Vittorio The Vampire or Why Idiot Vampires shouldn't breed
Vittorio The Vampire
Or
Why idiot vampires
Shouldn't breed.
Vittorio The Vampire is one of Anne Rice's two 'New Tales of the Vampires.'
Don't let the title fool you. It's just a Vampire Chronicle in disguise. It takes place in the same unvierse as her Vampire Chronicles, mentions the characters of The Vampire Chronicles and the other 'New Tales of the vampires' has to be read between certain two Vampire Chronicles in order to know what's going on with Lestat and Armand.
The only difference between The Vampire Chronicles and the New Tales of the vampires is the book shape. That's it. Anne Rice was under contract in the mid-nineties to write two books a year for about five years, one Vampire Chronicle and one other. These so-called 'New tales of the Vampires' are how she side stepped the contract. If you notice once the contract ran out she stopped writing the New Tales of the Vampires all together and stopped talking about them as if they were a separate series.
The full The Vampire Chronicles are
Interview with the vampire (Made into a film)
The Vampire Lestat (Adapted into two different plays called Lestat)
The queen of the damned (Not to be confused with the awful film of the same name)
Tale of the body thief
Memnoch The Devil
Pandora (New Tales of the vampires. It has to be read at this point in the books because it tells you that Armand is still alive, important to know before The Vampire Armand and Lestat's comditiion and that David Talbot is now collecting the stories.)
The Vampire Armand
Vittorio the vampire (New tales of the vampires)
(At this point it's best to have read The lives if the Mayfair witches which are The witching hour, Lasher and Taltos)
Merrick (Mayfair witches cross over)
Blood an gold
Blackwood Farm (Mayfair witches cross over)
Blood Canticle (Mayfair witches cross over)
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Now on with the review. Vittorio is a teenage boy vampire whom while mortal was instructed by angels that came out of a painting (yes, angels that came out of a painting) to destroy some evil vampires that are keeping humans as drugged cattle. This is also ye 'ol 'You killed my father, prepare to die!' scenario.
Well, Vittorio does just that but there's one he spared. A teenage girl vampire named Ursula. Ursula is in love with Vittorio.
We get a very pointlessly detailed flashback of how when she was first turned into a vampire the other vampires would shove their cold, dead reproductive parts (that don't actually work, because Anne Rice's vampires can't have sex and don't crave sex) into her. That was... really pointless, Anne. You already established they were cruel and petty. This unromantic semi-sex scene was not necessary.
So she tricks our dim little hero by telling him 'If I drink your blood and then you drink the evil out of me, I will be free of this curse!' and Vittorio, whom apparently has never read any vampire story ever, and his angels are off... doing something else... is like 'Uhh... Okay!'
Needless to say he becomes a vampire. He forgives Ursula for tricking him into it and they live happily ever after. Yay! Oh, and the angels have decided to punish him for becoming a vampire by allowing him to see them but they will ignore him. Uh... Okay...
Vittorio was too easily tricked. He came off as an idiot to me. And his seeing angels kept making me think of the boy from sixth sense saying 'I see dead people.' The whole novel felt contrived and riddled with cliches besides very stupid (as in, I'm not sure how they know how to dress themselves) characters.
I read this novel back when it first came out. It's not horrible but by far I would never consider it a very good vampire story.