Boycott Anne Rice

I think a group Boycotting Anne Rice should be made and go National saying no one will buy her books until she decides to start writng her books on The Vampire Chroniccles and also New Tales of the Vampires Series too. What would be great is that once the Anne Rice Boycott group got up and running it get some kind of Media attention on TV, Radio and Newspapers. I strongly feel that we as Anne Rice fans should organize ourselves and go go on Strike out against her fictional life of Jesus Christ books. That 's the only way things seem to get done here in this Country. You have to start a Strike and Protest whatever your cause happens to be. Why not? Over the years we've had Strikes for Better Pay, Better Working Conditions, Women's Lib for Equal Pay for doing the same job as a Man, Civil Rights, the Viet Nam War, Legalization of Marijuana, for Women earning the Right to Vote, etc.

Beatles1964

So you are opposed to authors writing what they want to write? You think they should only be allowed to write what you want to read? Isn't that a form of censorship?

How would you like it if someone told you that you could only read what they wanted to write?

If you don't like what Rice is writing now, don't read it. Read something else.

I get that you are unhappy with her current work. So don't buy it.

But you want to force her to write something you like??? Good luck with that.

Yes, I do agree that the Boycott I am suggesting is a form of censorship. And I am doing that right now by choosing not to read let alone buy any of her books on the fictional life of Jesus Christ. However, I feel that she just decided it was convenient for her to dump her long time fans and readership base and coddle to her new found bunch of readers who have never, ever read one word or sentence of any of her Vanpire Novels or her Mayfair Witches trilogy. And it was her original fan base that made her a household name to begin not her new found fans who only know her through her books on Jesus. I still feel that one she found Religion again and decided to go back to the Catholic Church she stiil could've written books for both her long-time fans and newer fan base who only read her books on Christ Series. Why not make both sides completely happy instead of losing long-time fans like myself and alienating them in the process. She bit the hand that fed her. And she owes it to her long-time fans to at least write another one or two more books in The Vampire Chronicles and New Tales of the Vampires Series. I am not going to stupid enough to go and start burning all of my Anne Rice books in Protest or tossing them in the garbage can either. Because in the end I wouldn't be hurting anyone except myself.

Beatles1964

Hey knipfty I am not the only Anne Rice fan who loves her Vampire Lestat, New Tales Of The Vampires and Mayfair Witches trilogy over her new found success of only writing Christian related books about Jesus Christ. Like I said it was her Horror Novels NOT her Christian Novels that made her a household name to begin with. If it wasn't for her Horror Novels she wouldn't have the luxury to totally chuck all of her long-time fans away and alienating a lot of us in the process. She wouldn't have been anything IF it hadn't been for Horror Novels.

She owes it to all of us to start writing Horror Novels again. Like I sais she could easily satisfy both groups of her fans if she really wanted to which is obvious she no feels that she owes us anything for making her the Successful Author that she is today. She owes it to us.

Beatles1964

She owes you nothing! You paid for and enjoyed her past novels. She moved on, perhaps you should too.

Send her an email and request nicely that you would like her to revisit her old series. But to ask people to boycott is over the top on this issue...

I'm a bit confused with what you hope to accomplish.

1) If she is truly converted and believes her time is best served "writing for the lord", what do you think a boycott will accomplish?

2) If she believes what she professes, how are you sure she is even capable of generating a good book (that would stand up to fan's expectations) in those series you mention?

3) Why does she owe you anything? What are you suggesting these fans are entitled to? What gives them that right of entitlement? If you paid for a book, you presumably got that in return for your investment.

One one hand, I find the statements in #1 to be the funniest thing I've read all day, and if it was meant as a joke -- my hat's off to you, beatles1964!

On the other hand, if you're at all serious, do everyone a favor and never run for public office.

As to "Why not?" -- Because you have no valid reason for protesting her choices.

I've got a lot her earlier works only because my late father-in-law had, and read them. He liked them a lot, but he was a tad biased because she wrote them while living in his favorite city, New Orleans. Being a long-time atheist, he wasn't interested in reading her Jesus fiction, mainly because "(he) read enough of that in the bible". I also suspect that, because she moved to California, he considered her a bit of a traitor. He also suspected that it was a change in the drinking water that caused a change in the subject matter. I have no empirical evidence to confirm nor deny that claim. Regardless, he opted to quietly not buy those particular books rather than make a fool of himself by proposing a boycott.

Well, there's always the ol' Misery method if you get really desperate.

WholeHouseLibrary I was serious when I said that I felt people should Boycott her until she decides to pick up right where she left off. And I stated my reasons why I feel the way I do. Just go back and reread what I wrote. Without all of the Loyal, Dedicated fans of her Horror Novels where would she be today? Not the famous Horror Writer that she was before she decided to chuck us all out into the garbage heap. Like I said, it was the Horror Novels NOT her Christian Novels that made her a household name and famous. Without her fan base of Horror fans I don't think she would've been as successful an Author if she had never written even one of The Vampire Chronicles, The Mayfair Witches Trilogy or Tales Of The New Vampires. We Horror fans made her the Successful Author that she is in the first place. She Owes US everything.

Beatles1964

Let me put this question to everyone else here. Have you stopped reading her because she decided to ditch the Horror Genre and only concentrate on the Christian themed Religious Novels? Or did you choose to stay with her and continue buyng her Christian books even though she will never, ever write another Horror Novel? I just feel cheated by her for her decision to do this to us her long-time fans who were with her in the very beginning buying up every one of her Horror Novels when they got Published. I feel cheated by one of the truly, gifted great Horror Writers in the last half of the 20th Century. I remember when I first her the news on TV that she had decided she would no longer write any Horror Novels. I was totally shocked and surprized by the news and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I thought there must be some kind of a mistake, that it just couldn't be true.

Beatles1964

Get a life, already! She owes her fans nothing except thanks, and there's a limit to how much, and in what form, that should be.

No author should be required to write solely one theme all his/her life. No one should protest when the author chooses to 'dig up other fossils' (as Stephen King says in his non-horror-genre book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft).

* Doesn't seem likely that the touchstones are going to load....

Stephen R. Donaldson took thirty years to get back to writing The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant -- a complete surprise to me, since the title character died at the end of the last book of the second trilogy! In the meantime, he (Donaldson, that is - not Covenant) wrote a Sci-Fi series, several other books of fantasy, three very good books of detective mysteries (under the pseudonym Reed Stevens).

Patience, beatles1964.
Snatch the bookmark from my hand...

*edited to fix punctuation, and a clarification in the last paragraph.

You still don't get it. She made her choice. You can't force someone to be creative against her will. But telling people they should boycott her Christian works to get your way sounds quite immature.

Um, speaking as a reader and a writer, I have to agree that an author doesn't owe anyone anything except a good book in exchange for the money one pays for the privilege of buying and reading the book.

I think a fan might have a legit beef if an author known for, say, their hard-core thrillers tried to slip in a romance or a cozy, so that a fan buys it thinking it's the same type as the author usually writes, and is thus tricked. But Rice came right out and said what she planned to do.

It's okay to be disappointed, but my advice is to just get over the disappointment, reread all the beloved old horror/supernatural novels she wrote, and be happy to have had them at all. Otherwise, it's sort of like being mad at an author for dying and no longer writing more novels.

Just my opinion. :)

Anyway, to set the record straight, I have read all of Rice's earlier horror/supernatural novels, and am continuing to enjoy her recent life of Jesus novels.

ETA that I hope she changes her mind and writes some more vamp, etc. novels too.

I've never read Ann Rice. But grow up. Or write some fan fiction. It sounds as if that would satisfy you.

For years Anne Rice had been one of my three main Horror Writers I collected and read along with Stephen King and Clive Barker. I considered those those three Authors to be my Unholy Trinity Of Horror Writers. Unholy of course because of the kind of books they write and not for any other reasons. Any way, since Anne Rice is out of writing Horror Novels and has decided to write nothing but Christian Novels there is an opening in my Unholy Trinity Of Horror Writers. And up to now I haven't been able to find anyone to replace the acancy that was left open by Anne Rice. So I am looking for a new Horror Writer to replace Anne Rice with. By new I mainly mean new to me and not necessarily an up and coming new Horror Writer.

Someone I haven't bothered to collect and read up until now. S/he may already have written a lot of books that I may need to start buying in order to catch up with everything they have written to date. One name that does come to my mind is Sherrilyn Kenyon. Since I do plan on keeping and rereading all of my old Anne Rice books and not donate them to my local Library to be added to their Collection, have a Used Book Sale, toss them in the trash or Burning them in protest over the fact that I don't like her decision to stop writing Horror Novels. It would be crazy of me to do anything rash like that since I wouldn't be hurting anyone except myself and it would be an awful sin to do something crazy, rash and impulsive by doing any of those things which I know I would regret later on.

Anyway does anyone have some other suggestions about
a list of Horror Writers I might want to collect and read and add to my book collection. The only thing is I will have to find a place to put all of my Anne Rice books once I find another Horror Writer to replace her with. I may eventually need to buy some more book cases in order to shelve my Anne Rice books plus my other books that I have in boxes right now.
I do also happen to have some books by Dean Koontz, James Herbert, Rachel Vincent, John Farris, R.R. Walters, T.M. Wright and some others I can't think of right now.

Beatles1964

H. P. Lovecraft immediately springs to mind.....

I had bad dreams from reading Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos and other books of his for years.

One of my brothers used to work at the Brown University Library in Providence, R. I., and where Mr. Lovecraft bequeathed his manuscripts. Of course, my brother read every scrap of paper in the archive. According to him, the really scary stuff was never published.

#17: Okay, you've got me curious about the "really scary stuff" ... like you, I had my share of Lovecraftian nightmares when I was younger ... something about "The Colour out of Space" totally freaked me out ... or were you referring more to his personal papers? I understand Lovecraft wasn't the nicest, most open-minded person in the world.

Wow. this is one of the most hilarious threads I've read all day. I can barely get through a Beatles1964 post, but sometimes, just sometimes, they're worth it. OMG dude. Get over it and get a life.

> 16

I may eventually need to buy some more book cases . . .

There are worse things on which to spend your money!

For some terrifying short stories, pick up some M.R. James.

#7 christiguc I'll try to answer each and everyone of your questions to the best of my abilities.

1. "If she is truly converted and believes her time is best served "writing for the lord", what do you think a boycott will accomplish"?

First of all I would hope that a boycott of her books would teach her a lesson that by deciding to stop writing her Horror Novels and writing on her Chirstian Novels thus alienating her legion of fans she would be forced to rethink her original decision and start writing the Horror Novels again thus satisfying both her long-time original fans that helped make her what she is today and also appeal to her newer fans that only know her through her Chirstian Novels.

2. "If she believes what she professes, how are you sure she is even capable of generating a good book (that could stand up to fan's expectations) in those series you mention"?

Well, it shouldn't be that hard for her to get back into th swing of things again to continue writing The Vampire Chronicles and New Tales Of The Vampires. I think once she got started again it would probably all start coming back to her again. It's not like there's been a 20 or 30 year gap between her last books for The Vampire Chronicles and New Tales Of The Vampires so it should be like stepping into some comfortable old shoes or meeting old friends again. I still don't see why she can't write in both kinds of genres and satisfy both kinds of her fans at the same time. I'll have to continue this at a later time because this is all I have time to do right now.

Beatles1964

banging head into desk...

22 > it's an exercise in futility, give up now...

> 21

I want to recommend a book to you, Dorothy L. Sayers' Gaudy Night. In the course of the book, her characters discuss the importance of "doing your job", that is, the job that you are meant to do, the job that engages your mind and your heart and your passion. One person says that you can tell whether something is "your job" if you find that you have taken tremendous pains over it and made no fundamental errors, though you may, of course, make surface errors. Another compares it to the saying that "genius is eternal patience". (I'm paraphrasing, because I don't have the book in front of me, but that's the gist.) And they agree that if you are doing a job that isn't yours, it can be soul-destroying.

My point? That you cannot force someone to do a job that they were not meant to do, if you want the job to be well done.

If Rice were forced to write what her heart and soul do not want her to write, you would get crap.

Give it up.

Re: #18

Kromes,
I was referring to the books that he wrote that were never published. My brother had access to them, and read them all. I don't know anything about Lovecraft's demeanor. But...

My wife has an older half-sister who I have met twice now. She's really a very sweet and friendly and intelligent, very gentle person, and I like her a lot. She's currently in the process of getting a Civil War novel published, and was kind enough to send a copy of the first 50 pages of the manuscript to us. I took about a week to reply to her after I read it.

I apologized for the delay in getting back to her, and expanded (a lot) on the first sentence of the previous paragraph to her because I didn't want her to get the wrong idea when I asked her: "Does (her husband) feel safe when he sleeps at night?"

She had written some of the most gruesome descriptions of murders and battles that I think I'll ever come across! Honestly, I could imagine Stephen King going into a jealous rage over the way she wrote this stuff.

So, for all I know, Lovecraft could have been a doting husband, father and grandfather, and been a very congenial and generous person, and ~still~ write great horror stories.

#25: Thanks for the update ... your brother sounds like a pretty lucky guy then ... I can't believe no one's published those yet!

On Lovecraft's demeanor, I'm not too up on the particulars, but my understanding is that he was somewhere between an out-and-out racist and one of those people whose negative attitudes toward other races were "a product of his times."

If you google Lovecraft+racist you'll see a lot of stuff comes up.

I knew that I owned a couple of H.P. Lovecraft books and that I also had some of his Short Stories in my Horror Anthology books and started going through them yesterday afternoon.

H.P. Lovecraft Books Owned:

1. Cry Horror! Original Title:The Lurking Fear
2. The Best of H.P. Lovecraft:
Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror And The Macabre

Horror Anthologies owned with Lovecraft Short Stories:
1.House Shudders:An Anthology of Haunted House Stories
H. P. Lovecraft's The Rats In The Walls
2.11 Great Horror Stories Including The Oblong Box and The Dunwich Horror
3. Great Tales Of Horror & The Supernatural
H.P. Lovecraft's Pickman's Model
4.13 Short Horror Novels with
H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time
5. Chamber of Horrors Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural
H.P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror
6. A Treasury of American Horror Stories 51 Spine-Chilling Tales From Every State In The Union Plus Washington,D.C.
Massachusetts Pickman's Model
Rhode Isalnd The Hunter of The Dark

These were just some of my Horror Anthologies I had gone through and actually found an H.P. Lovecraft Short Story in. O may even have some others at home too but I won't know until I go through the rest of them as well. I have never really started out trying to collect books or his Short Stories. I would mainly look for Horror Anthologies with Stephen King in them and if they had anyone else I liked that was like an added bonus.

And if I came across Horror Anthologies without an Stephen King Story in it I wouldn't wind up buying the book. It was either Stephen King or nothing at all. Because I was mainly trying to build up my Stephen King Collection at the time and really didn't care about any of the other Horror Writers in the Anthologies. As long as it had Stephen King in it I was a Happy Camper. Looking back on it now I realize I probably missed out on a lot of great Short Stories by other Horror Writers in those Horror Anthologies I decided to pass up
and not to buy at the time.

I was disappointed whenever I ran across a Horror Anthology without something by Stephen King inside it. I thought how dare they decide to have an Horror Anthology without anything by Stephen King in it and put the book back on the shelf. Because as far as I was concerned Stephen King was the Center of the Universe. Of course today I am still adding to my Stephen King Collection whenever I can

Beatles1964

I loved the first few Vampire Chronicles novels, but around the time Rice wrote Memnoch the Devil, I found myself enjoying her work less and less. You know what? I just stopped reading her books, simple as that. I know I'm not the only one who did so, either,---so what? She loses some readers, gains others---a boycott would be pointless.

Anne Rice (or any other writer, musician, what-have-you) doesn't owe you anything. You can't force someone to write what you want them to write because it's not your decision to make.

Your comment is just so...strange. Hey, why not go a step further like Stehen King's character Annie Wilkes does to her favorite author when he stopped writig her favorite series? It makes just as much sense.

Gairid,Thanks but No Thanks that is a bit too creepy for me and it's also not my style to cross the line like Annie Wilkes did in Stephen King's book Misery. I may be fanatical about collecting everything related to Stephen King like the shingles I have from the time he reshingled his house in the 90s, to Signed, Numbered Limited Edtions I have paid several hundred dollars to any and all books I can find that were written by other authors about his books and movies, to newspaper clippings to guides, t-shirts, multiple copies of his books in both harxdback & paerback because they come out with different covers for his books anxd also several Foreign Editions of his books in langauges I can't even read and videotaping his interviews from Good Morning America, or the Today Show to buying his audio books on cassette tapes and cd's and buying his movies and tv mini-series on VHS anxd DVD's. I won't cross the line to invade someone's privacy like the woman who kept breaking in David Letterman's house.

Beatles1964