Taltos

A few years ago, I got back into reading Anne Rice, and found there was huge backlog of books to catch up on. Determined to go through them in order of publication, I picked up with the second stage of the Vampire Chronicles, and then moved on to the Mayfair Witches. These were a trilogy, set in the Louisiana and New Orleans of Lestat, and Louis, and the Talamasca, but with a set of characters completely separate from her universe of bloodsuckers. And as I stated in earlier reviews of THE WITCHING HOUR, and LASHER, I much preferred her tales of the undead to the hot and heavy story of the voluminous Mayfair family, and the “ghost” who had attached itself to them. The soft core eroticism, incest, and border line pedophilia were not show more really my cup of tea, and it is a testament to Rice’s talents as a storyteller and creator of compelling characters that I hung in there. It’s easy to be drawn in by Rice’s style, which is heavy on detail and mood, and she uses them to their zenith in the Mayfair books. If the pace slackened, which if often did, then the next chapter usually held the promise of something interesting, if only momentarily.

The main problem with TALTOS is that it is so unnecessary after the events of the previous two books which tied up the tale of Michael Curry and Rowan Mayfair, and their relationship with the entity known as Lasher, along with telling us everything we felt we needed to know about the Mayfair family. Yet Rice seems to have not wanted to leave this world behind, so she typed out one more epic elaborating on the mythos she had created. This time around, Rowan and Michael are not center stage, although they do figure in the story. Instead, we get the story of Ashlar, a personage alluded to in the previous books. He is a seven foot tall Taltos, a survivor of an ancient race passing among humans, and of course, at one point he sits down and tells Michael and Rowan his story, which extends back before the beginning of civilization. As I have stated in other reviews, this is where Rice really shines, as she clearly knows how to do research, and more important, she knows what to do with it. We get an interesting take on Britain from the pre Roman era to the coming of Christianity. We also get a look at the Talamasca from the inside, as the plotting of certain members figures in the story; a scene where justice is meted out to the treacherous Marklin and Tommy is right out of Poe, as is as good as Rice gets. Most of the Mayfair clan is absent, except for teenage Mona, a character some readers do not like, and her country cousin, Mary Jane, a welcome addition as I thought the interaction between those two really lit up their chapters.

Unfortunately, none of this comes together for anything close to a satisfying whole. There is no sense of a strong narrative or real plot tension building toward a climax, certain elements are introduced, and then dispensed with long before the final page. The question of whether the Taltos will survive as a species is the main plot point of the story, but it is hardly feels like a compelling one by the final chapters. And I found the climax of the book to be unsatisfying, as it felt as though it were leaving the door open for another sequel. As I understand it, Anne Rice resisted that temptation, and wrote MERRICK, a book that crosses over the Mayfair witches with her vampires. Already have a copy, and it’s on my Too Read pile. show less

Almost a book-length exposition and bridge between Lasher and whatever comes next in the "Witch Chronicles." It read very well and I found it interesting because I had read the previous books, but it would not stand alone at all. Nothing really happens (to speak of) -- mostly history and explanations.

While Witching Hour remains the best in this trilogy, Taltos was thankfully better than Lasher. While some things felt a bit implausible to me (how could a Taltos grow so quickly after being born when it has no food/vitamins/etc to nourish its growing flesh - a scientific impossibility when you consider just how quickly they grow - within the hour after birth!), this was a very good book and answered questions about the Taltos and where they came from. Mona was an interesting character, she is a far better character in this novel than she was in the atrocity that is 'Blood Canticle'. The ending surprised me, but it was a fun one. Overall a solid and decent Anne Rice book, even if it could have been better than this.

Hmmm. It's impossible to write about the plot in a coherent manner because there are several intertwining threads:

As the title implies, this book is mainly about the Taltos--a race of beings we were introduced to in The Witching Hour. Ashlar is, or at least believes himself to be, the last of his kind. He's lonely, currently obsessed with dolls (collecting and manufacturing them), and when he discovers another Taltos has been seen, he drops everything to check it out.

And of course there are the Mayfairs, as this is the last book of the Mayfair Witch trilogy. Rowan seems to be following in her mother's footsteps at the beginning of the book, though she's not quite as completely catatonic--she walks, eats, dresses herself, etc., but show more doesn't speak, communicate, or acknowledge the presence of others.

The family seems to be turning to the 12-year-old designee of the legacy, Mona, who's pregnant with Michael's child.

Then there's the Talamasca. There's corruption within the Talamasca: Aaron Lightner is killed, and his friend and contemporary Stuart Gordon is behind it, motivated by his plan to resurrect the Taltos race. He has a female Taltos, and he plans to find a male so they can mate.

Contrary to the average opinions on Amazon, I enjoyed this more than I did The Witching Hour. The Taltos race was an interesting concept, and we got a lot more detail about them. (This was presumably also present in Lasher, but I haven't read it.) It also lacked a lot of the problems I had with The Witching Hour: it had a coherent plot--even if there were several threads, the story itself held together quite well; and while there were still a few tangential flashbacks, they weren't nearly as numerous or intrusive as those in The Witching Hour.

However. I was completely creeped out by Mona, and not in the way you're creeped out by vampires or spiders, but in a lose-my-lunch kind of way. The nonchalant way an "affair" between a 12-year-old and a man in his 40s was handled pushed my squick buttons hard. The affair was bad enough, but that it was presented as normal.... Added to that is the fact that she's treated as the head of the family, and everyone defers to her. She's 12. T W E L V E. Not 18, not 16, not even 14--12. She's a child. Nope, just could not swallow this. As with the other witches in The Witching Hour, we're told she's very powerful, which might account for some of the attitude, if we ever saw any evidence of that power, which we don't.

And then there was the stylistic choice that was seriously nails-on-the-chalkboard irritating. Mona becomes friends with her teenage cousin Mary Jane. I rather liked Mary Jane, but she talks like this:

I'll get it, you rest there against that tree, that's the tree I told you about, the cypress tree, oldest one in these parts, you see this was the pond out there, the little pond???? You know??? Where the family would go rowing??? Here, take the lantern, the handle doesn't get hot.

Grrrrr. Why use 3 and 4 question marks? One would do, really, to show the speech patterns. Just bugged the heck out of me. I'm not even going to mention the comma splices. Of course, if I'd loved the rest of the book, that would be a minor niggle.

Though I liked it better than the first of the trilogy, even if Mona had been 16 or 18, I wasn't more than mildly interested in the story. Mona at 12 just made me disgusted.

I have two more Anne Rice books in my TBR pile. They were, in fact, at the top, since they'd been random picks a while ago, but I'd postponed reading them until I read the earlier books (The Mummy and The Witching Hour). I picked up the next one to read--one of the vampire ones, I can't remember which--and found myself reading very skeptically, expecting to dislike it. So I put them both back on the bottom of the TBR pile until I get my annoyance with this series out of my head. show less

Rating: 4.5 stars

Check it out, it's Bella's baby - ten years before Twilight. Or at least the race to which she ought to belong. Hmm, I wonder if Meyer read this one? Much better writing than Twilight. If you are not a fan of odd and somewhat melodramatic settings, you are not a fan of Anne Rice. Thankfully though, this is before she entered her extremely weird phase, from which, as far as I know, she has yet to return - the one dating from about Pandora on. If you liked her earlier work, or enjoy both the supernatural and a little romance, you will probably like this one. Or if you are a Meyer fan, and wonder what to read next, you should definitely try Anne Rice. I'd probably start with The Vampire Lestat or The Witching Hour, though.

Anne Rice is a master at legend building. She has masterfully built the legend and history not only of a family of witches but of a "mythical" creature as well. Although I still think that Lasher is my favorite of the Mayfair Witch trilogy, Taltos is a great ending to the series. For those who, like me felt that The Witching Hour was a slow start to the series I would recommend continuing because it is all necessary for the story and it finishes really strong.