Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Queen of the Damned - Abridged: The Vampire Chronicles
    Unavailable
    The Queen of the Damned - Abridged: The Vampire Chronicles
    Unavailable
    The Queen of the Damned - Abridged: The Vampire Chronicles
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    The Queen of the Damned - Abridged: The Vampire Chronicles

    Written by Anne Rice

    Narrated by Kate Nelligan and David Purdham

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In 1976, a uniquely seductive world of vampires was unveiled in the now-classic Interview with the Vampire . . . in 1985, a wild and voluptuous voice spoke to us, telling the story of The Vampire Lestat.  In The Queen of the Damned, Anne Rice continues her extraordinary "Vampire Chronicles" in a feat of mesmeric storytelling, a chillingly hypnotic entertainment in which the oldest and most powerful forces of the night are unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

    Three brilliantly colored narrative threads intertwine as the story unfolds:

    - The rock star known as Vampire Lestat, worshipped by millions of spellbound fans, prepares for a concert in San Francisco.  Among the audience--pilgrims in a blind swoon of adoration--are hundreds of vampires, creatures who see Lestat as a "greedy fiend risking the secret prosperity of all his kind just to be loved and seen by mortals," fiends themselves who hate Lestat's power and who are determined to destroy him . . .

    - The sleep of certain men and women--vampires and mortals scattered around the world--is haunted by a vivid, mysterious dream: of twins with fiery red hair and piercing green eyes who suffer an unspeakable tragedy.  It is a dream that slowly, tauntingly reveals its meaning to the dreamers as they make their way toward each other--some to be destroyed on the journey, some to face an even more terrifying fate at journey's end . . .

    - Akasha--Queen of the Damned, mother of all vampires, rises after a 6,000 year sleep and puts into motion a heinous plan to "save" mankind from itself and make "all myths of the world real" by elevating herself and her chosen son/lover to the level of the gods: "I am the fulfillment and I shall from this moment be the cause" . . .

    These narrative threads wind sinuously across a vast, richly detailed tapestry of the violent, sensual world of vampirism, taking us back 6,000 years to its beginnings.  As the stories of the "first brood" of blood drinkers are revealed, we are swept across the ages, from Egypt to South America to the Himalayas to all the shrouded corners of the globe where vampires have left their mark. Vampires are created--mortals succumbing to the sensation of "being enptied, of being devoured, of being nothing." Vampires are destroyed.  Dark rituals are performed--the rituals of ancient creatures prowling the modern world.  And, finally, we are brought to a moment in the twentieth century when, in an astonishing climax, the fate of the living dead--and perhaps of the living, all the living--will be decided.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 4, 2000
    ISBN9780375418280
    Unavailable
    The Queen of the Damned - Abridged: The Vampire Chronicles
    Author

    Anne Rice

    A.N. Roquelaure is the pseudonym for bestselling author Anne Rice, the author of 25 books. She lives in New Orleans.

    Related to The Queen of the Damned - Abridged

    Related audiobooks

    Psychological Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Epic Reads

      Jun 8, 2020

      Epic Reads
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Witches Of Literature

      May 30, 2023

      Tor Books T. KINGFISHER challenges the idea of the “wicked witch” through the gravewitch in her subversive fairy tale Nettle & Bone. The nameless dust-wife—part witch, part gravedigger—is all too willing to help the novel’s heroine on her quest to ki

      2 min read

    • Article

      The History Of Witchcraft

      Mar 17, 2022

      The History Of Witchcraft
      1 min read

    • Article

      Under Its Spell

      Oct 20, 2023

      Under Its Spell
      7 min read

    • Article

      Magpie Myth And Magic

      Jul 23, 2020

      Magpie Myth And Magic
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Short History of Humanity

      May 30, 2022

      A New History of Old Europe By Johannes Krause, Thomas Trappe (Caroline Waight – translator) ISBN: 978-0593229422 Penguin Random House (2021) – $27.00 www.penguinrandomhouse.com Every one of us carries the history of our species in our genes. Armed w

      6 min read

    • Article

      ‘Joyously Subversive Sex Goddesses’: The Artists Who Gave Witches A Spellbinding Makeover

      Oct 27, 2021

      We all know what a witch looks like. A gnarled old face full of warts with teeth missing and bright green skin. Then there’s the long black coat, the tall black hat and let’s not forget the sizable crooked nose, sniffing the fumes rising from a bubbl

      5 min read

    • Article

      Michael Wood On…

      May 12, 2022

      Watching with horror the destruction of Mariupol in Ukraine – the obliteration of a city of more than 400,000 people – my mind went to other cities, other times. More than 30 years ago, in the aftermath of the war with Iran, I went to southern Iraq,

      3 min read

    • Article

      Was Shakespeare a Woman?

      May 10, 2019

      Was Shakespeare a Woman?
      18 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Mar 13, 2023

      Books
      6 min read

    • Article

      Legendary

      May 2, 2021

      Legendary
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tails From The Deep

      Apr 15, 2021

      Tails From The Deep
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Black Fantastic

      Dec 8, 2020

      The Black Fantastic
      7 min read

    • Article

      Happily Ever After

      Jul 11, 2022

      Happily Ever After
      7 min read

    • Article

      QUEEN Of The NILE

      Sep 26, 2019

      QUEEN Of The NILE
      4 min read

    • Article

      Three Delightful New Nature Books

      Aug 31, 2018

      The Greek word apophasis comes from phasis, meaning "image" and apo, meaning "beyond." As William Atkins writes in his vigorously involving new book The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places, the term is used to describe “the unknowability of

      3 min read

    Reviews for The Queen of the Damned - Abridged

    3.5/5

    2,854 ratings52 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Anne Rice is the author to go to when you want to read a really good vampire novel. Not the type of vampire novels where vampires sparkle and are just too over the top (eye roll). This is vampires done well, with all the rich details and history to go along with them. I love this series and need to pick it back up again - I got stuck on the 6th one and need to push through it!
    • 3/5
      Good book. SOOOOO glad I read this before the TERRIBLE movie came out. Nothing but an advertisement for a lousy singer and a bunch of Y2K NU Metal bands. If you read this.....stay as far away from the film as possible and enjoy the story for what it is.
    • 5/5
      OK, I have no idea why in hell Anne Rice allowed Hollywood to make that movie that's "supposedly" an adaptation of this book! They are so utterly & completely different it makes me hate the film. There was SO much of the plot and so many characters that were in the book but left out of the film it makes me confused as to how anyone can see them as the same let alone similar. I'm partial to the film Interview with the Vampire, however Queen of the Damned is nothing but a poppy vampire fad film now after reading the real story of the book. While I'm excited to continue the book series, I also believe that if there's a film series that needs a reboot, it's THIS series. And DO IT RIGHT THIS TIME DAMMIT!!!
    • 4/5
      Explanation of the vampire mythos of Anne Rice. Lestat continues to be an incorrigible rogue.
    • 5/5
      OK, I have no idea why in hell Anne Rice allowed Hollywood to make that movie that's "supposedly" an adaptation of this book! They are so utterly & completely different it makes me hate the film. There was SO much of the plot and so many characters that were in the book but left out of the film it makes me confused as to how anyone can see them as the same let alone similar. I'm partial to the film Interview with the Vampire, however Queen of the Damned is nothing but a poppy vampire fad film now after reading the real story of the book. While I'm excited to continue the book series, I also believe that if there's a film series that needs a reboot, it's THIS series. And DO IT RIGHT THIS TIME DAMMIT!!!
    • 4/5
      Finished last night. Anne Rice's books always take me long to read. It seems I can only take about 50 pages a day although at the end i was reading it a bit faster.

      I really liked to read about the twins, not so much about Akasha and lestat.
      What to do? Shall I try to get a copy of The Tale of The Body Thief?
      3.5 stars on goodreads.which means an 8 out of 10 for me
    • 3/5
      Really torn on this one. Found myself enthralled by the origin story of the vampires, yet found myself annoyed with the trite nature of the final discussion: are humans good or evil? Much of the arguments for them being good sound like some thing from the Lion King. I was also a bit perturbed by how sudden the end of the conflict comes. Finally, Rice spends much time setting up the remainder of the series with the introduction of newer characters and this dilutes the punch of this novel.

      In the end, it's worth a read to learn the history of the vampires as well as to provide the conclusion to the saga of Lestat the rock star, but as a novel, it suffers greatly from "middle book" syndrome: wrapping up old story lines and laying the ground for new ones while not being solid enough on its own.
    • 3/5
      Ok so this next book is definitely the best so far in the series. Even though it is the best it still isn't my kind of story. So I give it 3.5 stars.
    • 5/5
      Great read for vampire lovers.
    • 4/5
      Strange that a book that brought so many feelings of anxiety about death and the hereafter would leave me prouder of the human race at the end.
    • 1/5
      Long, too long... Anne Rice is not famous for the fast-paced action in her book but this one is just to Anne-Ricy for me :o)
    • 4/5
      There seems to be something about Anne Rice's books that has me a little puzzled. A while ago I read 'Blood Canticle' which I liked but something about the book irked me a little. I had then guessed I would probably like the earlier books in the Lestat series better. And I did, I enjoyed this book much more than Blood Canticle. I really like the sensuous almost erotic feel this book has, it makes it all the more exciting. I love the mixture of old and new.What bugged me a little is the jumping from a first person narrative to a thirs person, later in the book. And sometimes Rice's language. (I just can't figure out what bothers me about it though.)
    • 5/5
      Definately one of the best out of the Vampire Chronicles gives a great history on the vampires beginings!
    • 4/5
      This book has its ups and downs, in sections I'm total in love with it and in others it just doesn't click. I'm not sure why but Lestat's sections just don't work and are the ones that don't click the most in this book. But this is an interesting continuation of the the Vampire Chronicles, where all of our old members Louis, Lesat, and Armand along with others are all there and all together but facing the threat of their lives. But I'm not sure to give this 3 or 4 stars, so I'm going with 4.
    • 5/5
      A pivotal book in the series. Great.
    • 4/5
      This is the third installment of the Vampire Chronicles. Now we meet some of the more ancient vampires as new characters are introduced to us. A truly elaborate mosaic of vampire lore and history spread out over six thousand years.
    • 3/5
      This was the last of the vampire chronicles that I read. It just did not engage me like the first two books. I read it when it first came out but I remember really looking forward to the book. My expectations may have been too high.
    • 5/5
      A pivotal book in the series. Great.
    • 5/5
      At first, I hated the concept of having to read this book while jumping back and forth in between the different stories of different characters. But as I kept reading on, I found myself loving every character that I had to read about, and I was anxious to find out what heppened next with Lestat, Jessie, or the story of the legendary twins. I found myself reading through this book faster than I thought I would. Despite the fact that it's thicker than the two books before it in the Vampire Chronicles, I read it much faster than I had with the two previous books.I love the story in it, although I didn't like how easily Lestat fell into doing things he definitely shouldn't have been doing...
    • 2/5
      Perhaps my least favorite in the series due to its choppy presentation of various seemingly unrelated (but of course are related) story lines. I must admit, however, that the stories involving Queen Akasha are highly entertaining. Appropriate for high school and beyond.
    • 4/5
      Third book of the Vampire Series. Not as good as Interview with a Vampire, but I liked getting to meet the other vampires.
    • 4/5
      I stopped here; it seemed a good ending place with the subplots are all tied up. My wife went on to read the rest of the Lestat books, but nothing in her descriptions causes me to feel any desire to go onward to new stories.
    • 5/5
      Lestat wakes Akasha, the Mother of Vampires. Excellent read. (The movies was an abomination.) Wonderful book. My favorite so far.
    • 4/5
      The third book in The Vampire Chronicles, Queen of the Damned, follows three parallel storylines.The rock star Vampire Lestat prepares for a concert in San Francisco, unaware that hundreds of vampires will be among the fans that night and that they are committed to destroying him for risking exposing them all.The sleep of a group of men and women, vampires and mortals, around the world is disturbed by a mysterious dream of red-haired twins who suffer an unspeakable tragedy. The dreamers, as if pulled, move toward each other, the nightmare becoming clearer the closer they get. Some die on the way, some live to face they terrifying fate their pilgrimage is building to.Lestat's journey to a cavern deep beneath a Greek Island on his quest for the origins of the vampire race awakened Akasha, Queen of the Damed and mother of all vampires, from her 6,000 year sleep. Awake and angry, Akasha plans to save mankind from itself by elevating herself and her chosen son/lover to the level of the gods.As these three threads wind seamlessly together, the origins and culture of vampires are revealed, as is the length and breadth of their effect on the mortal world. The threads are brought together in the twentieth century when the fate of the living and the living dead is rewritten.
    • 4/5
      Some parts I didn't quite get, but I did lke this book.
    • 5/5
      This is my favorite out of the series.
    • 5/5
      This is my favorite novel of the Vampire Chronicles. It pulls together a massive cast of the characters with interesting stories, and Rice handles it all very well, building right up to the confrontation at the end.
    • 4/5
      When I started this book, I really had problems getting into it. I think that the problem for me was that it skipped around quite a bit between characters in the beginning and tried to introduce several new ones only to kill off some of them immediatly. In essence, I guess it took me out of my comfort zone and I wasn't too sure that I liked it.But, perseverance paid off and after 150 pages or so, I found myself drawn deeply into this robust story. The book is well written, taking us between current events happening with our vampire friends and deeper into the vampire mythology than we have ever been. Most of this novel focuses on the creation of the vampire race and it certainly does not disappoint. Ms. Rice has created a rich, lush background for her version of the vampire species and by linking them to current events happening to her characters, she makes the history itself come alive...literally!
    • 2/5
      OK. She lost me on this one.
    • 3/5
      A good installment of the Vampire Chronicles.