{"product_id":"new-tales-of-the-vampires-isbn-9780345476869","title":"New Tales of the Vampires","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eBESTSELLER • From the beloved author of The Vampire Chronicles, two seductive and mesmerizing novels linked by two distinct creatures of the night\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn\u003ci\u003e Pandora\u003c\/i\u003e, fledgling vampire David Talbot chronicles the history of Pandora, a two-thousand-year-old vampire. In \u003ci\u003eVittorio, the Vampire, \u003c\/i\u003eset in fifteenth-century Renaissance Florence, Vittorio finds his world shattered when his entire family is destroyed in an act of unholy violence and embarks on a desperate quest for revenge.\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003ePandora\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Eerily vibrant . . . A wealth of narrative twists and period detail.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Rice’s most beautifully written work . . . a book that celebrates the wonder of the world on every page.”\u003cb\u003e—Raleigh \u003ci\u003eNews \u0026amp; Observer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hypnotically readable.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eMademoiselle \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Rice writes as vividly about the turbulent Roman Empire as she has about New Orleans, Venice, and Paris. Her prodigious research, evident in the peripheral stories that inform us about Pandora’s background and character, provides a bridge to the next installment—the much anticipated tale of Armand.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eTrenton Times \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A marvelous book . . . Pandora in many ways fulfills the promise she first showed in Interview. . . . She is the most fascinating character to come from Rice’s fertile imagination.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eGrand Rapids Press \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Pandora has long been one of her more elusive characters, so fans will relish this vivid rendering of her life and times.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A nicely crafted, action-packed tale.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNew York Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eVittorio, the Vampire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[An] enchanting preternatural tale.”\u003cb\u003e—Associated Press\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sensuous . . . its intensity never flags.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A fascinating tale . . . reaffirms Rice’s title as the queen of vampire literature.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Denver Post \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Rice resurrects the opulent world of the Renaissance. . . . The destruction of the trio of angels are the highlights of this installment of the New Tales of the Vampires. Rice does an excellent job of contrasting the tortured souls of the vampires and the pure beauty of the angels.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Tampa Tribune \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A taut, finely crafted plot, shot through with lush imagery and compelling history, seduces the reader into Vittorio’s world as surely as Vittorio himself is seduced into the realm of the Undead . . . Rice once again makes us see the world through the eyes of the vampire. . . . \u003ci\u003eVittorio, the Vampire \u003c\/i\u003eis at once a morality play, a vampiric and sensual Romeo and Juliet.”\u003cb\u003e—Fredericksburg\u003ci\u003e Freelance Star \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A neatly compressed little tale, with many pleasures, not the least of which is its ability to transport the reader to another time, another place, filled with angels and demons, light and darkness . . . Rice is at her best when writing of a historical period she loves, and the Renaissance is obviously dear to her heart. The political intrigues of the conflict between Florence and Milan, the renowned patronage and complex politics of the Medici, the scandalous life and divine art of Fra Lippo Lippi, the splendors of Michelozzo’s Dominican Monastery of San Marco—all are described in vivid detail.”\u003cb\u003e—New Orleans \u003ci\u003eTimes-Picayune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eAnne Rice\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of thirty-seven books, including the Vampire Chronicles, the Lives of the Mayfair Witches, and the Wolf Gift book series. Rice was born in New Orleans in 1941 and grew up there and in Texas. She lived in San Francisco with her husband, the poet and painter, Stan Rice until 1988, when they returned to New Orleans to live with their son, Christopher. In 2006, Rice moved to Rancho Mirage, California. She died in 2021.\u003cb\u003e1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot twenty minutes has passed since you left me here in the café, since I said  No to your request, that I would never write out for you the story of my mortal life,  how I became a vampire—how I came upon Marius only years after he had lost his human  life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Now here I am with your notebook open, using one of the sharp pointed eternal  ink pens you left me, delighted at the sensuous press of the black ink into the expensive  and flawless white paper.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Naturally, David, you would leave me something elegant,  an inviting page. This notebook bound in dark varnished leather, is it not, tooled  with a design of rich roses, thornless, yet leafy, a design that means only Design  in the final analysis but bespeaks an authority. What is written beneath this heavy  and handsome book cover will count, sayeth this cover.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The thick pages are ruled  in light blue—you are practical, so thoughtful, and you probably know I almost never  put pen to paper to write anything at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Even the sound of the pen has its allure,  the sharp scratch rather like the finest quills in ancient Rome when I would put  them to parchment to write my letters to my Father, when I would write in a diary  my own laments . . . ah, that sound. The only thing missing here is the smell of  ink, but we have the fine plastic pen which will not run out for volumes, making  as fine and deep a black mark as I choose  to make.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I am thinking about your request  in writing. You see you will get something from me. I find myself yielding to it,  almost as one of our human victims yields to us, discovering perhaps as the rain  continues to fall outside, as the café continues with its noisy chatter, to think  that this might not be the agony I presumed—reaching back over the two thousand years—but  almost a pleasure, like the act of drinking blood itself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I reach now for a victim  who is not easy for me to overcome: my own past. Perhaps this victim will flee from  me with a speed that equals my own. Whatever, I seek now a victim that I have never  faced. And there is the thrill of the hunt in it, what the modern world calls investigation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Why else would I see those times so vividly now? You had no magic potion to give  me to loosen my thoughts. There is but one potion for us and it is blood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e You said  at one point as we walked towards the café, “You will remember everything.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e You,  who are so young amongst us yet were so old as a mortal, and such a scholar as a  mortal. Perhaps it is natural that you so boldly attempt to collect our stories.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But why seek to explain here such curiosity as yours, such bravery in face of blood-drenched  truth?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e How could you have kindled in me this longing  to go back, two thousand years,  almost exactly— to tell of my mortal days on Earth in Rome, and  how I joined Marius,  and what little chance he had against Fate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e How could origins so deeply buried and  so long denied suddenly beckon to me. A door snaps open. A light shines. Come in.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I sit back now in the café.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I write, but I pause and look around me at the people  of this Paris café. I see the drab unisex fabrics of this age, the fresh American  girl in her olive green military clothes, all of her possessions slung over her shoulder  in a backpack; I see the old Frenchman who has come here for decades merely to look  at the bare legs and arms of the young, to feed on the gestures as if he were a vampire,  to wait for some exotic jewel of a moment when a woman sits back laughing, cigarette  in hand, and the cloth of her synthetic blouse becomes tight over her breasts and  there the nipples are visible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ah, old man. He is gray-haired and wears an expensive  coat. He is no menace to anyone. He lives entirely in vision. Tonight he will go  back to a modest but elegant apartment which he has maintained since the last Great  World War, and he will watch films of the young beauty Brigitte Bardot. He lives  in his eyes. He has not touched a woman in ten years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I don’t drift, David. I drop  anchor here. For I will not have my story pour forth as from a drunken  oracle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I see these mortals in a more attentive light. They are so fresh, so exotic and yet  so luscious to me, these mortals; they look like tropical birds must have looked  when I was a child; so full of fluttering, rebellious life, I wanted to clutch them  to have it, to make their wings flap in my hands, to capture flight and own it and  partake of it. Ah, that terrible moment in childhood when one accidentally crushes  the life from a bright-red bird.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Yet they are sinister in their darker vestments,  some of these mortals: the inevitable cocaine dealer—and they are everywhere, our  finest prey—who waits for his contact in the far corner, his long leather coat styled  by a noted Italian designer, his hair shaved close on the side and left bushy on  the top to make him look distinctive, which it does, though there is no need when  one considers his huge black eyes, and the hardness of what nature intended to be  a generous mouth. He makes those quick impatient gestures with his cigarette lighter  on the small marble table, the mark of the addicted; he twists, he turns, he cannot  be comfortable. He doesn’t know that he will never be comfortable in life again.  He wants to leave to snort the cocaine for which he burns and yet he must wait for  the contact. His shoes are too shiny, and his long thin hands will never grow old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I think he will die tonight, this man. I feel a slow gathering desire to kill him  myself. He has fed so much poison to so many. Tracking him, wrapping him in my arms,  I would not even have to wreathe him with visions. I would let him know that death  has come in the form of a woman too white to  be human, too smoothed by the centuries  to be  anything but a statue come to life. But those for whom he waits plot to kill  him. And why should I  intervene?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e What do I look like to these people? A woman with  long wavy clean brown hair that covers me much like a nun’s mantle, a face so white  it appears cosmetically created, and eyes, abnormally brilliant, even from behind  golden glasses.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ah, we have a lot to be grateful for in the many styles of eyeglasses  in this age—for if I were to take these off, I should have to keep my head bowed,   not to startle people with the mere play of yellow and brown and gold in my eyes,  that have grown ever more jewel-like over the centuries, so that I seem a blind woman  set with topaz for her pupils, or rather carefully formed orbs of topaz, sapphire,  even aquamarine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Look, I have filled so many pages, and all I am saying is Yes,  I will tell you how it began for me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Yes, I will tell you the story of my mortal  life in ancient Rome, how I came to love Marius and how we came to be together and  then to part.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e What a transformation in me, this resolution.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e How powerful I feel  as I hold this pen, and how eager to put us in sharp and clear perspective before  I begin fulfilling your request.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This is Paris, in a time of peace. There is rain.  High regal gray buildings with their double windows and iron balconies line this  boulevard. Loud, tiny, dangerous automobiles race in the streets. Cafés, such as  this, are overflowing with international tourists. Ancient churches are crowded  here by tenements, palaces turned to museums, in whose rooms I linger for hours gazing  at objects from Egypt  or Sumer which are even older than me. Roman  architecture  is everywhere, absolute replicas of Temples of my time now serve as banks. The words   of my native Latin suffuse the English language. Ovid, my beloved Ovid, the poet  who predicted his  poetry would outlast the Roman Empire, has been proved true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Walk into any bookstore and you find him in neat, small paperbacks, designed to appeal  to students.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Roman influence seeds itself, sprouting mighty oaks right through the  modern forest of computers, digital disks, microviruses and space satellites.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It  is easy here—as always—to find an embraceable evil, a despair worth tender fulfillment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And with me there must always be some love of the victim, some mercy, some self-delusion  that the death I bring does not mar the great shroud of inevitability, woven of trees  and earth and stars, and human events, which hovers forever around us ready to close  on all that is created, all that we know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Last night, when you found me, how did  it seem to you? I was alone on the bridge over the Seine, walking in the last dangerous  darkness before dawn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e You saw me before I knew you were there. My hood was down  and I let my eyes in the dim light of the bridge have their little moment of glory.  My victim stood at the railing, no more than a child, but bruised and robbed by a  hundred men. She wanted to die in the water. I don’t know if the Seine is deep enough  for one to drown there. So near the Ile St. Louis. So near Notre Dame. Perhaps it  is, if one can resist a last struggle for life.","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302381179109,"sku":"NP9780345476869","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345476869.jpg?v=1767733668","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/new-tales-of-the-vampires-isbn-9780345476869","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}