Servant of The Bones, by Anne Rice

It's possible that I'm getting out of my Anne Rice phase or that this book really pales in comparison with her previous works. This is the story of Azriel, a Hebrew youngster in Babylon who can speak to gods and who gets caught up in a macabre scheme that turns him into a sort of genie. It's at best an entertaining book, but not more than that. It starts off looking a lot like Interview With The Vampire (IWTV): Azriel goes to someone to have his story written. He talks about his pain and suffering much like Louis Pointe du Lac, from IWTV, and goes through his tale with the exaggerated romanticism that we've come to love in Mrs. Rice characters. The story goes on and on like a TV movie and doesn't get much better than that. No exquisitely taylored characters as in "Cry To Heaven", no deep philosophical and theological dillemas as in "Memnoch The Devil". Worth reading if you are a die hard fan, but if you are not, you would probably have more fun reading something else, perhaps even one of her other books. I highly recommend "The Vampire Chronicles", "The Mayfair Witches" series and "Cry To Heaven", which is a beautiful description of the tragic lives of the castratti (men castrated at a young age to preserve the qualities of their voices).