(no subject)

[cupcake_goth]

 Rest In Peace, Anne Rice.

She was terrible to fanwork creators, her writing/plotting veered all over the place, and she gave us the legendary "You are interrogating the text from the wrong perspective" cranky response to poor reviews on Amazon.

She was also so confident in her work that she pretty much demoted her editor to doing copy edits, and her publisher said "You know what? Sure. Just keep making us money".

I am not exaggerating: The Vampire Chronicles, especially the original trilogy, helped shape who I am, especially as a goth. And I truly believe the 90s goth scene would have been a very different place if all of us hadn't imprinted on her books.

She will always be my favorite problematic author.

Goodbye, Anne Rice. Thank you for the enduring lush crushed velvet vampire world.

Comments

[darkestplaces]

SO much of who I am, who I became in my late teens and twenties was shaped by those books. The first three Vampire Chronicles will forever hold a special place in my heart (as will the C&D my terrible teenage fanfic received!)

[danabren]

Oooh congratulations on the C&D!

[staxxy]

I fully agree with all of this, but especially that she really did leave an imprint on the goth subculture through the 90s.

She also seemed to become more and more problematic as she aged.

[dark_phoenix54]

I had no idea she died! Damn. I kept hoping she'd return to the form she had in the original trilogy, so I kept reading... sadly, but still reading.

[tiggymalvern]

Anne Rice wrote several books that I absolutely loved and read multiple times in my late teens and early 20s. Unfortunately that doesn't give her a free pass on being an unpleasant person, so I find I can't be sad that she's dead, and at a pretty good age.

[luminosity]

Gonna miss her curmudgeonly presence. Because I never had a dog in that fannish race, I found her outrage with fandom both sad and hilarious. I can only imagine what a PITA and fearmonger she was amongst her active fandom, though. I remember some stories. She was colorful, for sure.

Six degrees trivia! - Back in the 19-teens, my grandma and great-aunt were temporarily placed into the orphanage that became Ms. Rice's home in NOLA. (First and Chestnut, on the corner!)

[danabren]

My mother, upon hearing that Anne Rice had died, posted grandly that she'd read all of her books. Really, mom, even the porn? I got no response from that query LOL

Mme. Rice was all of those things mentioned above - impactful on the goth scene, and irascible with her fans; while I'd given up on her after the Lestat book about the violin or whatever, still rolled my eyes when she said she was only going to write about the White Christ. Aaaaand then someone involved realized that she wasn't making money with that *chuckle*

May she be at peace, and thank you for cravats and asexual polysexual vampires.