"Wolf-Fight the Movie" - Joel and Ashley discuss the novel "The Vampire Lestat" - AC005

"Wolf Fight - The Movie" - The Vampire Lestat, the novel by Anne Rice

Joel: The Articulate Coveen is the original unofficial podcast and fan community for An Rice's interview with the Vampire and An Rice's Immortal Universe from AMC and AMC Plus.

Joel: Welcome to the Articulate Coveen, the unofficial podcast for the Vampire Chronicles from Anne Rice, including the upcoming TV series about the Vampire List app. We are your hosts. I am Joel Sharpton.

Ashley: Hi. I'm Ashley Wright Eiler. And

Joel: we are so glad to be back with you. No. We have not pod fated, and I'm gonna stop apologizing for not recording. We're just gonna get these things out what we can and know that and know that when the TV series comes, we will be on a regular schedule We, you know, we don't know what the release schedule for the TV show is yet. So when we know what night of the week it's gonna be on, and what season of the year it's gonna come out in, then Ashley and I will very quickly work out what schedule we can can put around that. And then you'll have something regular that you can count on But until then, we're gonna catch this catch can. And in this episode, actually, we're talking about the second novel in the Vampire Chronicles series, the Vampire List debt.

Ashley: Yeah.

Joel: Or Listat. I still say it. I we're we're five episodes deep now, and I've been talking about this man in a serious fashion now for more than a year and change, and still I can't pronounce his damn name. But

Ashley: This is We're gonna keep screwing that up.

Joel: Yeah. Absolutely. That up. You sure. You just gotta know it. This is, I think, and I may say this more as the series goes on. I believe that this is my favorite of the novels. And there was a lot of there were a lot of things that I had put on this novel in my memory that it turns out actually were parts of the following Novel, the Queen of the damned. Did you have that same sort of conflation in your own memories?

Ashley: Well, it had been so long since I had read this one. And it's a really different read at thirty nine than it was at, you know, seventeen, probably when I sixteen, seventeen when I read it. Oh, it's probably about actually, it's probably about fifteen or sixteen when I read it. And I did. I think that I have definitely in my mind combined events from those two books in particular. I don't I think that I kept tell the body theme it's a little more separate in my head because there's new character well, hell there's new characters and quitted Dan. I don't know why my brain did that, but my brain definitely did combine some things. I just one of the things that strike me right off the bat is how much easier of a read this is for me. Lestat's voice is just easier to read than Louis Louis is so careful and he's so he's so cautious about It's almost like he's being cautious with his word choices whereas L'Estat really doesn't have any choice, but to be himself, he can't help, but be who he is.

Joel: He even says that. I mean, he he a lot of Lestat's life has been trying to be other, trying to be what he imagines good is supposed to be. But in the end, he always resorts to sort of like the true version of himself. He has an ethos, he has a morality, he has a code. One of the things that struck me, first of all, let's talk about TV series for just a second here. And if the TV series does not first, the the Christopher and Anne are working on if you're just joining us in media res here, Christopher and Anne Rice are working on a television series, and they have said that the first season of this series is going to focus on the Vampire L'Estat novel not interview with the vampire. They will get to those events, but it will probably be season two, maybe even season three, depending upon the way that they write it out. If this series does not start with the fight with the wolves, they are doing themselves a great disservice and I know we've already seen a teaser from Christopher that the first episode, the title of the first episode as he's written it, the script is the Wolf Killer. I think that's got to be the name of your first episode. And the the moment that we meet LaSitte should be fighting those wolves, becoming a man that that moment of of triumph, the beginning of his struggle and and through that, you can even play that that fight out over the course of an episode if you wanted to and have flashbacks to his family life so that you get the full relationships, the the adversarial relationship with his father, the fact that his brothers and his father sort of you know, thumb their nose at knowledge, his mother is the secret scour, you know, all of those sorts of things. You could give all of that color in flashbacks while he's fighting the wolves and have the climax of the Wolf battle be the climax of the first episode. And I think that could be incredibly artful, but also like what I people are the people who haven't read the books are gonna come to this series expecting fangs and blood right away. Right? And

Ashley: I think

Joel: I think you should tell them this series is much more than that. There are vampires coming. Don't you worry about it?

Ashley: Well, people who people who haven't read or or people who only have been exposed to interview really have no idea what the character of Lestats really like. And I think that that's something that's really interesting and kind of struck me as I was reading this again was that you he's so filtered an interview through Louie's eyes, so you see this version of him. And it's not really at all what he's truly like. And so I think that I think that people who have only seen that film will be really surprised by how much there is to him. And And when we see softer sides of him and when we see vulnerability from him and things like that, I think that But I totally agree. I think that that would be an awesome place to start. You're gonna be starting with an action sequence right off the bat. And that will tell us very quickly too. How they're gonna incorporate the narrative voice. You know what I mean?

Joel: Yeah. It well, and I was I was thinking that would allow you to avoid it, at least in the short term. Like, you wouldn't have to you wouldn't have to start a series with the idea of you know, we're reading a novel or he's dictating this to his secretary or, you know, recording it as a pod cast or anything like that. You wouldn't have to do any of those things as we've talked about. You could just go straight into the story and flash back and forth from that moment with the wolves to his family, which again is a narrative that I think like Game of Thrones and other these high level adult series have Handmaid's tale, for instance, they give you no frame of reference in that show when they go back and forth to the time before Gilead and and the present. Quote unquote, imperative. They just do. They flash back and forth. And you pick it up as a viewer through context clues, through the dress, and the mannerisms and the different characters that appear, etcetera, etcetera. You know, Westworld has done this to a great degree. It's even sort of like sort of the fun of the show is figuring out who is when, not

Ashley: to who is where. Going on. Right.

Joel: Exactly. So So again, I don't think there's there's any problem with that. I think I think viewers are used to that, but it occurs to me that by jumping into the story like that, you could completely obfuscate the the need for at least in the short term that third person narrator as if he's dictating it like we have in the novels. And also, you could avoid at least for the short term the question of whether or not he's actually gonna be a rock star in the TV show. Right? Because we don't we don't have to meet the band. We don't have to know what time frame that the queen of the damned storyline is gonna take place in. They don't have to decide any of those things yet. They can push all of those creative decisions off and just get the audience into the character of Lestat, which is what this series is gonna hang on. And I think -- Wow. What's his name? Liam Liam Nielsen showed us in the classic film Wolf Fight that, you know, starting with a fight with Wolf's is not a bad way to start and in the movie.

Ashley: I am not seeing wolf fight.

Joel: Yeah. So so you know so the actual name of the movie is It's the the the name of the movie is the Grey. But it is it it's largely like, I think there's, like, a I can't even remember now what the what the what the inciting incident is, but I think it's, like, a plane crash or something, but Liam Nason's character is effectively on the run from a pack of wolves for the course of the series of the course of the movie. And

Ashley: Oh my gosh.

Joel: And so, like, at the beginning of the movie, there's a bit of fighting with wolves. And at the end of the movie, there's fighting with wolves and all through the middle, there's some fighting with wolves. And I feel like yeah, you could totally just turn the gray into the story of L'Estat, and I think that would work I think that'd work just fine. Howard Bauchner:

Ashley: I think that, theoretically, they could tell this whole story in basically in, like, in sequential order. They can tell the story like, in sequential order without even, you know, like you said, you don't have to address you don't have to address queen of the dams until you get to queen of the dams. You know what I mean? So telling that kind of telling especially with I think this this book, you totally can do that. You just you just start with start with it in, you know, in sequential order and tell it tell it as a true clean narrative.

Joel: It would definitely change things to lose the the fact that, you know, all of these novels except for the first one basically are lestat, the character of Lestat, Whispering, and Anzier. I mean, that's the way that she describes it herself, and that is the way that they come across when you read them. That's a fundamental difference that the TV show might have, but it occurs to me now when we're thinking about this framing that that might be the way to go. And, you know, in a true adaptation, not just simply copying it to a different medium, but actually adapting it to that medium might be the answer to get us started off on the right foot. Let me tell you something though. Let's jump in and and move ahead a little bit here. There's a a moment in chapter two in the audiobook that I was really struck by, L'Estat says, I became a little crueler for what happened. He's talking about when he when he comes back, after the this is after the war fight, his his father and his brothers have punished him. This is this is actually, I think, before the Wolfite. This is when he runs away to join the acting troop. And he has caught and returned and they beat

Ashley: Oh, yeah.

Joel: You know? And he says that that it darkened him and he and he went crueler, but he also became more useful. He talks about loarding it over his brothers and his father in his head that he was the one that was providing the game that everyone was eating. He would sit at dinner and sort of smugly to himself. He he didn't talk about it. But in his own mind, he thought, I provide for this family no matter what they think of me, you know, or no matter how little they think of me. I I don't know about you. I have definitely had that feeling of, like, smugly helping someone else.

Ashley: Absolutely. Absolutely. You're like, oh, you have to take my help and smile and be happy about it. Jerk.

Joel: How did those early scenes play out to you in the village? To me, I didn't remember all of the cruelty. I remembered that he hated this father. I remembered that that was a very adversarial relationship because that, of course, plays out with their relationship during the time of interview with the vampire. But Right. What I didn't recall was that the the the way the brothers were there. I didn't recall the fact that his mother stayed so aloof, Gabriel was so aloof, until after her change. They don't they do have a relationship, but she withholds so much of herself even from him. It's really It's a lonely existence that he lives, at least as he describes it.

Ashley: Howard Bauchner: Absolutely. No. I've forgotten I've pretty much not remembered any of the beginning of this, to be honest. Like, it was, like, reading it almost for the first time all over again because I had not like a those early scenes, those early his early life aside from, like, obviously, the Wolf fight being, like, a really vibrant image that was created in my head. Like, so much of that just kind of slipped through, which is interesting because, like, you know, we all have different backgrounds and childhoods. And when you like, I didn't it wasn't all, like, sunshine and movies in my life when I was a kid. And so I would have thought I would have almost paid more attention to that. You know what I mean? And held on to a little bit more of that and been able to relate to a little bit more of that than I than I guess I did. But a riri of that, he did feel very isolated. And it makes so much sense that he as a character spends so much of his time searching for companionship. I think is that something that it makes that makes so much more sense to me upon rereading this. Like, his his longing for companions, his longing for someone to share his existence with and and that longing for someone to understand you on a really deep level.

Joel: Yeah, absolutely. That's boy. And what's sad is that that is basically the story of every vampire in this series. And yet they end up hurting each other so often and and walking away from each other and not understanding that they're all striving for the same thing. The character of Nicholas and their relationship one of the things that I wondered about and that I thought about in during this read was assuming that what if Magnus had never decided to take L'Estad. And so their lives had continued well, first of all, you have to assume that his father and the brothers never would have came found them in Paris and and just beat them in taking them back home anyway. But I'm assuming that that might not have happened. Like, maybe L'Estoc was too old at that point and they just would have chalked it up to a lost cause. But if Magnus hadn't taken them, would Nicholas have destroyed himself anyway? It was Nicholas. I mean, obviously, he had a destructive personality. He has an addictive personality probably. If he was, you know, a real person today, we would chalk him up with all sorts of diagnoses. Right. But could he could he have had a happy life there in Paris with Leshat?

Ashley: I think that I think that he would have I don't think that I think he would have met poor and regardless. I think that I think that Nicholas' soul was not meant for this world. You know what I mean? Like, I didn't remember him being so his soul being in so much pain. You know what I mean? When I reread it when I reread it this time, I just I felt so deeply sad for him if that makes sense at all. And -- Absolutely. -- I I And I think you're totally right. He completely has that sort of addictive personality. It's a dick it's like that that longing for or attention, again, like Lostat attention and connection. And then the fear of losing it or the fear of it changing, the fear of it developing in a way that leaves you behind. I think that that would always drive him to sadness and that would always drive him you know, to self medication of whatever variety that would be.

Joel: Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. I I imagine that first of all, I think about what

Joel: a loss it would be for us not to have the next you know, two hundred years or so of Lestat's adventures. But I I imagine that Lestat would have lived a very exciting and eventful life anyway. Probably would have died a young man maybe on a battlefield somewhere, got caught up at a revolution or something. But I think you're right. I think I think he would have lost Nicholas anyway. And he blames himself for Nicholas. And I think so many of his later follies fall at the feet of his shame about Nicholas and his blaming himself for Nicholas. And I I

Ashley: like about,

Joel: you know, his the the desperate move to create Claudia to save his relationship with Lewis. Louis, the the the way that he treated Louis, I think so much of that, is because of the way that his relationship with Nicholas went. Now some of it, it well, at least and here's an interesting point because many of the things that we read in this book to predict directly the things that we've read in interview with the vampire. Yes. Now some of that, you could just chalk up to Louie saw it one way, and Lisai saw it a different way. The obvious actual real world answer is that this book was written quite a few years later and the character of Lesoth and the idea of the world, I think the overall universe of the vampires was vastly different for Anne than it was when she wrote interview with the vampire. But this the reason in in res, the reason in the story is that one of the reasons anyway, that list presented himself so differently to Louis is that he makes promises and vows at the end of this book to Marius. And that's sort of a clever little out for Anne, but how do you think that plays? That's something that I had not really again reading this as a kid reading it again, you know, in my early twenties, I didn't pick up on those things, but it does occur to me that the last act that we come to know as the series goes on. I don't think even would have been cowed by Marius' vows. And when you think about it, he clearly wasn't. Because he wakes up at the end of the nineteen hundreds and decides to perform a rock band and tell the whole world about vampires. So, you know what I mean? Like, I

Ashley: don't Yeah. He breaks he breaks the bowels anyway.

Joel: Yeah. Exactly. So, like, why why would he have held so closely to them that he was such an Like, that was a big point for Louie is where did we come from? What is the origin? And SOC could have given answers to that. Without implicating Marius, without implicating those who must be kept, without even breaking his vows, Anyway, I just feel like that was a cheap answer for Anne at the time. And I think the overall character of L'Estat, that hangs very false. That was one big part in this story that now sort of bumps me out. And I hope they can, again, in the adaptation to the series, I hope they really do all of that better.

Ashley: Howard Bauchner: Yeah, you know, to be honest, I haven't really thought about how much time had passed from interview to this book. And you're totally right. Pardon me. Sorry, guys. You're totally right. That That does that does weigh into a lot of of the discrepancies. But I'm so enamored with the idea of of perception and how we all see we can all experience the same thing. And if you and I had the exact same experience, the story that we would tell could be vastly different just depending on how we interpreted it or how we felt about it emotionally, how it affected us. And I've always I've always always always been so enamored with that idea. And I actually really love the idea about thinking about, you know, some of my favorite books and films and things and what it would be like to take it and spin it and see that story from another through another character's eyes. Like, you could write an entire new Harry Potter series from the perspective of Draco Mount Boy. You know what I mean? And I think that I've always been so in love with that idea that that's something I've just maybe that's allowed me to forgive anything that made me uncomfortable?

Joel: Yeah. No. That makes sense. Yeah. The characters of Louis and L'Estat and their differing views on immortality and their own place in the universe. I think are going to when we look back on it, likely form the backbone of the series. I hope anyway, as far as, like, the overarching, what is this series about? However, I wonder how you establish that well when Louis is not actually in the series for at least a year, maybe two. Now what you and I have mentioned in the past, and I think Anne actually mentioned this in one of the q and a's, An interesting idea might be to have because there is a reference to the books that that they look quite a lot alike, an interesting idea might be to have the same actor play Nicholas and Louis to come back into the series. And I I I wouldn't be opposed to that. I I've just been re watching actually the series deadwood. And there is an actor I wanna say Timothy Elephant, but it's not Timothy Elephant. It's Delehert, I think, is his last name.

Ashley: Oh, Garrett

Joel: Delehert. Yes. Garrett

Ashley: Delehert. Love him.

Joel: He plays one character in the first season he plays, the the man who ends up killing Wild Bill Hickoc, and then in the second season he comes back as a completely different a character, vastly different look to him, but also like a totally different personality. And they're they're not related in any way in that series at all. They just that actor was really good and he fit both roles and why not use them again? And I didn't have any problem with it at all. They look so different that it that it wasn't an issue. Here when there are story references about the two characters being very similar in appearance. And also holding a similar place in Lestat's heart, I think that I think that'd be okay. And that would be a way that you could begin to make those separate philosophical arguments even in the first season, even before he comes on the scene. So that is something that has occurred to me. I guess, Nicholas Mike can play that role. What did you think about? Let's talk about Magnus for a minute. And his appearance into the story. I had forgotten the hints that he was coming. There are, you know, L'Estat sort of feels a presence a few times before he gets there. Yeah. And then when he actually attacks him, it's one of the most violent encounters maybe in the entire series in some ways, the the imagery anyway that it draws up. It feels very much like I rape the the concept that this is all against Lestat's will and that that's the way that Magnus wants it, is very, very clear to me in was it or was very clear to me in my reading this time. What'd you think about Magnus?

Ashley: I found him far more interesting this read than I've ever found him before. So I always just kind of thought of, like, in my memory that it thought of him as kind of a quick sort of throwaway character that came and served his purpose and then left. But this this read, I really felt like I I was able to kind of analyze the character in a little bit of a different way and sort of understand a little deeper. And probably that's just aging and things like that, understanding a little deeper about like why he was, you know, ready to bounce. But I had I really hadn't I really hadn't held on to a lot. Like I said, this one didn't stick in my brain very well. And I've been really had held on to a lot of memory of that character or connection to that character. But this read, I felt like I understood him more, if that makes sense. As well. Like I like I just really felt like I I got I got what why why he wanted to to go into the fire, why he wanted to die, why he wanted to end it. I felt like I understood I even sort of understood why he chose less listen in a different way than I did before, I think.

Joel: Nancy, that has always made sense to me. The choosing of list not always. The the thing that was interesting to me in this read, and I'm I'm not gonna spoil anything for you, but for people who have not read the more current novels, we do learn a bit more about Magnus in the most recent novels. And that's all I'll say there. But it occurred to me on this reading that I had not questioned in the past like who Magnus was or where he came from or why he felt so desperate to to die right away. I didn't really seemingly or I don't remember ever being curious about his backstory. But in retrospect, now knowing that we do get a little bit of answers about him in some of the more recent stuff. I I did feel like, boy, that's just like a huge thing that she left hanging there. I I am intrigued that I haven't heard more or thought more about him in the past in this series because we we don't know much about him and then he's gone. He just he chooses L'Estat. He is he's almost, you know, a a day s x monouns. So he he just appears he's plot line --

Ashley: Yeah. -- plot

Joel: thread and then he's gone. He is he is a useful tool to inject the vampiric blood into the storyline, you know. Let's let's skip ahead and talk about the coven a bit because I I really think that this is going to be the major Storyline for season one will be the ongoing sort of rivalry and ramping up until there is a full on confrontation between the coven of La Zinocence and L'Estot and and eventually Gabrielle too. There was an interesting moment, though, in this one, L'Estat is having a long interaction when when they first sort of grabbed him. He's having a long interaction with our mom and the old queen. I love it. There's some really good poetry in there. But in particular, L'Estat has a line, he says and by the way, I'll use again the handmade style the film, the series, the TV series, has a tremendous amount of lines pulled directly from the book, and they are brilliant from someone who I'm beginning to read that book right now myself, actually, and I'm sure for people who have read it in the past, those moments really hit and were wonderful. I hope that when applicable Christopher and the other writers are using Anne's own original words. She's done some really good work and some heavy lifting here to begin with. So this is one for instance. I never lie at least not to those I do not love. What a beautiful thought

Ashley: and not

Joel: true. I never lie at least not to those I do not love. I mean how most people, I think, lie more often for those who who we love or to those who we love, then to those we hate. Why? We show our full selves, our open raw selves to those that we actively dislike. You know, our enemies always get the full brunt of us, but we try to contain and hedge and qualify for those that are actually on the inner circle. I just love that line. That I had to write it down.

Ashley: That's a great one. And and and I say you do that for two you either depending on what kind of person you are and I guess maybe the situation you kind of do that for two different reasons either to protect the person that you love, to protect their feelings, to protect them, or or to protect their perception of you, to protect the way that you are seen by them. And one that I feel like is a lot more selfish than the other. And one I think definitely pertains to our boilers dot far more than the other two.

Joel: Yeah.

Joel: No, you're right. You're absolutely right. I like the fact that in in the last episode when we were or or two episodes ago, when we were talking about the relationship between our mind and Louis, especially after Claudia is killed it takes Louie years to figure our mind out and to figure out that he actually doesn't have any answers.

Joel: You know, he doesn't know anything more than anybody else. This this wisdom is an act that he's learned very well because he's had five hundred years to work on it. L'Estat figures him out and, like, five minutes. They're in there. They're down there in the oven. And within minutes, he has totally understood this is just a boy. He's a boy from a time when curiosity was illegal, basically. He he is a child of the end of the dark ages. Our mind is simple. That that is who our mind is. That's all that he is. He is simple. And it turns out to someone born in the renaissance basically like Louis, that is or not the renaissance, but the enlightenment like Louis, that is mysterious. It seems to have the wisdom of a sage or a mystic or something like that. But in fact, he's just simple. His answers are black and white, always. You know?

Ashley: Oh, for sure. I I had I won't I won't skip that far ahead, but there's there's so much of this freaking book that I'd forgotten about. And I'd forgotten so much about Arman Arman's story. And at the beginning of Arman's story, you know what I mean?

Joel: Yes.

Ashley: But I don't wanna skip too too far ahead yet. So No.

Joel: That's okay. You can go there. We're we're we're we're talking we mostly we tend to go through characters rather than direct pull line. So that's okay.

Ashley: Let's talk

Joel: about our mind. And of course, the beauty is and I was reminded, we got a whole book. We got a whole book about our mind that we can get to down the road. That is just focused on him and tells his story in full and revisits that early part of the story that again, you're right. I had sort of forgotten that you know, that tribal Eastern European origin for him that we don't that we only get a glimpse of.

Ashley: Yeah. And you get the taste of it in this in this book, but it's I don't know. I just and I'd forgotten I just I I just had forgotten so much. I never dreamed I would have forgotten so many details, but there's so much in there. She creates such a lush amazing world, you know, and we've we've referenced Hamid's tale a couple of times. And I have to say, I think that that is the best adapted series in action right now. Period. Hands down.

Joel: So you

Ashley: had read that

Joel: book as well?

Ashley: Oh, yeah. Oh, god. Yeah. I read yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think we all should.

Joel: I had I had never read it before. I'd heard of it. Obviously, I'd never actually sat down and read it. And right after we finally I caught up and and finished the second second season, worked my way all the way through And when I got done, I immediately went and bought the audiobook version. There's like a anniversary edition that's narrated by Clear Danes. Which is really good and it contains some bonus material at the end. There's apparently well, I'm not gonna say where the bonus material is. But anyway, yes, there's some extra stuff there too. But the the narration is really, really good. Clear is excellent. And of course, that story is told sort of in a diary form you know, a a first person narrative like this. So it's it lends itself very well to audiobook, I find. But you're right. It is the the job because there are lots of things changed. Character ages, the timeline, on when the narrative takes place versus, you know, the beginning of Gilead, I think is a little bit different in this in the show than it is. In the novel, but all those things make perfect sense for the adaptation to the screen. Howard Bauchner: It

Ashley: gives me so much so much faith that this is gonna work. You and I love this so much. If they screw it up, we're gonna be so pissed. And so I that especially with that because the the world there, that that novel is very short, and it's a very that she atwood kind of paints that world very quickly and with a very a very rough brush. You know what I mean? Whereas Anne has created this It's like a tapestry. It's like a woven tapestry. Of of a universe, you know, that's in line with, like, you know, Lord of the Rings and things like that. And so there's so much to work with. I just I just have so much faith now though that the things that I worried that might be cheesy or like or like can't be in a bad way. Are gonna be able to be done well if it's approached the right way and if it's cast well.

Joel: Speaking of casting, Do you have anyone in mind for the old queen? I thought about that was one of the characters that I thought about in this novel it's it's sort of a short role. Right? She wouldn't you'd really only

Ashley: need her

Joel: if you're gonna have, like let's say you have ten episode or twelve episode seasons, you could have that role only be three or four episodes and or two even. You could have two in the coven that feature the queen and and then she dies. Okay. Fine. That's the end of that. So that could be high level stuntcasting is what I'm saying. I mean, you could really -- Sure. -- you could go and get somebody for that one. And I when I think of the fact that Anthony Hopkins continues to show up to work on Westworld on occasion, you know, they I don't know, man. Like, I really I wonder how high they might go for that one in particular. And I just feel like Lustat's father as well is one that I feel like you wouldn't you need him for maybe two episodes in season one and then a handful of episodes in season two and yet you could bring in somebody like a Charles dance for instance. Dude,

Ashley: I was literally about to say Charles Frickin dance.

Joel: Would it be amazing? You got. When do you have anything?

Ashley: That's yes. He would be freaking perfect. Right. That was coming out of my mouth.

Joel: I thought about out a few times when I was reading this. I thought I I heard those, you know, I read those scenes where he's being berated where, you know, his father is sitting at one end of the table sort of looking down his nose with him. And I thought, boy, Charles Dance does a pretty good pissed off, disappointed father, doesn't he? And and he's got that. Yeah. He also can play that gruffy past their prime nobility, I think very very well. You know, obviously in Game of Thrones, he's at the height of his powers for most of that show. But I I was thinking about some of his work. Did you see what was the Dracula movie that he was in? It was not very good, but he was good in it. It's like dracula resurrection or something. It was the most recent

Ashley: version.

Joel: It's not it's not good. But it would the most recent version where they tried to redo the story of dracula and he plays sort of the ancient vampire that stuck up in the cave that Dracula comes to as a bargain in order to save his people. The the barbarians are coming to take over Transylvania and and Drak Hul makes a bargain to save his people. That's the basic plot line of that movie. Charles Stance plays the vampire, and he's great in it. In the beginning, especially he's sort of, like, old and decrepit and and, you know, they got him in heavy makeup and everything. And I was just thinking, you know, I would love coughing up a long blinded you know, sitting off in the corner of that dark room and that southern plantation in season two berating Louis and L'Estat because they won't ever come see him during the daytime and, you know, all that sort of stuff. I think that would be amazing. We could cross our fingers and

Joel: hope.

Joel: It occurs to me though that the relationship with our mind here is gonna be super important and even more important because of the, like, the interconnected nature of this casting. So who you cast for our mind has to have great chemistry with Louis and L'Estat, but also they have to have great chemistry with Marius. Absolutely.

Ashley: Right. And age age is gonna be really tricky here. Yeah. Do you go for Like, this is obviously, this is gonna be We hope fingers crossed, a multi season series. So do you go for someone a little younger and risk them aging up a little too much for you. You get or you end up you're in a Walt situation from loss. Do you know what I mean? Where I mean, in Granite, he was around fifteen, our mom was around fifteen, so you're not going quite as young, so you're not probably going to you're past puberty at that point, but still, you know, like the your physical appearance can change so much between fifteen and twenty even. And so I think it's they're gonna have to cast probably someone in their, I'd say early twenties as as young as they're gonna be able to go.

Joel: Yeah. No. I think you're right. You gotta get them after their last growth spurt, etcetera, etcetera. Is somebody, like, I mean, not this casting. But I think about Andrew Garfield for Marvel and Spider Man. No. No. That's the old one. Right? That's the old Who's the new Spider Man? That's

Ashley: not Mark though, is

Joel: it? Whoever the new kid is, yeah, you know who I'm talking about. The one that was just in homecoming. He's crying. He's wonderful British actor. And he'll basically look that way until he's about thirty five, and then he'll start looking like however he's gonna look until he's about fifty five. And I feel like you can get away with that with Arman if you cast a kid who's twenty, twenty one, twenty two, maybe. And he'll look the same for this season for next season heading into the third season. And by that time, you can move it all into the present day. You're doing the queen of the damn storyline. And from there forward, Arman's playing like the young businessman, so you could really change his look and work with that if you wanted to to just find some of the aging that's gonna happen with him, you know, naturally because you've you've cast a younger actor. So I think they can obfuscate some of that away. But again, that even more important that you cast the right actor for Marius so that when we see these pairings that those relationships emphasize and sort of add to the differences in age and the differences in power structure and all the different things that play out with these different relationships. So it's just it's gonna be super super super, super important, I think.

Ashley: Also to convey the length of the relationships. Mhmm. You know, I mean, some of these characters have known each other for hundreds and hundreds of years. And so that that adds in another layer that you you're not always dealing with as an actor as a performer. You have to very quickly establish, you know, when when, like, the first time we see Pandora, when she shows up, you know, that she has this huge rich history with Marius. And I think that with Armand, in particular, is another one, especially the casting, you know, you're talking about a younger and a younger actor. Someone that can convey those layers of of character. Those layers of of relationship that are gonna exist there, especially with especially with a character like Marius and Armand, especially with a relationship like that.

Joel: Let's talk about Gabrielle for a minute. First of all, the I had forgotten that he didn't exactly intend to bring her over. It was a moment of weakness. It was a rush decision and it was one done out of love and selfish desperation in many ways. However and I'm trying to think of maybe some of the more recent vampires that he's made. Maybe I'm forgetting about somebody in some of the later books. But of his early creations, Nicholas and Louis and Claudia and Gabrielle Gabrielle is the only one that should have been a vampire.

Ashley: Oh, yes. AGREED. SHE WAS MITT TO BE A VAMPIRE.

Joel: Reporter: RIGHT ABSOLUTELY -- ABSOLUTELY -- IN -- Reporter: IT SUITS HER SO -- AND I THINK THIS IS GOING TO be a magical moment. We've I think we've discussed this before. But that moment of transformation, when you can take the actress that you have sort of played up with sickness and with age and you can wash all of that away and just showcase her in her beauty and in her element And in the power of vampirism, I'm I'm very excited about that. I think I think it's gonna be something that normal people, people who don't know these stories are gonna be very excited about. They're gonna be talking about that moment when he turns his mother. I think I think that's gonna be something. That character, by the way, again, and it doesn't play out so much in the course of the series as a whole, like the difference between L'Estat and Louis does just because Gabriel doesn't have as much to do with L'Estat in the years to come. But Gabrielle has such a fundamental fundamentally different understanding of the world than her son, which again makes their relationship very interesting. If you go back to the childhood, when they both had the love of learning, the shared love learning and sort of the united, not hatred, but like resentment against the rest of the family. And yet, She was still her own person. And even in vampirism, they're joined in in this new bond, this new life, this new immortality, and almost immediately she's pulling away from him. It sort of it it blows my mind and it kills me for L'Estat. It sort of hurts my feelings for him. You know?

Ashley: Oh, absolutely. Because he feels I mean, I think she's I think she's the kind of woman if she if she were a modern woman, she would not have had children.

Joel: Yes.

Ashley: I honestly think that about Gabriel. I don't

Joel: Wouldn't ever have been married either. She would

Ashley: Yeah. No, not at all. I don't think she was enamored of being a mother. I think that and I think that that was super hurtful to a stop when when she did start to abandon him, when she did start to pull away from him, when she did She was longing for her own adventure, which is what she's she had always wanted. She felt trapped in that village. She felt tracked in that marriage. She felt trapped by her responsibility. You know, she longed for books and adventure and education and all the things that a woman in that time period was not permitted to enjoy, really. You know? She was a character I did not like when I read this book originally. I did not like her. I found her very cold. I found her I found her mean. I was very I was upset that she was hurting the lookout's feelings, you know. I was having all those reactions to her. And when I read it this time, I had a totally different a totally different opinion of her where I could see I could see him being,

Joel: you

Ashley: know, I could see him being selfish and clingy, and I could see her needing space and and that they had two different objectives. You know what I mean? And so I just I had such a different appreciation for her this time around. Howard Bauchner: You know

Joel: what's interesting? I think that I think that is that just comes with I absolutely agree with you. I always felt like she was selfish and cold. She is still cold, and she is

Ashley: just a

Joel: person. She is she is even a bit selfish. But nowhere near as selfish, I would say, probably in the end as Livestat is, and yet we level Livestat. And so what what it turns out is it's just that moment where And again, I think we have discussed this maybe off the year instead of on this podcast before. But it's like that moment of realizing your parents are people. You know? What? And and you I think in this reading, I realized, ah, Gabriel is a person. And she's not only a person, but she is a person that Like Lostat has not been allowed to make very many choices in her life and in fact, has been allowed to make fewer choices than even L'Estat has. So She she is a very sympathetic figure to me in this. And yes, he saves her and brings her into immortality, but she owes him nothing. And she she owes him love and and familial affection, and she has that for him still, but they are two very different people. Their roads are two very different roads. And she doesn't have the answers for him. She cannot fill the hole in his soul that he is, you know, desperately seeking to fill. I do feel like there are And and, of course, you know, what was what was Gabriel's life like in the sixteen hundreds, etcetera, etcetera, before before we meet her in the story. But there are moments reading it. I'm like, we'll be the mom. You know, like, take control of this situation. A little bit and stop your son from some of these bumbling mistakes. And there are moments where she Again, I think selfishly, allows herself to play almost the damsel in distress even and and rolls along on Lisai's adventure only to then sort of like wash her hands of him when things fall apart a little bit and go well. I told you this was a bad idea. Well, if you know it was a bad idea, maybe put the brakes on her later on. Anyway, I think there is some of their bumbling misadventures there before they part ways that I I think she could have helped him with. But

Joel: overall,

Ashley: I agree. Around to run what you've done.

Joel: Right. Right. I mean, and I I know that's obviously different. What do you think about the And I mean, I think we've we've I think we've been I think we've been conditioned that any sort of overtones of sexuality between them,

Ashley: I

Joel: don't think it's gonna play I don't think it's gonna play very controversially after watching the the lannisters screw each other for seven seasons on Game of Thrones. Yeah. Okay.

Ashley: The lannisters really took familial relationships to the next level.

Joel: Right. They've they've made a lot more things seem not weird at all. Like, the fact that he's sort of got an edible thing for his mom the fact that the the blood transfusion, you know, the the giving and taking of blood is sort of a sexual thing. None of that's I I I don't think it'll play weird in a world where in a post Game of Thrones world. I think I think you're right. Post Game of Thrones. I love it. What what about this what about their parting argument though? Do you do you remember this? So when they part ways and he ends up going into the ground before Mary has find some to me, I feel like, again, there's some really good poetry there for one thing, but also the and I know it hit me when I read it, you know, at thirteen or whatever, fourteen years old when I was reading it then, but it hit me even now about the nature of that mother son relationship or father's son relationship where you do have to get to the point where you push them away. You it's it's required. You know, and this is playing out for them again even though they're, you know, vampires now in mortal. I I thought it was interesting. I thought it was effective. And in many ways, it is what is the final straw for L'Estat that puts him in the position to be found by to be caught by Marius to begin with. You know what I mean? I don't know if he if they had continued together, I don't know that he would have cried out to Marius in the way that he did. And if he hadn't, I don't think Marius would have come and found him.

Ashley: Yeah. No. I I agree. I think that that that had to happen. That that that had to happen for him to become him to become the next version of himself. You know what I mean? I think that that had to happen for her to become the next version of herself. You know, these and I think something that's very relationships change in this vampiric world. Just because I was your mother when we were alive doesn't mean I'm your mother as a vampire. Howard Bauchner: And I think that - I think that - because we're no longer talking about people are no longer about well, people are not talking about human beings anymore. You know what I mean? Like, they've become something else. They've become something almost in a way, godlike, in a way, in whittle, in a way, in human. And so I think that to me, I was able to kind of see and understand the change in the relationship that she felt that maybe L'Estat didn't feel. You know, he it was hard for him not to look at her as his mother sometimes, whereas I think she stopped seeing her sometimes as her as her son?

Joel: Yes. No. I think she I think she really stopped seeing him as her son. Maybe even as soon as maybe even before he becomes a vampire before he even leaves for Paris perhaps that that she sees him more as a compatriot and you know, a fellow sufferer. But -- Right. -- definitely, by the time they are together and in Paris and and dealing with Nicholas' craziness and then the the coven, it's clear that she sees him just as a peer. Their again, maybe that is the reason why she never steps in and sort of takes charge or sort of, like, leads the group, so to speak, because she doesn't see herself as the mother figure at all. Anyway, what a compelling character? And again, what a great role? There are so many excellent roles in this series. I cannot wait to see some of the names that you and I don't even know yet, but are going to become household names. You know, I think about I didn't know Charles Vance before I meant I've seen him in one or two things, but I didn't think about him as a great actor until Game of Thrones. The same thing with them, Lena Heddy. You know, I didn't think about her really. I'd seen her another thing. She was in the Saricana Chronicles. She was good in that. She's in the three hundred. She's good in that.

Ashley: Oh, she was badass than three hundred. Yeah. I love her that she was she was actually really on my radar as a lady as a lady fight choreographer and a lady fighter. Like, she she was on my radar because of three hundred. She had been kind of I had been paying attention to her for a while.

Joel: Well and she's amazing. In this era kinda chronicles both dramatically and also she's got a lot of great action in that series too. Two seasons worth of great stuff there. I think she did a better job than her Game of Thrones CoStar in the which one did the the Queen of Dragons play, Sarah Connor, in the what was it, Genesis? Terminator genesis update. Interesting sort of a thing for them to chat about on the off scenes there. Anyway, I just I I cannot wait. I cannot wait to see this cast list. That is the thing I think that I'm most excited about is to see who the names are that are going and who the faces are that are gonna be, you know, filling my imagination with these characters from now on out. I've got a long history of L'Estat in my head But if this is done remotely at all well, then these characters and these scenarios, this version of it is gonna lay a stamp over, not only mine and yours, but, you know, the mainstream as a whole, this is going to be the portrayal of these characters that people remember and and that pop culture as a whole imagine. So I'm excited about it. Let's move forward a little bit. Why don't we and talk about let's get into Marius. It's

Ashley: so much I love Marriott.

Joel: He's so wonderful. First of all, it's a much longer section of the book than I remember it being. It we get a lot. We get his story. We get he tells Armando's story. You know, we we get a lot of download there. It reminds me very much of and I think this comes a little bit later in time, but when Anne writes, the the witching hour, the first novel in the Mayfair witch's series there are, you know, chapter after chapter after chapter of the Tallamaska files, basically. And this to me feels like her first swing at, hey, let me tell you the history of the world. And she does a great job of that. She does it again in cleaning the damned a couple of times because we get the story of, you know, Cayman, we get the story of the twins, and we get all of that those downloads as well. But this one through Marius' eyes and mouth, I think, is really well done. And what a great parallel between him and lestat. And this is also something that I had overlooked sort of in my memory, but it sticks out in this reading. The fact that they both come from specific times in human history where sort of the scientific method and the idea of facts and truth and reality have risen to the top. They are Ascendant and the concepts of suspicion and, you know, I wanna say the occult, but that's not what I'm thinking of of of a superstition. Those are falling away. Religion, even in faith, are falling away a bit to a degree. And because of that, I think Myriad and Lisbod are always gonna be kindred spirits. Kindred spirits. And and that chemistry is very they they are men cut from the same cloth, I think.

Ashley: Yes. I think that their souls recognize each other.

Joel: Yes. So you said it so much more artfully than I did. That is exactly what happens. That is exactly what happens. It's the reason why, Marius responds to him for the first time in a thousand years, he's he he answers the call for someone looking for Marius. And it is not coincidental that it is listed.

Ashley: Howard Bauchner: Absolutely. I love what you said about, like, even religion is falling away. I I marked this passage, this little exchange between the two of them where Mary says, to be godless is probably the first step to innocence. To lose the sense of sin and subordination, the false grief for things supposed to be lost. Unless that says, so by instance, you may not an absence of experience, but an absence of illusion, and he's an absence of a need for illusions, a love and a love of and respect for what is right before your eyes. I love that. I love that. As someone who's a bit agnostic, I really, really love that. I love that. It's not it's it's it's kind of like people who have a lot of faith but don't necessarily have religion, if that makes sense at all. I don't know. I just and I love I love the way she writes for Marius. I love Marius's words out of her pin. They just he just I love that character so hard.

Joel: Yeah. I do too. And again, I I cannot wait to see who they who they put in that role. I am very much looking forward to to loving him for years to come and and to seeing some of his story play out. I'm I'm very hopeful that that we're gonna get lots and lots of marius for seasons and seasons and seasons. The nature of, you know, one of the things that occurred to me to his idea And in a way in some ways, Lisai is a little bit Dallas. Myriad is is more closely Dallas than Lisai Lisai is almost a and and as Christian, you know, he he's he's about aesthetics more than he is about anything else, beauty more than truth.

Ashley: Really good

Joel: you know, he he is it it is it is that is the highest good for L'Estat. But for Maryess, in particular, that concept that he's talking about, you know, the to to stop believing in God is the beginning of your path. I'm badly paraphrasing it, but there's a part of the down day king. There's a chapter of the down day king that talks very specifically about you abolish wealth and you will get rid of greed. If you abolish morality, then you will get rid of sin. You know, and and the there's a little bit of wordplay on the one hand. But also, I don't know. There is a fundamental philosophical ethos there that I think there is something too, and I think it's very appealing. Absolutely. And and the idea that you pair things away to what they want to be, you allow things to be in their natural state you know, a Dallas would call it WU Way, the the the unshaped block, the un carved block, Anyway, I think that's exactly what Marriott is talking about there. And if you think about it, that is largely what L'Estat is trying to do in the end with putting on the Vampire Rockstar show. He is trying to be what he is in its ultimate expression, and he just wants to stop lying to those he loves. In this case, the entirety of the human species. You know, he loves humanity. And he as he says to Armand in the beginning there, I never lie at least not to those that I that I do not love. And he's trying to roll it out. He's trying to expand the truth. Now, I think he's wrong in it, which is why we get into all the trouble But he was again, it's about pride when he wakes up a kasha. Right? When he goes down after Miriam tells the whole story, And he's and my Marius even says that others have tried and they end up with their skull smashed or you know, he's had to save them or something like that. Marriott has told them these stories already before he goes down there and tries with the violin. He knows full well what will happen. He I think he is surprised when it's Inkel that's actually gonna grab him and choke him to death or whatever. But at the same time, he also knows that this is a possibility. If you If you walk in front of the gods and you speak to them, they might respond, you might not be happy when they do. Anyway, what what what an amazing character of Myriad's and the unfolding of a a rational man who doesn't believe in the mysterious that's literally captured by a forest god and then told to go find out what happened. To the secret underground world of vampires. Like, what an amazing story? You can make a whole TV series just about that guy. Right? Like, we don't never mind, let's start. Let's just start with Marius. I

Ashley: would watch it. I would watch that.

Joel: I I do hope that we get, by the way, a lot of this story with the old gods. I know it's gonna be expensive. These are basically all different sets. You know, I it'll be interesting to see how they can contain some of that sprawling narrative. But at the same time, if we're not introduced to mayelle there for instance, for him to show up later in Queen of the damned storyline. I think that's a shame. If we're not introduced to the concept of the elder gods and the idea that that blood sacrifice from Acacia and Inkel was, you know, continued in different parts of the world. Even though they didn't really know what the origin of it was. That's the thing that I love is that the way that Akashia and Inkel had set things up was replicated even after people forgot the why. You know, even after Akasha and Ekel had stopped speaking, the the the ones who kept them, they were they would debate it. They were like, yeah. I I bet nothing would happen if we threw them out on the sun. It it had passed the time of memory already, and yet they maintained the rituals. I find that interesting. And I think it is very true to humanity. We have maintained these things and we do that. You know, there's the social experiments where you can have everybody in a waiting room and when like a bell rings, everybody raises their hand. You slowly rotate people out of the waiting room and eventually you don't have to give them instructions, they'll just do it because they watch everybody else do it. They'll train themselves to do it and not know why, you know. That is showcased here in the worship of the the vampire the vampire gods. And I hope we get that. I hope we don't cut that all out. I understand that it is less important to the central narrative of LISTOT. But at the same time, if you're telling the sweeping narrative and you're gonna go into all fourteen of these novels eventually, then the history of the vampires is part of it. You know?

Ashley: I hope They learn they learn a good lesson from Game of Thrones, which I realized production costs have a lot to do with how this all played out. But they had so much source material to work with, and they burned their way through that so quickly. That now I mean and that that's not to say I don't I'm not totally into it and totally enjoying it still. But I do feel like they're They're floundering a little bit, not knowing exactly what's going to happen next, where they're going next because they ran out of source material they ran out of the guide. And granted, they're not not going to do that with this because the source material's already there. But I just hope they don't rush through it so quickly. I hope that they Because I do think that there is enough enough interest in this world enough to hold your interest in this world, enough to keep your attention, characters that you're gonna wanna know more about, characters that Like you said, if you don't introduce this character now, it's gonna be weird later because you didn't you didn't we didn't get the first introduction in, so they don't matter as much if they if they show up later or you have to combine them into two or three characters. And it just as as I think as a a a reader a reader of books that have been adapted, that's something that always drives us crazy is when it's like I know I know you have to make these I know you have to make these changes and I get it, but just just think about what the reader's gonna wanna see too. You know what I mean? Taking your time and really really painting the pictures. Like like literally the section where Marius is telling the story of of Armand to list that in this in this novel. I just it's so freaking beautiful and I was able to, like, literally picture it all in my head in this amazing fashion that, like, so few writers are able to paint such pictures. You know what I mean?

Joel: She she is truly gifted, like and and that absolutely stuck out in this read. The incredibly descriptive the way that she can capture the feel of a city or a time or both, it it is especially when you've been there, that's the thing that strikes me. We've talked about this before, but spending so much time in New Orleans and listening to our descriptions there, you know, traveling to Paris and when she's scribing the city again. It just feels like and I've never been to San Francisco other than the airport, I guess. But I would imagine her descriptions there are are hitting home too. Right here towards the end, it's it's chapter sixty one in the audiobook. Myriad is talking to L'Estat about Armand And there's a line that I thought was really wonderful in pointing in. And I think and maybe I'm reading too much into this. But I think based on the time frame, it might have something to do with ANZONE personal life too. Marius says of Armand, I can tell his stories forever, but they are no substitute for life. Two things there. He's, first of all, sort of sad about the fact that Armand was taken away from him specifically. But then also sad in general that our mind, because of his own actions, ended up becoming a vampire in becoming a vampire period, and having his life sort of his natural life ended To me --

Ashley: Yeah. --

Joel: I think that line that line is a lot about Marius and Armanshore, but I think it's also Anne, saying goodbye to the ghost of her daughter. The loss of her child, her daughter was, I think, four, five years old when she passed away. That is such a motivating factor for the novel interview with the vampire. It was the reason why she began to conceive of and think of the idea of vampirism and immortality at all. That's where that character of Louis and the melancholy and the, you know, treatise on death that interview with the vampire is. That's where that comes from. And here's her turning the corner. We can be sad, we can mourn the loss of the life, but living in the stories is no good to her or to us. There there is a next chapter to this story, and so we're gonna move on with it. And I I found that really poignant in this reading. Yeah.

Ashley: That's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. And and that too, like, there is a a a beauty in the memories. And and that also memory is sometimes a really pale shadow of what the experience was.

Joel: Ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth? You know, I was listening to some science show on TV half watching a half listening. The kids were in the living room and, you know, I was cooking dinner or something the other day. And they were talking about the fact that memories if you get more than even just a few days from the event, they're basically completely false because every time we run over a memory, our brain is reconstructing the events from the data dump. And so every time they're filling in the the brain is filling in holes for you. You don't remember exactly what color the shirt that Annie was wearing that day when y'all went and got ice cream was. So your brain paints the shirt for you. It just fills it in. And eventually, almost everything in the memory is filled in stuff. It's it's stuff that is likely probably possibly true, but is not necessarily actual memories. Does that make sense?

Ashley: Yeah. Tell a Xerox coffee fades.

Joel: Yes. If you

Ashley: make a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.

Joel: And

Ashley: they talk a lot about that sort of thing when in, like, in a lot of true crime podcasts I've listened to. The serial in particular where they're talking about, like, asking someone to reconstruct a memory from years ago and how how challenging that is, you know, because the usually, the only way that your brain will hang on to some of those things that much time has passed as if something significant happened. Howard Bauchner:

Joel: So after the wrap up with Marius, we are thrust into the postscript, which I don't remember it. In my memory, it wasn't a postscript. I was thinking that this was all still part of the novel I recall there being so much more rock star too in this book. There is very little rock band at all. There is very little rock star list. There's not even that much talk about the concert and the music and the ongoing, you know, fiction around the vampire was shot. All of that really comes later. It comes in the Queen of the damned book. But but what we do get though is most of the characters coming together, we get the presence of some malevolent force we we're pretty sure we know who that might be. And then the

Joel: bookends

Joel: on a cliffhanger, what do you think about that?

Ashley: I thought it was another hundred pages long. So, like, literally when I got to the when I got to the end, I was like, What the hell? Just what what the hell? Like, I I had completely put probably the first I don't know. Well, probably the first time to pages. Created the damned in my memory into this. So it kind of it felt sort of abrupt to me. I was really confused. I'm not gonna lie. Well, there's

Joel: there's so much that happens in Queen of the damned. Like we said, there's there's several info dumps where you get the different ancient characters, story lines, but then also there is a little bit of build up until sort of like Akash's plan is revealed. And then there is, of course, the de Neuma, where all of the other characters come together to try to stop her playing. So, like, there's, like, four phases of that story And I could absolutely see in my head too. I think I had conflated some of that. I had pushed, like, the whole first act maybe into the vampire list, not instead of the queen of the damned. I I don't know. I don't off the top of my head, I don't know how far apart the books were in release. The vampire livestock came out in nineteen eighty five. Let me click here and see when the Queen of the Dam came out in nineteen eighty eight. So, man, I could not imagine waiting three years to hear the end of that.

Ashley: A lot have been so pissed. Like, I think about that a lot about, like, well, I did that with Game of Thrones. I was like, well, I finished the first season. And I was like, well, I'm not gonna get tricked again. And so I was I grabbed those books and I read them all, and then I'm And then I got ahead of the now I'm ahead of the, you know, now I'm we're ahead of the source material. And now I'm still waiting on that same damn book. Everybody else is that it's so frustrating.

Joel: Yeah. I am I am very glad that that won't ever be the case with this TV series. You know? Like,

Ashley: you're his man.

Joel: There's basically no way that they they won't last fourteen seasons. So I'd like I'm I'm sure that that won't be the case. So I I think that's about all of my thoughts on this novel. I am really excited to get into the next one and we are gonna try to do it a little faster so that We can also get to the movie, which I don't think that I've ever actually seen. I know that

Ashley: we talk to you.

Joel: I'm pretty sure that I've never actually seen Queen of the damned. I think I watched, like, half of it once right after it came out on video. No for a fact, I didn't go to I I knew it was gonna be bad. I didn't like the trailers. I didn't like the trailers, and so I refused to go to the movie theater to see it. I was so mad that they hadn't made a true sequel to interview. And so years later, I was like, no screw you guys. I don't want this version. But then eventually, I did get into the I did watch it on video, I think, but or maybe I didn't finish it. I don't know. Anyway, I'm excited to get to that. So we gotta get through the book first. But before we get to that. Do you have any sort of final thoughts on this book?

Ashley: Just that I I really I love List that way more than I used to. Like, I forgive him for a lot I understand him a lot better than I used to. And this was so much easier to read and so much It's I really and I think it speaks to Anne has said this before too. Like, she Lrastat tells speaks through her. List that tells her whispers in her ear and tells her stories, you know, basically. And I think that that's one of the reasons why this is so much of an easier book to literally read and get through than interview us. I mean, it just it's just easier because it's her natural voice. It's her voice. I feel like in a lot of ways. And so it's so so it was so nice to kind of curl up with this book again and and and and hear the voice that we're gonna be hearing the rest of the time. You know, interviews kind of an aberration that's really outside of that kind of stand alones and such, you know, most of these novels are told from Lrastat's perspective, Lrastat's voice. So it's nice to kind of settle back in with that voice and know who's gonna be telling me a story for the next couple of books that I'm gonna be reading.

Joel: Yes. Yes. I love it. Alright. So you get you get to reading. If you're listening to this, get to reading the Queen of the damned or check out the audiobook if you'd like to. That's what I'm gonna be doing. And we will be back soon with an episode on that book. I wanna take a minute, Ashley. I don't think we've done this yet, but I wanna highlight a few reviews of the show even though we've only done four podcasts. Episodes. Some people have taken the time to go and review us. This one comes from, I believe, this is Philly DVA from the United States. Five stars right on time is the subject line. And Marcos is says down the bottom, so I'm gonna assume that it's a heat. Excited to stumble into this podcast. I watched the interview with the vampire last night and decided to check if there were any podcast discussing one of my favorite movies. I love the enthusiasm of the host as they lovingly discussed the Best Bites of L'Estat News. I didn't even hear about the impending series, so that was a real treat. Thanks, guys. I'll be listening. Take care of Marcos in New Jersey. Why is your name Philidiva then Marcos? I appreciate that. This one comes this one comes from Klaus's cousin. Oh, I love it. This one comes from Klaus's cousin from the United States. Five stars entertaining and informative. I got into reading Ann Rice after the release of the interview with the Vampire movie back in ninety four. And remember getting the first four books as a gift. I read through them quickly and read her other works like the mummy, the Mayfair witches, etcetera. She was certainly a gateway author for me and other stuff like Steven King, Nancy Collins, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, etcetera. Though I haven't read any of her stuff in quite some time, I do look forward to hearing These guys discuss the Vampire Chronicles books of chronological order. Love listening to this podcast at work or in the car. Well, thank you so much. We will try to have

Ashley: more of

Joel: them. For you to listen to. That's very sweet. And then I actually, I believe this is a second message from Marcus. This wasn't a review, but we got a message on our Facebook page. Which by the way, you can find us. We've got a group on Facebook, search for articulate coven or go to articulate coven dot com. And you can find us there. Marco says, hi, I just wanted to drop a line and mention that I'm relieved you came out with a new episode. Imagine imagine your relief after this one. I thought maybe you guys had stopped doing the show. There's podcast on iTunes for Stephen King and Clive Barker, but as far as I know, you're the only one doing an outright show. We are. We're still as of yesterday, we were still the only Android specific show in the Apple Podcasts. After after listening to your previous episodes, it got me to purchase the last two Vampire Chronicles books, Prince L'Estat and Realm's of Atlantis, which speaking of, we got some news for you here in just a minute. Also, if you're a fan of classic Gothic soap opera dark shadows, the Lara Parker novels are pretty darn good too. Have you read those? The Lara Parker?

Ashley: But I love dark shadows.

Joel: That one too. Did you watch the so my entry way to that was not the original series, which was in rerun still when we were kids. But my entry point was the NBC remake. Did do you remember that? They made, like, one season of a remake in the early nineties?

Ashley: I don't think I watched that. I watched old episodes with shout out to my buddy court Courtney Payton who introduced me to almost everything else to my nerdy that I love when we were teenagers inquire together. My buddy Courtney watched the old episodes of Dark Shadows. And so she I would watch those with her, got real into that.

Joel: Nice. Yeah. I loved the combination of of the the horror elements, which I was big into even as a kid. I didn't I didn't really like I've never been liked to be scared I've always loved like that universal horror movie aesthetic, the the creeping dread, the, you know, the dark set the the smoky atmosphere and everything. I loved all of that type of stuff and dark shadows had all of that in spades. It also was a good soap opera. So if

Ashley: if you

Joel: were like us both of us, I think, like, days of our days of our lives back in the day, same deal.

Ashley: Oh, yeah. So if

Joel: you got vampires too, that's that's we're down for it. We are down for it. Speaking of news, they mentioned the the newer L'Estat book's Prince L'Estat and the latest book realms of Atlantis, there is a new Vampire Chronicles book coming out this fall, as a matter of fact, and I am searching for the title of the thing right now. The newest book is going to be called Blood communion, a tale of Prince L'Estat, and that will be out in October, I believe, of two thousand eighteen. Yeah, this fall sometime. So about this about a year after the release of the sequel to the mummy that came out last year. This one Anne wrote by herself, so it does not this is not a collaboration between she and Christopher. But it is a continuation of the storyline for the whole vampire chronicles and and especially the latest couple of principal Stott and Prince Stott and the realms of Atlantis are are sort of right on top of each other. And I think this was is gonna be that way too. You still have not read the most recent series. Have you?

Ashley: No. I'm real behind y'all. So -- Yeah. -- what is the last book that you remember

Joel: reading?

Ashley: Did

Joel: you get into the, like, the lyrics and the black and golds and the blackwood farms and those?

Ashley: I read. I think, blood and gold might be the last one I read. Mhmm.

Joel: Yeah. The the the blood and gold is that's the

Ashley: married child. Yeah.

Joel: Yeah. That's a good one. The Anyway, it'll be interesting to see I know the in particular Merrick and the Mayfair book are not part of the deal for the TV series. And I don't I think there's one other book along with Merrick, one of the of the other vampire books not included.

Ashley: I did read Merrick. I definitely did read Merrick. I do remember that one.

Joel: Well, if you're a female David Talbott, like I am, I it's God. Love that channel. Easy to go I do too. And it's very easy to flow into that whole series. I know a lot of people don't really like that sort of side story, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Ashley: I love the maker, which is that's that's great, guys. If you ever heard those books, take your take your time through it. I will say this too, guys. I really am I'm rereading and and getting caught up on all of these. So if you wanna do, like, book club along with me, just holler at me on our Facebook page, and I'll be happy to, like, we can kind of all read together if you want.

Joel: Absolutely. And if if you'd want to do if if you wanna start even like a a comment thread about a book and and then, you know, we can go from there and everybody can sort of add into it. That'd be that'd be awesome. We could do that in the group. Check us out, search articulate COVID on Facebook. We are available in Apple Podcasts. We're in Stitcher Radio. We're on Google Play Music. We are not yet in The Google Podcast, that's a a new thing. If you're a Android user, although if you're listening to the show, I'm sure you already are finding us in your favorite podcast app. But for new listeners, I am very excited to get us in there. We're gonna be soon so that people can just tell the Google Assistant to play the articular oven and and ding, bang, boom, that'll happen. So that's coming soon. But as Ashley said you can find us on Facebook and join the conversation there and we will be back soon with more episodes for you. Folks, I appreciate your patience and we definitely appreciate Ashley's time. Thank you so much for joining me each and every episode,

Joel: ma'am.

Ashley: Always a delight. Thank you, sir.

Joel: Alright. Until the next episode, you continue being your own authentically dark little self and enjoy your own little devil's road. This has been the Articulate Cove, and until next episode, we are your hosts. I am Joel Sharpton.

Ashley: I'm Ashley Wright Island.

Joel: And this is the articulate oven.

Joel: Thanks for listening to the Articulate Coveen. You can join our community on Facebook by following the links in the show notes. Or searching for articulate coven on Facebook. You can subscribe to the show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, or at articulatecoven dot com, and share us with your AmRice loving friends.