Anne Rice

"Servant of the Bones," by Anne Rice. Alfred A. Knopf. 387 pages. $25.95.Though Anne Rice's latest novel "Servant of the Bones" falls short even by the standards of page-turning fiction, she's still sure to sell it by the coffinful. She's already so sought-after that she must limit autograph sessions to ward off wrist fatigue; so popular that fans have bought more than 100 million copies of her books worldwide."Servant of the Bones" is a departure for Rice in that it concerns itself with neither vampires nor witches, but with an affable spirit named Azriel.

"Today, I quit being a Christian." With those words last week on Facebook, Anne Rice delivered a wake-up call for organized religion. The question is whether it will be recognized as such. "I remain committed to Christ as always," she wrote, "but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For 10 years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider.

"Interview With the Vampire" author Anne Rice shot a letter off to People Weekly on Tuesday taking issue with a short magazine article on Tom Cruise and advising the magazine not to be "so eager to whore for [Pat] Kingsley or Cruise" by writing "idiotic trash" from the publicity machine run by Pat Kingsley.The May 9 People article says Ms. Rice didn't want Tom Cruise to play the Vampire Lestat because she wanted "a less clean-cut lead."Ms. Rice wrote, "Did Pat Kingsley dictate it to you, or are you really that stupid?"

When best-selling novelist Anne Rice was a good Catholic girl growing up in New Orleans, she dreamed of becoming a leader of the church. Instead, she abandoned Catholicism at 18 and stopped believing in God. She joined the Haight-Ashbury hippie milieu and evolved into the best-selling author who elevated the sexually ambiguous vampire Lestat to cult status. She wrote pornography under one pen name and erotica under another. Now, she has come full circle - and may finally be getting her childhood wish.

To enter Anne Rice's world is to step into a subculture of vampires, ghosts, witches and warlocks.Her characters are not the grotesque creatures of nightmares, though. They are rich, beautiful women and debonair men haunted by ancient, dark secrets.Her vampires and witches have names, personalities and feelings. They are tortured, sympathetic souls, who often have no choice in their fates.Ms. Rice has written four vampire books since 1976, often referred to as the Vampire Chronicles. It wasn't until 1990 that she veered from fangs to spells.

"Interview with the Vampire" does seem to have discovered something like the secret of eternal life. At least when you leave the theater, you feel as if you've been in it for a thousand years.Derived from the beloved first novel by mistress of the dark Anne Rice, it unfortunately seems a work primarily intended for Rice Krispies -- that is, people who've already had their brains toasted by reading too much Anne Rice.They'll at least get it. The movie's fundamental flaw, from an outsider's point of view, possibly stems from the fact that Rice wrote the screen adaption, under the assumption that her viewers would be familiar with the original text and that her main thrust should be to get as much of the book into the film as possible.

"Memnoch the Devil: The Vampire Chronicles," by Anne Rice. 354 pages. New York: Knopf. $25Anne Rice has rewritten the Bible. She's not the first or the last to do that. But until this book, she has always argued that no higher being exists. Now she introduces her readers to the Devil and God.Ms. Rice has become the mistress of macabre by producing a best-selling novel about once a year for either her Vampire Chronicles or Mayfair Witches series. She has always had a talent for placing the monsters of age-old legends into the modern world and making them seem really quite human, with emotions and sexual desires.

Can you give me some information about the "vampire tours" in New Orleans?They're called the Anne Rice Tours for the author of vampire books, who lives in New Orleans. The tours have been running since August 1996 and this year added Rice's homes as part of some tours. Locales include Lafayette Cemetery, Garden District homes and several places in the French Quarter.Organizers and most tour guides are Rice relatives. Tours operate on foot or on buses, range from two to five hours and in price from $20 up. One is a progressive dinner tour to three different famous restaurants.

When readers leave an autograph session with Anne Rice, they tote away a treasured volume bearing a signature and the memory of perhaps a 20-second conversational exchange.Ms. Rice, however, takes away much more."It saves my life," says the author, whose novels of vampires and witches have produced a legion of fervent fans. Many come to her appearances wearing shadowy capes and showing finely honed fangs."It's like they're saying, 'You're not the weirdo in school that everybody said you were, who would never be anything.

She enters the hotel lobby trailing darkness; a small figure draped in flowing black, her long, dark hair falling like a curtain across her forehead and cheeks, her tiny feet encased in strange-looking black leather shoes. At first glance, Anne Rice, the novelist who has gained a cult following by inventing believable vampire minds and creating erotic, secret worlds inhabited by the living as well as the undead, looks every inch the Daughter of Darkness.Then she smiles and says hello. And like a crucifix held up before a vampire, her warm smile and friendly demeanor chase off any lingering images of unearthly forces and mystical powers gathered into the earthly body standing before you.In fact, an interview with the 49-year-old writer who has been chilling and thrilling readers since the appearance in 1976 of her best-selling "Interview With the Vampire" suggests that Anne Rice would make an excellent librarian: She's knowledgeable, helpful, direct and very, very smart.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt Anne Rice Alfred A. Knopf / 366 pages Three decades ago, Anne Rice published her classic debut novel, Interview with a Vampire, and with that a character nearly as iconic as Dracula was born. Rice's vampire, Lestat, was an angst-ridden, existentialist hero-villain, a vampire far more evolved than the average Hammer Film bloodsucker. Lestat had the suavity of many a vampire, but he also possessed soul and, to a degree, conscience; with Lestat, Rice had created a vampire for our time.

Can you give me some information about the "vampire tours" in New Orleans?They're called the Anne Rice Tours for the author of vampire books, who lives in New Orleans. The tours have been running since August 1996 and this year added Rice's homes as part of some tours. Locales include Lafayette Cemetery, Garden District homes and several places in the French Quarter.Organizers and most tour guides are Rice relatives. Tours operate on foot or on buses, range from two to five hours and in price from $20 up. One is a progressive dinner tour to three different famous restaurants.

Perfection. Admit it, perfection in our significant others is what everyone dreams of, at least in the beginning, where there's still that irrational hope we may have actually found it.Yet, even after five years of marriage and the birth of a child, to his wife Jessica, David Wolde remains perfection -- a stunningly handsome, brown, brilliant package of lean, muscled manliness.Yes, David Wolde is perfect. In fact, he never changes -- literally. The man never grows older, never gets so much as a sniffle, and his mind holds an incredible wealth of knowledge.

Charlotte Anne Rice, 70, Orioles administrative aideCharlotte Anne Rice, who had been an administrative assistant with the Orioles, died of a heart attack Friday at home in Carlyle Apartments in North Baltimore. She was 70.In 1965, she joined the baseball team's public relations department and retired in the late 1970s from its farm teams department."She was an avid baseball fan," said her nephew, Bernard C. Rice of Rosedale, who said his aunt liked "nothing more than to visit old ballparks such as Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park, Municipal Park in Cleveland and County Stadium in Milwaukee.

"Servant of the Bones," by Anne Rice. Alfred A. Knopf. 387 pages. $25.95.Though Anne Rice's latest novel "Servant of the Bones" falls short even by the standards of page-turning fiction, she's still sure to sell it by the coffinful. She's already so sought-after that she must limit autograph sessions to ward off wrist fatigue; so popular that fans have bought more than 100 million copies of her books worldwide."Servant of the Bones" is a departure for Rice in that it concerns itself with neither vampires nor witches, but with an affable spirit named Azriel.

When I decided to enter the gothic arena, it was almost a birthright. After all, Transylvania, where I was born, gave the world Dracula and Ceausescu. And that's only two dark figures in a region that teems with them.When a Transylvanian child grows up, he or she gets to view the pantheon of this inheritance and choose a ghastly figure to take into the world. It provides the child with an advantage, a head start.I chose Countess Elisabeth Bathory of Hungary, who is alleged to have bathed in the blood of 650 virgin girls in order to keep her beauty and insure her immortality.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt Anne Rice Alfred A. Knopf / 366 pages Three decades ago, Anne Rice published her classic debut novel, Interview with a Vampire, and with that a character nearly as iconic as Dracula was born. Rice's vampire, Lestat, was an angst-ridden, existentialist hero-villain, a vampire far more evolved than the average Hammer Film bloodsucker. Lestat had the suavity of many a vampire, but he also possessed soul and, to a degree, conscience; with Lestat, Rice had created a vampire for our time.

The Witching Hour.Anne Rice.Knopf.965 pages. $22.95.Forget Shakespeare and the gloomy foreboding of "Double, double toil and trouble" -- the witches in Anne Rice's novels definitely are not "Hamlet" hags. They are beautiful women who through the vagaries of the birth order become part of the Mayfair family legacy that jumps from Scotland in the 1600s to the Caribbean to modern-day New Orleans.Despite the "accidents" and death that often befall their enemies, we can't help but care about these witches, who often seem perplexed about how to deal with their psychic powers.

"Memnoch the Devil: The Vampire Chronicles," by Anne Rice. 354 pages. New York: Knopf. $25Anne Rice has rewritten the Bible. She's not the first or the last to do that. But until this book, she has always argued that no higher being exists. Now she introduces her readers to the Devil and God.Ms. Rice has become the mistress of macabre by producing a best-selling novel about once a year for either her Vampire Chronicles or Mayfair Witches series. She has always had a talent for placing the monsters of age-old legends into the modern world and making them seem really quite human, with emotions and sexual desires.

Neil Jordan won a Best Screenplay Oscar two years ago for "The Crying Game." He will not win his second for "Interview With the Vampire." Best Director, perhaps. But Jordan's name, which along with Anne Rice's was on an early print of the film under "screenplay by," is not on the print at theaters all over the world. "It's a thing with the Writers Guild," is all Jordan will say.However, Neil Jordan's signature is on every frame of "Interview With the Vampire." He underlines it in a scene where a journalist (Christian Slater)