An anon response re: Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis: “can I skip Kapetria’s Tale and still understand the rest of the book?”

^Kitty by @berrym [X]

TL:DR; Anon says don’t skip it, you should read it. 

I’m of the mindset that there’s something good in all the VC books even if you don’t accept them all as canon, there’s always something worth dragging out into the light and enjoying for what it is as a standalone piece, be it a quote, or good dialogue banter, or whatever floats your boat, and you may miss it if you skip over a whole section… Even if the characters aren’t our faves, there may be something in there that’s worth salvaging. @sanguinivora gave me a new diving suit for this purpose, lol.

ANYWAY so Anon wrote in 4 messages:

1) To your PLROA question: It’s true, in a way 95% of KT could be skipped. Anne Rice told it so boringly, mentioning every detail (every time they ate and what they ate) it did not even have a chance to be interesting as a story (for me it was though also too absurd).

Good to know. I mean, the vampires can’t eat food, maybe this was an attempt to make the replimoids more likeable? That they’re all impressed with the earhtly food and stuff? So her tale was interesting and absurd tho, that’s the impression I’m getting.

2) But still I don’t think that the end of the book will make actually sense if one knows not the facts one hears in KT. You know the outcome, yes, but probably not really why or how it came to be. So my advice is to read that part simply incredible fast, not trying to imagine every single detail.

Sounds like good advice. I’ll be interested to see what info does apply. 

3) Otherwise I find it in a way sad that AR steals every secret. In IWTV we know NOTHING of vampires – which makes that book so strong. Then in TVL we hear the tale of the parents, which gave me chills still. But this book goes for me too far.

If I understand you right, you liked that we didn’t know the vampire origins in IWTV, and then in TVL those origins are discussed and you did enjoy that. I agree, it seems like most VC fandom ppl I’ve talked with love VC partly for its take on the vampire origin myth. I BOUGHT IT THEN AND I BUY IT NOW. And AR even leaves the possibility that there are other vampire-like beings that have a different origin story, like the mindless Eurovamps Louis and Claudia find. They doubt that those vampires were created the way they were, but it’s left unexplained. 

But this book goes for me too far.

That seems to be shared by other fans, too, that she undermines the facts set up in earlier books, rather than adding to them in a richer way :- 

4th message from anon has kind of a big spoiler, so it is under the cut.

4) That all the vampires are separated in the end, takes a LOT of the vampire “magic” and makes so much of the old novels in a way undone. I would never read it a second time and I will also not regard it actually as VC truth.

Yeah I agree with you, one of the things I really loved about the vampire physiology of Ricean vampires was the fact that they were all connected, and to have that severed, it just felt like a huge loss of the vampire “magic” as you put it. Amel could travel around on it and visit other vampires! It was like they really were all one creature in a way. 

I would reread PLROA more for those domestic and angsty moments we get of the vampire court, Lestat squabbling with Amel in his head, the L/L fluff, of course. But for the ALIEMS? No thank you, I really hope she moves on to literally anything else… I would even accept a wurwulf/VC crossover at this point, as it would be more grounded in the universe she had previously built.