A Bit Bookish

It's hard to tell how I'm going to feel about this in the end... 
the first few chapters were a little bit chaotic and at times could feel a bit slow, which was in some ways perfectly understandable. There's a lot to catch up on in the world of the Vampire Chronicles. I suppose what they meant by saying it "picks up where Queen of the Damned left off" on the dust jacket is that Rice sort of just glazes over the events which occurred afterward. There are characters that I haven't read about that are briefly introduced, their long lives summarized in a few lines. Overall she did a good job with that. It's kind of a challenge to pick up the story of Lestat again after so long. Chapter 4 is where connections start being made and things start to pick up a little. 
(Read the summary of the book here.) 

It's decent so far, but there are a few minor things that made me go 'meh':
So we're introduced to this vampire scientist, Fareed. I guess he was a character in a later book in the Vampire Chronicles that I missed (I only read 1-5), and his story is summed up fairly well. However, completely new to this book is some very groundbreaking vampire science- for example, Fareed tells Lestat he can enable him to have sex as a vampire. That's a pretty big deal! I fully expected there to be this great moment of awe and ecstasy and it was just like

He has sex with this human female scientist as a vampire in a damn miracle of science and then is just kind of like 'yeah that was okay I guess...' I don't know, it was very out of nowhere and very... lame. Vampire sex should be like total craziness right? And in this universe it's NEVER happened before, this is the first time Lestat is hearing about this. I mean, I can see that it was just used as an example to show what Fareed is capable of, and I know Lestat had sex as a human when he did the body switching thing but still, this should have been a bigger deal. I don't know, maybe I've been watching too much True Blood. 

Another note is that Lestat, David, and Jesse all state that they have trouble understanding scientific terminology and can't really wrap their minds around science. They're in awe of it. Now for Lestat, the champion of the Savage Garden, this makes sense. His entire being has always been romantic and spiritual and has revolved around an obsession with beauty. But I don't see why it should be such an alien concept for all of them. They're vampires- if they want to learn something, they can read an entire textbook about it in minutes. Why would science be any different? It's almost like Anne Rice has a hard time with science so she made them have a hard time with it too... I don't know, it just seems a little forced at times. 

Also, Lestat is the Brat Prince. He's known to be charismatic and verbose and obsessed with beauty. Now, I know he changed a lot after Memnoch the Devil, but a character can be depressed and irrevocably altered without being lackluster, and so far that's exactly the word I'd use for him, which I can't believe I'm even typing. He can remember his former self but his personality is like... almost gone. When he meets up with David and Jesse to discuss the fate of vampire-kind and the ancient twins Maharet and Makare, David still chides him for being "the Brat Prince" but Lestat's "brattyness" seems watered down and almost non-existent to me. I tried to type examples but out of context their disappointing effect isn't as obvious. 

Anywho, it's far too early in the book to tell if any of this is even going to matter. But posting like this is good for me- it gets me reading and writing more often. 

What are you guys reading this weekend?