centuries. Although all these titles sold quite
well, Rice was so firmly associated with vampires
that it was inevitable that she would continue the
story of Lestat.
Rice returned to vampires for The Tale of the
Body Thief(1992), a story reminiscent in structure
of the first of the Lestat novels. The next, Mem-
noch the Devil(1995), is considerably more inter-
esting, although the narrative bogs down
occasionally during the lengthy discussions of the
differences between good and evil. Pandora(1998)
moves the Lestat saga to contemporary Paris, and
The Vampire Armand(1998) is another retrospec-
tive of a vampire’s career. A mortal falls in love
with a vampire in Vittorio the Vampire (1999),
thereby sealing his own fate. Perhaps finding it dif-
ficult to discover anything new to introduce into
the saga, Rice merged it with the Mayfair Witches
series in her next, Merrick(2000), a dark and com-
plicated story involving voodoo magic, souls
searching for bodies, and other occult matters.
Blood and Gold(2001) jumps back in time to
ancient Rome, and that setting helps freshen the
theme somewhat. Blackwood Farm(2002) is the
best of her recent novels, the story of a man who
has been haunted by a doppelgänger all his life.
When he is turned into a vampire, it has an unex-
pected magical effect on his double as well. Her
most recent Lestat novel, Blood Canticle(2003), is
smoothly written, but the plot is undistinguished.
Although Rice’s later novels contain many in-
teresting concepts and individual scenes of consid-
erable merit, they have tended to be very
repetitive. Her best work remains her first few nov-
els. Although she did not originate the concept of
the romantic vampire, she certainly was responsi-
ble for its dramatic rise in popularity, and her influ-
ence is obvious in the works of Laurell HAMILTON,
Charlaine Harris, and many other authors of vam-
pire romance novels.
“Ringing the Changes”Robert Aickman
(1971)
Gerald and Phrynne Banstead have recently mar-
ried and are finally leaving on their delayed honey-
moon. Phrynne insisted they go someplace he had
never been before, so Gerald decided on the sea-
port town of Holihaven, even though it was not
the usual tourist season. He has misgivings from
the outset. The accommodations are less than sat-
isfactory, the people managing the hotel are per-
petually drunk, the streets seem deserted, the sea
has retreated impossibly far from the shore leaving
a rank wasteland behind, and, worst of all, the
town churches are ringing their bells incessantly
and loudly.
Clearly, something peculiar is going on. One of
the local residents tells them that they have come
at a bad time, that once a year the villagers peal
the bells until they literally wake the dead, who
come from the sea and from the graveyard to make
merry with the living for a single night. Although
skeptical at first, Gerald eventually concedes that
something decidedly queer is happening and makes
a belated effort to leave town before they are
caught. When that fails, he and Phrynne barricade
themselves in their room, which is where they are
when the bells finally fall silent and they hear peo-
ple shouting that the dead have awakened.
Sounds of revelry fill the streets. From their
window the couple watches as the villagers begin
to dance and sing, their numbers augmented by
shadowy figures that they do not see clearly. Unfor-
tunately, their locked door is no barrier. Their
room is invaded, and Phrynne disappears in the
crush, although she is rescued in the nick of time
by the same man who warned them earlier. They
leave the village then, but Gerald recognizes that
the experience has changed Phrynne in some fash-
ion and that the relationship between them will
never again be the same as it once was. Aickman
does a remarkable job of creating a genuinely eerie
and menacing atmosphere, even though almost
nothing overt happens. Neither the protagonist
nor the reader really “sees” any of the dead, and
there is no threat of physical harm. The story illus-
trates that hints and suggestions can be far more
useful than explicit description in creating an ef-
fective horror story.“Rip Van Winkle”Washington Irving(1819)
Rip Van Winkle is one of those characters whose
story is so widely known that many readers feel
they have read the story even if they have not. It is290 “Ringing the Changes”