Interview with the Vampire discussion

So I have three of these books and will be starting Interview With the Vampire soon but I am not sure if I should start reading it until I have the series in order. I have books 1, 3 and 5 and was wondering if I can read them like that if I should get 2 and 4 first. Any advice?

Read the Book#1 one first, to get a feel for her vampires, and a small introduction to them, and for her writing style. the second book is pretty much all history, but the final part of the book leads on to Book #3. In my opinion I think that you can skip Book #2, and Read Book #3. i don't know about the fifth one, since I did not get that far.

Hope this helps!

Definitely start with Interview with the Vampire.
Book two is The Vampire Lestat. This is a good book which will take you back to Lestat's beginning as a Vampire.
Book three is the Queen of the Damned - Lestat's time as a rock star and his encounter with the Queen of all vampires.
Book four is the best book in my opinion - it is called the Tale of the Body Thief.
Book five - Memnoch the Devil is a good read.
The list goes on with:
The Vampire Armand
Merrick
Blood and Gold
Blackwood Farm
Blood Canticle
Supporting vampire characters have their books:
Pandora
Vittorio the Vampire

Anne Rice is my favorite! Hope you enjoy her work

I would definitely read the first three in order. Then after that you could mix them up.

Read 1 thru 4 and really liked all of them. After that, I didn't enjoy them. But I have heard that Armand is good. Fave is Interview and Body Thief. The Mayfair Witch books are pretty good, but got too strange after the first two.

I read them in order. The first 6 were good, 7 was okay...but I couldn't get through 1/3 of Blood and Gold.

I really enjoyed the Mayfair Witches books too ... well, the first two. I've reread the first two a couple dozen times (it seems like), but I just can't get through the third one again.

I've only read the first four vampire books by Anne Rice. My favorite is Queen of the Damned. I would definitely read all three in order.

In my opinion you could skip Interview with a Vampire. I never much cared for the character of Louis. He was too passive for me. Books two and three are from Lestat's viewpoint and go deeply into the history/mythology of Anne Rice's world. These are my personal favorites. Book 2 ends with a cliff hanger of sorts so it is important to read them in order. After that you could go in any order. I didn't care for Tale of the Body Theif, but I adored Memnoch the Devil.

I personally thought the order was very important. I loved all the vampire and witch books she wrote.

I started with Interview with a Vampire first,my dad told me to read it before I watched the move. (so glad I did!) After that I read what ever book I could get my hand on in the series. For me it didn't matter but your others it may.

I think it's safe to say you should start with INTERVIEW, then LESTAT and then QUEEN. LESTAT was my favorite, and I just hated QUEEN. That story was just awful to me.

Thanks for the advice all! I appreciate it, I had to ask because I have made a rule for myself that all the books I own need to be read before I am allowed to buy new ones. But if it is that important to the series I guess I could bend the rules a little.

Margaret wrote: "I would definitely read the first three in order. Then after that you could mix them up."

I agree, I read them back in the 1980's, she added others as time went on, and they can be mixed...

Heather wrote: "I really enjoyed the Mayfair Witches books too ... well, the first two. I've reread the first two a couple dozen times (it seems like), but I just can't get through the third one again.

I've only..."

Woohoo! I loved the "Mayfair Witches" also!

Make sure you don't skip the Vampire Lestat, I've only read the first 5 books in the series but in my opinion it's by far the best.

It's important that you start with "Interview with the Vampire" It's the foundation of the series.

Jamie Jean wrote: "In my opinion you could skip Interview with a Vampire. I never much cared for the character of Louis. He was too passive for me. Books two and three are from Lestat's viewpoint and go deeply int..."

Finally!!! I'v found a kindred spirit, Louis for me was just so useless, I understand he was needed as the part of Lestat that craves to be heard, but his weakness always irritated me to no end.

However, I do think it's important to read the first book first!!!

Bill wrote: "I think it's safe to say you should start with INTERVIEW, then LESTAT and then QUEEN. LESTAT was my favorite, and I just hated QUEEN. That story was just awful to me."


agree wholeheartedly, Queen was so utterly dreadfull that I have not read a Rice book since I read it 15 odd years ago

I'm glad to see so many people loathed Queen as much as I did! Vampire was my favourite of the series and I enjoyed The Mayfair Witches series but my absolute favourite of all her books is The Feast of All Saints.

I think that the best way is to defiantly read the first three first and its best if you read them in order....but after that, while sometimes it does count to read them in order...but the first books are the best...they are ok in the middle but the last one, while a good finale of sorts to the series, gets really weird! So it put me off wanting to read the Mayfair Witch's books.

The Mayfair Witches first two books were good and did get weird after that.

I may be biased, because I really liked all of the chronicles, but they do need to be read in order, if you skip bk 1 you won't understand who Armand is, or why he is important later, nor will you understand who Daniel is, each book builds on the previous one, even if only so that Lestat can bitch about "Inaccuracies." And a bit of forewarning, before you get to Blackwood Farm, if you get that far, at least read Taltos, from the Witching Hour series, it will help to fill in some blanks. Hope this helps. Happy reading.

Whitnie wrote: "So I have three of these books and will be starting Interview With the Vampire soon but I am not sure if I should start reading it until I have the series in order. I have books 1, 3 and 5 and was..."

Book two and three you must read in order as the flow from one to the other is immediate.
The later books bleed into each other and refer back to events that happened in previous books, you may get a little lost without reading them in order.
However you may get away with just reading the ones written 'by Lestat' in order and leaving the other books 'written by' the other vampires to later day, but still to get the full effect it is better in order.
To really understand Merrick and Blackwood farm you will need to acquant yourself with the mayfair witches. Merrick is a Mayfair witch that helps Lestat out. Though who the Mayfairs are is not overly important you will want to have read at the vest least the first mayfair witches book before Blackwood Farm, to have a bit of an understanding of what happened to them.
Pandora and Vittorio are both kinda stand alone books, Pandora is associated with Lestat and the others but her book doesn't need to be read to progress.
Vittorio I don't think knows them personally.
So you could leave those two books out if you wished, or just read them later.

The world building in these books is rather great. It really is worth reading in the correct order

I found a site that gave this recommended reading order. I originally read them as they came out but seeing how there is so much back and forth (time wise) in the books I was curious if there was a better order.
1) Interview with a Vampire
2) Vampire Lestat
3) Queen of the Damned
4) Tale of a Body Thief
5) Memnoch the Devil
6) Pandora
7) Vampire Armand
8) Vittorio
--Read the Mayfair Witches here--
a. Witching Hour
b. Lasher
c. Taltos
9. Merrick
10. Blood & Gold
11. Blackwood Farm
12. Blood Canticle
13. Prince Lestat

I think if you read the books in this order things makes sense as you go along based on back stories....

Pandora (1998) sets up Queen Of The Damned
Vittorio The Vampire (1999) Lestat is not in the book
Blood And Gold (2001) sets up The Vampire Lestat
The Vampire Lestat (1985) sets up Interview With The Vampire
Interview With The Vampire (1976)
Queen Of The Damned (1988)
The Witching Hour (1990) sets up The Tale Of The Body Thief
The Tale Of The Body Thief (1992)
Lasher (1993) fits in with the timeline
Taltos (1994) fits in with the timeline
Memnoch The Devil (1995)
The Vampire Armand (1998)
Merrick (2000)
Blackwood Farm (2002)
Blood Canticle (2003)
Prince Lestat (2014)
Prince Lestat And The Realms Of Atlantis (2016)
Blood Communion: A Tale Of Prince Lestat (2018)

I could be wrong but it works for me....

I think you are right. I like chronological reading and you have the perfect order. It even includes the Mayfair witches.