I’ve been avoiding this Ask for two days bc I generally do not believe in rating things, my love for a thing fluctuates, and I wouldn’t want to offend someone by saying their most fave VC is my least fave VC but I felt like this was a good challenge to try anyways. Apologies if I offended anyone 😛

Another thing that makes it hard to rate them is that ALL of these books are problematic and they all have stuff in them that is painful and scary but you have to understand that I love that stuff, I’m not afraid of scary topics, I dig into them and unpack them and find the benefit of them, so I want to rate the books partly on the Revised Pain Scale by Hyperbole and a Half:

And actually this was a pretty cool thing to do, and I highly recommend you try it! Not surprisingly, when I plotted it all out afterwards, it shows how powerful the series began, at least for me. You guys might want to map it out for yourselves, I’d be curious to see if other ppl get similar results!

So I did a rating for the Happy Scale (H) and Pain Scale (P). Assume the Happy Scale is the exact opposite of the Pain Scale, but escalating in Happy from 1-11 (11 being near-death happiness overload). Dates below are dates of publication, but for MTD onwards, they are also the years I first read them.

Hit the jump for the ratings and a little commentary ^_____^

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It appears that my initial love for the first few books is what got me to keep going, I keep hoping for the same flavor as the first ones had, what addicted me in the first place. I find it in small amounts and it’s enough to keep me soldiering on with it.

You have to realize that when I got into VC in 1994, only the first 4 books were out. After that, I had to wait as each one came out to read it! Bingeing through them just wasn’t an option for baby!Burnadette 😛

Before I go into this I have to say there’s a lot I love about the books and a lot of great and happy things happen in them, too! I usually don’t believe in rating books, bc my perception of them changes over time and depending on different life experiences I’ve had. Essentially, “To define is to limit” -Oscar Wilde. I can see why it might benefit others, tho. So I tried to rate them according to what I feel now, and what’s been consistent.

Your rating will probably vary, it depends on your tolerance level for problematic things, and your love of specific characters, etc. obviously.

The Vampire Chronicles

Interview with the Vampire (1976) – The book that got me into this mess. So passionate, so much subtext, a dysfunctional little family that shouldn’t have existed or had half as much love as it enjoyed, but did both, unpredictable, and a supernatural story like no other that came before or after. 9H, 7P.

The Vampire Lestat (1985) – The book that changed my mind about Lestat and problematic characters as a whole. A force to be reckoned with who just won’t accept defeat. A royal fuckup and an inspiration, that one can fuck up that badly and still try to improve his lot in life, over and over again. 10H, 6P.

The Queen of the Damned (1988) – Lestat’s crazy girlfriend tries to take over the world. What a ride! 9H, 5P.

The Tale of the Body Thief (1992) – Lestat’s vacation as a mortal doesn’t go as well as planned bc of course it doesn’t. There was a lot of difficult stuff in this book but also a lot of comedy, and if you toss it just bc “bodyswap episode” seems dumb to you, you may be missing out on one of the most Lestatuesque displays of Lestat being Lestat. I think it had some catharsis in there, too, bc he has to let go of his idealization of mortality and chooses vampiring over being human. 10H, 7P.

Memnoch the Devil (1995) – When we thought this was the last book in the series, it was bittersweet. On the one hand, we had VC fanfic of the Bible itself, and being an open-minded person I thought that the concepts presented were very stimulating and there were some hearbreaking moments “NOT MY DEAD!” On the other, we had the last shot of Lestat, the last thing he tells us, “Let me pass now from fiction into legend.” Honey, you’ve been a legend since 1976. *cries* I loved it. 9H, 10P.

The Vampire Armand (1998) – He’s not my fave but this book was insightful and made me understand him and feel feelings for him. 6H, 7P.

Merrick (2000) – Initially did not like this, but over time it’s grown on me. I would have loved this book a lot more from Merrick’s perspective, or from Louis. The major thing that happens in it is one of the most painful in the series so that tips my pain scale, and the resolution of it is so good that it tips my happy scale a lot, some might say that event was a cheap thing to pull but I thought it made sense in the fabric of the story. Still think the characters should talk about what happened then, have they all decided never to bring it up bc it’s unpalatable? It deserves more in-canon discourse. 5H, 9P. 

Blood and Gold (2001) – Marius gets a whole book! I didn’t judge it on the historical accuracy/inaccuracy, and yes, some of it felt like a retcon, but so many VC books are retcons, and we have unreliable narrators, so I liked it for what it was. 7H, 2P.

Blackwood Farm (2002) – Most of this is almost not a VC bc it’s about this totally fresh set of characters, who I didn’t really like, so I couldn’t engage too deeply with it. 2H, 1P.

Blood Canticle (2003) – Well what can we say about this Mayfair/VC crossover except what AR has said? It hasn’t worn all that well. As AU fanfic it’s pretty fun. There are some great moments. 7H, 2P.

Prince Lestat (2014) – Treated this like AU fanfic and it was pretty funny, there were flashes of the characters being very believable, but for the most part, 3H, 6P. 

Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (eta 11/29/16) – Pretty sure this is gonna be hilarious AU fanfic, predicting 5H, 2P. 

New Tales of the Vampires

Pandora (1998) – I was never super into her, but I liked her story alright. Still a better love story than Twilight. 4H, 2P.

Vittorio the Vampire (1999) – I was never into him and I didn’t really care for his origin story idk maybe if I were more of a history buff I’d like him more… oh well. I should give him another try sometime but for now: 0H, 1P.