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| Blood and Gold (Vampire Chronicles) | 
| Author: Anne Rice
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  192 reviews
Sales Rank: 10544
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 576
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0345409329
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780345409324
ASIN: 0345409329
Publication Date: October 29, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Time heals all wounds, unless, of course, you're a vampire. Cuts may heal, burns vanish, limbs reattach, but for the "blood god," the wounds of the heart sometimes stay open and raw for centuries. So it is for Marius, Anne Rice's oft-mentioned and beloved scholar. We've heard parts of his tale in past volumes of the Vampire Chronicles, but never so completely and never from his own lips. In Blood and Gold, Rice mostly (but not entirely) avoids the danger of treading worn ground as she fills out the life and character of Marius the Lonely, the Disenchanted, the Heartsick--a 2,000-year-old vampire "with all the conviction of a mortal man." Plucked from his beloved Rome in the prime of his life and forced into solitude as keeper of the vampire queen and king, Marius has never forgiven the injustice of his mortal death. Thousands of years later, he still seethes over his losses. Immortality for Marius is both a blessing and a curse--he bears "witness to all splendid and beautiful things human," yet is unable to engage in relationships for fear of revealing his burden. New readers to the Chronicles may wish for a more fleshed-out, less introspective hero, but Rice's legions of devoted fans will recognize Blood and Gold for what it is: a love song to Marius the Wanderer, whose story reveals the complexities and limitations of eternal existence. --Daphne Durham
Product Description
“RICE WRITES WITH HER USUAL EROTIC AND HISTORICALLY EVOCATIVE FLAIR.”
–People
Once a proud Senator in Imperial Rome, Marius is kidnapped and forced into that dark realm of blood, where he is made a protector of the Queen and King of the vampires–in whom the core of the supernatural race resides. Through his eyes we see the fall of pagan Rome to the Emperor Constantine, the horrific sack of the Eternal City at the hands of the Visigoths, and the vile aftermath of the Black Death. Ultimately restored by the beauty of the Renaissance, Marius becomes a painter, living dangerously yet happily among mortals, and giving his heart to the great master Botticelli, to the bewitching courtesan Bianca, and to the mysterious young apprentice Armand. But it is in the present day, deep in the jungle, when Marius will meet his fate seeking justice from the oldest vampires in the world. . . .
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| Customer Reviews: Read 187 more reviews...
 i couldn't pick it up... August 10, 2008
I loved every one of this series, but this one made me yawn, i have owned this book for years and STILL haven't finished it. not riveting at all...
Fire really isn't all that important to a Vampire Hmm?? November 13, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
It's a good thing that Anne Rice has decided to only write inspirationals from now on. Truly it is because her novels have degenerated beyond repemption. At least I won't be surprised if the last two of her novels I have left to read are any indication.
Sloppiness can be an art form true. But even well done sloppines is too good of a term for her work in the twenty-first century. Consider herein Rice in 1530s Venice says of a contemporary that they "surely" know the age of an artifact from ancient Antioch. Sheer rubish. Unless of course word-of-mouth is a new power of "creatures" back then. Again folks get ready for the disruptive addiction Rice has to the word "creature."
But then fire has always been a way to kill a vampire. Either from the Sun or not. But then Marius spends 400 pages in his book and never says a word about getting burned out of his gord one night. Not a peep.
Sloppiness is surely one thing that Anne Rice could spend a little time trying to avoid. I am not one to nit pick over every discrepency in this Author's works only because I am at he close of her career as it stands now. But I will miss her.
 What the...? September 14, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I thought this author hated fan fiction. I mean, on her web site she forbade her fans from writing any more of it back in 2000.
And yet, skimming through this book, I saw scene after scene, dialog thread after dialog thread, that seemed to have been plucked directly from some of the (much better written) fan fiction I've encountered over the years. Take the scene in which Marius and Thorne go out to the local watering hole and meet up with three ladies, for instance. I read that same scene in a piece of fan fic fully two years before this book was released. The fan's scene involved different characters, but otherwise it was nearly verbatim.
Then again, maybe that was the real reason she demanded all fan fiction be removed from the Internets.
Outside of that rather intriguing item, this book was a crashing bore.
 Not Free SF Reader September 3, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Blood and Gold is an example of another book of the Vampire Chronicles series that is of around the same quality as The Vampire Armand.
Instead of Armand though, this is Marius' story, and Armand is of course part of this. However, the major focus is his discovery of a vapire, his turning, and his eventual custodianship of the two ancient statue-like vampire elders, and the problems this causes.
 I love this book August 24, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is one of my personal favorites for Anne Rice. Mostly just because the character Marius from the vampire chronicles is also one of my favorites. I love the writing in the book. It is very detailed, as any avid Anne Rice/vampire chronicles fan can attest too, but it doesn't slip into the long-windedness that becomes boring either.
But I loved the story, chronicling from the great Imperial Rome into the Byzantine Empire and then the Italian Renissance until now. There is a love for the each of the time periods described that really comes through.
Being an Anne Rice fan, this book truly is one of my favorites of hers. But as I said, her character of Marius was always one of my favorites anyways.
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