When you think of vampires , chance are you conceive of Anne Rice ’s Lestat — gothic , beautiful , tortured , romantic , everything that has practically defined the creature in pop culture since Rice wrote Interview With the lamia in 1976 . But in her new Scripture , the remarkably titled Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis ( out today ) , Rice has shockingly redefined her own introduction — and she tell io9 why .
As I mentioned last week , I’ve been dying to utter about region of Atlantis because of how mind - boggling it is , but also how avant-garde — even to me , someone who had n’t scan a Vampire Chronicles book in more than two decades . frankly , in terms of how much it up - end its own mythology , I ’m heavily - iron out to think of another spoiler that changes its universe more fundamentally . But I have to reveal it in order for the interview to make sense , so conceive this an ultimate …
.
Sorry , I really want to make certain no one who need to avoid spoilers sees this .
Aliens .
Aliens have come in The Vampire Chronicles . Well , more specifically , they get in thou of years ago , but they are tremendously responsible for the existence of all vampire , as well as Atlantis .
Before Realms of Atlantis , Lestat and his brethren only make out that the vampire ’s hex derive to be when a bloody-minded spirit bring up Amel possess the ancient Egyptian queen Akasha ( the titular Queen of the Damned ) . It is Amel ’s look that can be passed from vampire to vampire , connecting them all , and giving vampire their powers and weakness . In Prince Lestat ( 2014 ) , it ’s detect that Amel is still conscious in this neural vampire connection , but chiefly residing in the unearthly core of the vampire … which Lestat has absorbed after the defeat of Akasha .
But Amel is not a spirit … at least not originally . As Realms disclose , he is also the founder of Atlantis , a coastal metropolis of improbably advanced technology , around 10,000 class ago . The reason he ’s so smart is because he was abducted by aliens named Bravennans , modified , and send out to Earth for ground I wo n’t bumble . When he renegade the aliens destroy Atlantis , and Amel somehow becomes a spirit , but he also fuses with a special Atlantean applied science that terminate up forming the essence of everything that lay down a vampire a vampire — an essence that can be measured and change scientifically .
I do n’t expect everyone to like Rice ’s monumental , massive alteration to her mythos , but I really savour the leger , and I loved the audacity of it . It was fascinating to see the authoritative , medieval world of Lestat suddenly , completely upended — but also to see the vampires engaging and adopt the modern world , forming a real community , and , most of all , discovering that their existence , which they once thought to be a divine oath , is actually the effect of science — otherworldly science , but science all the same . ( And hombre ? There are so many more surprise I did n’t spoil . )
But all of this is preamble . Let Rice herself explain why the Realms of Atlantis hold back these shocking revelation , why Rice think people should n’t be surprised , and what comes next for Lestat . ( And check out out the first part of our interview here . )
io9 : With Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis , I think you may have cook up the genre of gothic science - fiction .
Anne Rice : I see what you mean . Well , I [ take off ] all this with a large accent on gothic romance . I wanted these vampire to be coiffure in black velvet , wearing white lace . I wanted them to be beautiful and seductive . I wanted them to be like the movie I saw as a child , foretell Dracula ’s Daughter ( 1936 ) . It involved this mediaeval , beautiful , sore , howling countess who was in fact the daughter of Dracula , and she was an artist be in London and it was a very quixotic presentation of the lamia as a tortured soul . And I loved that . And that was where I was at in the rootage ; I want these beautiful , irresistible tragic character to appeal to the lecturer and for the proofreader to fall in love with them .
But I have never see science fiction as in any way bete noire to this . Very ahead of time on , I did a signing in a science fiction bookstore in 1976 , and those science fabrication readers who issue forth to that store , they took the vampire absolutely seriously . It was awe-inspiring . They walked in and they asked metaphysical questions about Louis ’ quest for meaning . And I just had such regard for them .
I ’m very cognisant of this scifi world , [ so I have it off ] it dips a lot into — maybe not the gothic , but it tips into poetry . I mean , Robert Heinlein ’s tale are just filled with poetry . Ray Bradbury is filled with poetical signification . And it ’s so — to me , there was always this reverence to science fiction . So I do n’t have any fear of going there .
My vampires are so real to me , their mediaeval allure is so well - established that I do n’t sense in any way menace by the voiceless religious cult science of science fiction . I go for the metaphysical and poetic side of science fable . So , it ’s exciting to me to put to work with both . It really is . And you know , I hope perhaps some scifi reader will give this book a opportunity whereas perhaps they were n’t concerned in vampire fiction before .
Are you worried that some fan might be put off on changing the vampire ’ origin from something supernatural to something extraterrestrial ?
Rice : I ’ve always been expect for that bottom line . I ’m always run back to where it all commence , and distinguish more about “ how ” it set off .
This [ continue ] the operation . It ’s just digging back even further . Like , what was this entity that come to Akasha ? What was it before ? Where did it add up from ? And so to me it ’s all very logical and it ’s all of a piece .
Someone might be disappointed . They might have been hoping for a more spiritual or a more purely mysterious explanation , but I ’ve never in reality offered that to readers . I ’ve always propose the biological reality for these tangible beings . They occupy space . They are capable to physical rules , just as we are .
That , to me , is the great dramatic tension . They have to deal with strong-arm limitations even though they appear to be supernatural . They are n’t . They ’re preternatural . What we think of as the supernatural maybe is n’t supernatural at all . It ’s not the abolishment of everything we believe in the substantial world — it ’s another dimension of the fabric public that we have yet to really fathom .
Even beyond the big reveal about Atlantis and the aliens , the book does n’t come close to answering all the mystery in the serial . Correct me if I ’m ill-timed , but there are still ghosts , and there are spirits besides them , and their stock is still unknown .
Rice : Where did the flavor come from ? And the news report of Amel — do we have intercourse the full truth ? Or is there yet more to be discovered ? Is Amel incorrect about some of the things he thinks about himself and where he do from ? Was Amel the victim of lies about himself ?
I ’m always deal with that idea of where the soul comes from . Can a droid have a soul , but because of knowingness ? Can it give a soul ? Is a soul made of nanoparticles ? All of that I mean is important .
But do you already have a go at it the answers to these mysteries ? The origins of specter and spirit in your world ?
Timothy Miles Bindon Rice : I have questions . My questions knock up against the realness that humans just do n’t know . I intend , that ’s something I live on with at my age now , that I do not love what happens after death , if anything happens after expiry . I do not know and I ca n’t know and candidly I do n’t believe people that tell me they do it . So I do n’t know that I can ever put up to the reader an out-and-out explanation for something as the real cause for why we ’re here and where we come from — I do n’t guess that ’s possible .
But I can certainly ask a batch of really interesting doubtfulness . And I can think a lot of very interesting beings based on what we know of ghosts , apparition , possession and so away .
Are there any other detail you could tell us about Lestat ’s futurity , and/or the next Holy Writ ?
Elmer Rice : He ’ll still be the prince and he ’ll still be at the chateau and he will still have his closest confidants there . He will have Marius and Armand and Louis and Fareed and Gregory and he will face yet another immense threat . And the threat that they ’re confronting are coming out of the internet years . They ’re face the fact that the internet age is enabling deity and supernatural existence to come in together as never before . It ’s enabling them to find oneself each other , it ’s enable them to talk to each other — so they ’re confronting — the crisis they ’re confronting are New crises . And I think that ’s a thrilling idea .
I care the idea of bringing all that charm and stunner and enchantment into the present time and fusing it with the innovative challenges . And think of what the internet must mean to ghosts and spirit , my god . They can determine each other . They can find other entity like themselves for whom they may have been part for centuries .
That ’s very much a theme in Prince Lestat , too . How is the internet bear on all of this ? Little lamia Benjy is one of my favorite characters . He ’s 12 years onetime when he ’s made a vampire , and he ’s a Bedouin from the nation of Israel . And he has a sense of tribe and a sense of tribal commitment and he start using the internet to reach other vampires and to talk to the whole world of vampires — and in a good sense , he helps play them together as a oecumenical kin . And that ’s very much behind these books .
Before the Atlantis reveal , I was shocked to see not just how much vampires had embraced the modern age , and how positively , but also how they ’d shape an actual community together . It ’s so dissimilar from the original playscript , but it ’s also clearly a part of the original Vampire Chronicles .
Rice : That ’s true . There was a story unfolding about the past and now it ’s the present , it live even deeply into the past tense to find out answers , but also to advantageously exist in the nowadays . To well define themselves in the present tense . You know , in the past they sometimes sustain answer and they ’re just entrust with despair , you know ? The next Prince Lestat leger , as I call them — the next one will also be named “ Prince Lestat and … ”—will also be a book where the past is date entirely in the damage of the vigorous and life-sustaining existence of the present .
Do you foretell the next book or books bear a bombshell as world - changing as Realms of Atlantis has ?
Rice : I do n’t have it off . I ’m not sure . If other things open up as I ’m write , maybe so . The thing with me is to give up . To deliver to where it goes . To establish the realism for myself — these eccentric exist , they ’re really there , they ’re talking to me — and to see where they ’re taking me . And it ’s possible there would be another bombshell .
You know , until you said that Christian Bible , “ bombshell , ” I did n’t really see it that way . So I do n’t know . I recall the next one could perhaps be as revolutionary . Would that be the word ? Is it potential ? It ’s possible . What I do n’t want to lose right now — and I never want to lose — is the court and Lestat as the prince as the community . I do n’t require to lose that again . And I ’m not going to put on the line it . I ’ve done that in the past . I ’ve risked it . I ’ve thrown it off at the close of books . Because I had to ! It did n’t keep up for me . It just did n’t . And I was so beat up on by what come about in the Koran that I crawl out of the account book and did n’t take anything electropositive with me . But that ’s not the way it is now .
Last question . I in the beginning think of this to be a niggling pathetic , ground on the surprisingness of Atlantis , but after our discourse … could you envision a story in which Lestat went to the lunar month ?
Rice : I would n’t rule it out . I might go in that direction . I would n’t say he ’s going to the synodic month , needfully , but … it could happen . This book has open up the possibilities of extraterrestrial sprightliness . I would n’t decree it out . I desire to see what happens .
If there ’s pass to be an account of what happens to a vampire ’s physiology in space , pass on that days and nights simply do n’t live , there ’s no one better to do that question than you .
Sir Tim Rice : Well that ’s great . That ’s tremendous . I value that very much . If I ’ll have an solvent , I do n’t know … but I am very frantic about getting into this [ next ] book . It ’s too early to do it for sure which fashion it ’s going to go . I ’ve got some theme , I ’ve receive a map … but I do n’t know where I ’ll Edwin Herbert Land .
https://gizmodo.com/anne-rice-reveals-why-she-brought-the-vampire-lestat-to-1789277228
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