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Rice, Anne

Entry updated 25 March 2024. Tagged: Author.

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Working name of US author Howard Allen Frances O'Brien Rice (1941-2021), mother of ChristopherRice; her career as a prominent and esteemed producer of fantasy and horror fiction began with the first volume of theVampire Chronicles sequence,Interview with the Vampire (1976), whose depiction ofVampire culture, and of individual vampireAntiheroes, proved very significant for that literature. Through complex veils of romanticism and eros (seeSex), her vampires soon came to be understood as representative existential icons of sexual and cultural alienation, despite enjoyingImmortality and a good clothes sense, readings much strengthened in some subsequent volumes in the long series likeThe Vampire Lestat (1985) andThe Queen of the Damned (1988), which are among the strongest works Rice has created. Later volumes varied in quality and intensity, providing little of sustained sf or evenScience Fantasy interest, and lacking in sufficient edge or extroversion to register upon readers in terms ofFantastika. InPrince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016), however, various inchoate threads laid down in previous instalments are assembled into a Myth of Origin [for this term and for Twice-Told below seeTheEncyclopedia of Fantasy underlinks below]: aeons earlier, Earth has been visited byAliens known as Bravennans, who abduct Amel, a human, and modify him, through what may be something likeGenetic Engineering, or perhaps simple cross-breeding; Amel eventually is responsible for the vampire strain ofHomo sapiens. Much of the associated action takes place inAtlantis, a high-Technology enclave which the aliens have founded but do not inhabit. The doomedIsland suffers its usual fate: it is blown up, sinks, and becomes aLost World. The aliens, meanwhile, continue to feast off the anguish of mortal men and women (seeArrested Development): suffering being a nectar to which – JamesTiptree Jr'sBrightness Falls from the Air (1985) being perhaps the most famous previous example of the topos – they are addicted.Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat (2018), on the other hand, returns to dynastic squabbling.

Little of Rice's other work has any sf interest. TheBeauty sequence begins withThe Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983) as by A N Roquelaure, which is described as "an erotic novel of tenderness and cruelty for the enjoyment of men and women"; after her 100 year sleep, Beauty is awakened by the Prince, who takes her to a vast spanking school, where princes and princesses have their buttocks reddened (though blood is not shed) in preparation for high office. Any elements of Twice-Told revisionism are taught, in the end, a sharp lesson. TheMayfair Witches Saga beginning withThe Witching Hour (1990) – aLocus Award winner in the horror/dark fantasy novel category – focuses on a dynasty of witches, a strain whose contemporary embodiment, a famous neurosurgeon, finds herself viaTimeslip and other occult connectivities involved in profound conflicts between good and evil principles as manifested familially. By 2010 Rice had ceased to write Christian fantasies (seeReligion), following disagreements with the Catholic Church on social issues [these works are not dealt with here, nor are they listed below].

The best of the individual novels, none of which are easily readable as sf, is probablyThe Mummy; Or, Ramses the Damned (1989), whose titularAncient Egyptian protagonist is aroused fromSuspended Animation; this turns out not to have been his firstReincarnation; complications ensue after he falls desperately in love with an heiress while continuing to suffer from his involvement with Cleopatra and his despair at herSuicide. Finding her mummy in Cairo, he overdoses the corpse with his elixir ofImmortality, which transforms her into a grotesqueMonster.Sex and revenge ensue, relatively compactly in this case, so thatThe Mummy very effectively concentrates and articulates Rice's eros-driven, intermittently transgressive universe. After many years as a standalone, this novel was followed byRamses the Damned: The Passion of Cleopatra (2017) with ChristopherRice; a third volume has been announced for 2022.

Rice's career in the horror field was recognized by the 1994 World Horror GrandmasterAward and the 2004 Bram Stoker award for life achievement. [JC]

see also:Music.

Howard Allen Frances O'Brien Rice

born New Orleans, Louisiana: 4 October 1941

died New Orleans, Louisiana: 11 December 2021

works

series (selected)

Vampire Chronicles

Beauty

Ramses the Damned

Mayfair Witches Saga

about the author

links

previous versions of this entry



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