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Audio CD Description Time heals all wounds, unless, of course, you're a vampire. Cuts may heal, burns vanish, limbs reattach, but for the "blood god," the wounds of the heart sometimes stay open and raw for centuries. So it is for Marius, Anne Rice's oft-mentioned and beloved scholar. We've heard parts of his tale in past volumes of the Vampire Chronicles, but never so completely and never from his own lips. In Blood and Gold, Rice mostly (but not entirely) avoids the danger of treading worn ground as she fills out the life and character of Marius the Lonely, the Disenchanted, the Heartsick--a 2,000-year-old vampire "with all the conviction of a mortal man." Plucked from his beloved Rome in the prime of his life and forced into solitude as keeper of the vampire queen and king, Marius has never forgiven the injustice of his mortal death. Thousands of years later, he still seethes over his losses. Immortality for Marius is both a blessing and a curse--he bears "witness to all splendid and beautiful things human," yet is unable to engage in relationships for fear of revealing his burden. New readers to the Chronicles may wish for a more fleshed-out, less introspective hero, but Rice's legions of devoted fans will recognize Blood and Gold for what it is: a love song to Marius the Wanderer, whose story reveals the complexities and limitations of eternal existence. --Daphne Durham

Customer Reviews An improvement on the past Vampire books. I discovered Anne Rice a few years ago. I had watched Interview With the Vampire about ten times and thought to myself, hey, why don't I read the books, since they're usually even better, plus you can see where these characters end up going. I've read horror novels every since I was younger, Stephen King, Richard Laymon, Bentley Little, Clive Barker and this seemed a logical step in my never ending search for good authors to read. And a bonus was that these would be higher class horror, since these books really aren't focused on the horror bits, but more on the characters and where they fit and they live in breath in a world of mortals. It's all quite fascintating really, and Anne Rice pulls it off with beautiful prose and terrific stories. The first four or so books in the series were superb, and then quite suddenly the quality started to slowly detiorate. I still enjoyed the novels, but not as much. They seemd to be lacking what those original four had and this continued up until her last book in the series, Merrik. Luckily, with Blood and Gold, a story about one of my favorite side character vampires, Marius, Anne Rice is close to reaching the greatness of those four original novels again. She's not quite there mind you, but close, and I can't wait to read Blackwood Farm and BLood Canticle after this. This story follows Marius as he explains to an old Northern Warrior Vampire, Thorne, about his life story. He starts in some time after he's been created and we follow Marius's story as it weaves through Rome and Italy into the snowy Alps and into present time with the Vampire Lestat, all while he keeps Those Who Must Be Kept safe, which I'm really glad make a return to the series because I really liked the mystery of the King and Queen. The story lets Marius look upon his life where he believes he did a lot of lying to himself and the people around him. Pandora, his lost love after he left her when they argued and then destroyed a band of Satanist Vampires, who Marius searched for for centuries after realizing his folley. Mael whom had a hand in Marius's inception into the blood and whom Marius still hates to this very day. Santino, the evil leader of the Satanist Vampires. Bianca and Amedeo who Marius becomes close to as mortals during his painting years, only to make them into vampires of his own ilk later down the line. There's plenty of trajedy in the story and arguing as Marius tries to keep the secret of Those Who Must Be Kept from the other Vampires, especially the Satanists. It's fascinating to watch Marius latch on to different mortals for different reasons, whether it be because they are a great painter or a beautiful woman who is poisining on a semi-regular basis her party guests. Marius has always been one of my favorite side characters and I had always hoped he'd get a book unto himself like Armad and Pandora did. But that's one of the problems with this book, probably its biggest problem. When you read this story, assuming you've read Pandora, The Vampire Armand and Queen of the Dammed, you're basically rereading a lot of those stories once again in this book. Sure its through the eyes of Marius now and what he thinks, which isn't to enlightning, but its still basically a rehash of those stories. The entire book isn't like that, but there are large sections where you say to yourself, "Hey, I already know all of this." That's probably my only major complaint with the book, that and it's seemingly tacked on bookends of a beginning and an end. The rest of the story is a well written fascinating look into Marius's life and a welcome return for Rice towards the granduer of her beginning Vampire books. Blood and Gold i am 14 and have been reading the anne rice books for the past year i am almost done with this book and can say it is fairly good if you can overlook some parts. but if you have read armand's book i suggest you read this one it explains more about bianca and if she a vampire. It is funny and sad at the same time. It has anne rice wonderful writing sytle. One of the Best Anne always draws me in with her ability to make historical realities suddenly right /now/ and propel it along with great emotion of characters you care for. This story does that and more. Marius progress from his making up to the interview with this particular vampire is a worthy effort from a mistress of the genre. Marius is presented in all his glory and all his passionate faults. If you had to be killed by a vampire you'd wish it to be this one, but at the same time he seems, as do all Anne's vampires, locked into an eternal stasis of emotion and personality that inevitably leads to his own grief. This story ranks with the best of Rice' work along with the first Lestat story and Pandora. You can start with this one if your just casually looking and enjoy it, and you can also find new depth to the series if you've been reading it already.