novel than the others in the series.Rice goes deep into redemption in this novel, examining it through the assassin main character. This is the kind of redemption Anne Rice explored for her vampires in the last few books inThe Vampire Chronicles.
Songs of the Seraphim
2009
Of Love and Evil
2010
6The Wolf Gift (2012)
A Possible Future Crossover For Interview With The Vampire
The Wolf Giftis the first of Anne Rice’sThe Wolf Gift Chronicles, which does for werewolves something similar to whatThe Vampire Chroniclesdid for vampires. Vampires had various gifts inThe Vampire Chronicles, such as the cloud gift and mind gift. Anne Rice continues this logic here, as her lead character Reuben Golding discovers his new powers as a werewolf in this outlandish story. It has a slight flavor of the superhero genre to it in Reuben’s exploration of his abilities, andhas the erotic thriller elements that makeInterview with the Vampirefun.
2012
2013
The Talamascashowcoming up for Immortal Universe touches on the secret society evident inThe Vampire ChroniclesandLives of the Mayfair Witches, but there’s a chance it could adapt elements ofThe Wolf Gift Chronicles. There’s no book based solely on this organization, so the show will have to pull content from somewhere.The Talamascawill most likely feature ample crossover with bothInterview with the VampireandMayfair Witches, so getting ahead andreadingThe Wolf Giftbefore the new show comes out may be rewardingfor Immortal Universe fans.
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5Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (2005)
A Book That Showcased Rice’s Own Unique Spirituality
Christ the Lord: Out of Egyptis the first in a two-part book series chronicling the life of Jesus Christ. It issurprisingly one of the Anne Rice series that may actually have quite wide appeal, despite its narrow focus. It is one of Anne Rice’s most beguiling publications, extraordinary even if only as a glimpse into the inner workings of her own, personal spirituality. For anyone invested in the religious themes inInterview with the Vampire, this is a must-read. It’s not really too far removed from Anne Rice’s other work in terms of content either, as the blurb establishes:
He is the supreme supernatural hero… the ultimate outsider and the greatest immortal of them all.
Anne Rice is, of course, talking about Jesus here, and she’s making a sharp point about what all her heroes have in common. Anne Rice’s vampires were all outsiders, and they became a metaphor for the LGBTQI+ communities that they represented.Anne Rice struggled to reconcile the church with its rejection of the LGBTQI+ communities all her life, and writing this novel, she was starting to formulate her own, unique spirituality that could stand independently of the church’s problems. She created this historical novel that depicts Jesus' life from his own perspective.
2005
2008
4The Claiming Of Sleeping Beauty (1983)
Anne Rice’s First Novel In The Erotica Genre
Crystallizing Anne Rice’s talent as a writer of steamy scenes,The Claiming of Sleeping Beautyis Anne Rice’s first foray into the erotica genre, with literotica her sole pursuit in this kinky novel. It is the first of four in a series following the female protagonist Beauty, along with Alexi, Tristan, and Laurent, in their BDSM encounters. Written under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure, Rice only admitted to penning this series in the ’90s. It’s not often a writer’s ‘best of’ list includes both Christian literature and BDSM pornography, which speaks to the complexity of the psychological portraits in her work.
1983
1984
1985
#4
2015
Written between the firstVampire Chronicle, Interview with the Vampire, and the second,The Vampire Lestat,this novel is the fascinating document of Anne Rice starting to break her stories out of repressed desireand into explicit, queer narratives with no holds barred. Anne Rice grew into this explicit language later inThe Vampire Chronicles, which the TV show riffed on spectacularly. Those looking forward to the bloody homoeroticism continuing inInterview with the Vampireseason 3may well appreciate this series, but a trigger warning for sexual assault and adolescent sex activity must be applied.
3Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession (2008)
Rice Analyzes Interview With The Vampire Through A Spiritual Lens
Anne Rice wrote a memoir in 2008 titledCalled Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, which logs her return to Christianity.Religion is an enduring theme in Rice’s work, and her spiritual beliefs can be tracked across her fiction in their varying states. This is essential reading for anyone interested in how this applies inInterview with the VampireandMayfair Witches, plus the associated texts. Crucially, Anne Rice deals withInterview with the Vampire’santi-hero Lestathead-on in this book:
My hero, the Vampire Lestat, the genderless giant who lived in me, was always the voice of my soul in this novel [2002’sBlackwood Farm] and it is no accident that he begins it with a cry of the heart, ‘I want to be a saint, I want to save the souls of millions!’ [But] by the end of the novel, confessing his failure ever to be anything but a rambunctious reprobate and Byronic sinner, he…resigned as the hero of the books which had given him life…This character who had been my dark search engine for twenty-seven years would never speak in the old framework again.
This is no small or insignificant sentiment. These words defined the cataclysmic change inThe Vampire Chroniclesthat took place between 2003’sBlood Canticleand 2014’sThe Prince Lestat.Rice had thought herself done withThe Vampire Chroniclesand Lestataround 2003-2008 after the religious epiphanies described in this memoir, but thankfully, she realized how wrong she was and eventually wroteThe Prince Lestat. The change of direction inThe Prince Lestatwas jarring for some, especially combined with what seemed to be a slight shift in writing style, but the TV show has interestingly already adapted its character Fareed.
2Vittorio the Vampire (1999)
Yet Another Successful Vampire Series
Anne Rice was writingThe New Tales of the Vampiresin the midst of writingThe Vampire Chronicles, and thus was bornVittorio the Vampire. Outside ofThe Vampire ChroniclesandLives of the Mayfair Witches,the two tales in this vampiric book series are the most relevant readingforInterview with the Vampirefans. Vittorio is interesting in that he sees angels - angels are a thread that runs through Rice’s work, notably inThe Songs of the Seraphim. This novel is testament to the profound interrelatedness of all of Rice’s work.
1998
1999
The deeper the reader is in the Anne Rice rabbit hole, the clearer it all becomes. Some will say thatThe New Tales of the Vampiresare skippable, even for vampire and horror fans, whereas some out-and-out include both of them inThe Vampire Chronicles.Vittorio is a standalone novel but exists in exactly the same universe asThe Vampire Chronicles, so it does enrich the lore and world-building of that series and its characters.The newTalamascashowcould always dip its toes intoThe New Tales of the Vampires, taking Vittorio as a subject of investigation for its paranormal detectives.
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1Pandora (1998)
An Honorary Member Of The Vampire Chronicles
Pandora is nearly aVampire Chronicle, if not an honorary member of the series, by virtue of its huge crossover points with the books.The novel makes a lot of references toThe Vampire Chronicles,which aren’t necessary to understand to enjoy it. Anne Rice’s premiere vampire series involves Pandora in a fairly important way, but doesn’t necessarily require reading this novel to grasp. Nonetheless,Interview with the Vampirefans making their way into the source material would do very well to pick up this book.
Pandora is actually key in the lore ofInterview with the Vampire, forming a close relationship with Marius, who made Armand into a vampire.Armand and Daniel’s storywas starting to emerge at the end ofInterview with the Vampireseason 2, and Marius has been confirmed to be joining season 3, soPandora may well join the show at some point. Pandora is a great character and this novel is full of historical intrigue, tying into storylines fromThe Vampire ArmandandBlood and Gold.
Interview with the Vampire
Cast
Based on Anne Rice’s novel series that began in 1976, Interview with the Vampire is a gothic horror fantasy series that explores the life of Louis de Pointe du Lac through an interview with a journalist. Told through flashbacks of Louis' life during the interview, the series examines Louis' relationship with the vampire that turned him, Lestat de Lioncourt, and a teenage girl named Claudia, whom he turns. The series is the first of Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe media franchise.
