This is not one of Anne Rice's better books. I'd enjoyed Lestat de Lioncourt's company up to this point, but in this story he is just too vain, narcissistic, shallow and, well, inconsequential.

Since being made a vampire Lestat has always longed for his mortal days. Indeed, it is the loneliness that immortality brings that leads many a vampire to suicide. Lestat even attempts suicide himself by flying high over the Gobi desert to burn himself to a cinder under the heat of the sun. Alas, all the ancient blood he has drunk (think Magnus, Marius and Akasha - especially Akasha) has rendered him almost indestructible. Instead of meeting death, he endures agony under the sun's rays and soon recovers.

After his recovery, he begins to notice a man who turns up and makes contact with him. The man is ungainly and awkward. He gives books to Lestat for him tyo read, and there is a message hidden within the text. Eventually, this man reveals to Lestat that he is a body thief and that he wishes to trade bodies with the vampire Lestat himself.

The body in which he appears is not his own: he stole that with a certain spiritual deftness and then uses it to entice Lestat into agreeing to his plan. His plan is to switch bodies with Lestat for a period of a few days. Lestat will pay the man a vast sum for the privelege, and the man will enjoy being a vampire for a few days.

Of course, you can see the risks...

How contrived the plot is. Lestat is desperate to feel the sun on his face once more as a mortal, and then the "body thief" turns up with the mechanism to achieve his desire. To make matters worse, this man - Raglan James - is a real unsavoury character. So of course, we are supposed to urge Lestat not to go ahead with the switch. And of course he does.

How predictable.

The Twins Maharet And Mekare

In ancient Egypt, Maharet and Mekare are twins born of a powerful witch. They are as powerful as their mother and can communicate with the spirits. Using the spirits, they can bring the “little rain”, and every now and then they manage to bring the “big rain”. Little rain refers to a light shower, whereas big rain refers to rain that causes the Nile to flood its banks – very useful given their climate and crop growing endeavours.

The sisters are telepathic and can read each other’s thoughts. They often give spiritual advice to people who need it and are able to read omens and predict the future, to a certain extent. Their powers as witches becomes well known and eventually they receive an invitation to be guests at the court of the king and queen of Kemet (Egypt) – Enkil and Akasha. The king’s messenger brings the invitation on a stone tablet, but on feeling the tablet, Maharet and Mekare feel that something was wrong. Their mother holds the tablet, feels a premonition of doom and advises against them going to meet the king.

The messenger leaves empty handed. This rejection must offend Akasha and Enkil, because shortly the king’s soldiers arrive to burn the village to the ground and massacre the inhabitants. They choose their arrival with superb timing.

Maharet and Mekare are attending the ritual feast at the funeral of their mother when the soldiers arrive. But this is no ordinary feast. Their ancient custom is to eat the flesh of their loved ones who have died. This is a respectful ceremony that is part of sending the dead to the afterlife. The king and queen have outlawed all flesh eating though – even the ceremonial stuff. Catching the twins at the commencement of their ceremonial feast gives the soldiers (i.e. Akasha) just the excuse they need to raise the village to the ground. Akasha maintains that the banning of cannibalism is grounded in her moral beliefs, when in actual fact it is simply that she finds it distasteful.

The soldiers capture Maharet and Mekare and take them to the court of the king and queen. Along the way, the king’s loyal steward, Khayman, shows the twins kindness by giving them food and letting them walk about to stretch their legs. An ironic twist to Khayman’s kindness is to await them in Egypt, though.

On arriving at the king’s court, Akasha wishes to know as much as she can about the twins communication with the spirits. It turns out that the queen is a bit twisted and has evil tendencies. Initially Akasha and Enkil are sceptical of the twins’ claims that they can talk to the spirits, but after a few demonstrations of the spirits power, albeit limited, they become believers. All that the spirits can do is move things around, but the king and queen don’t know that and assume that their powers are greater than they really are.

One of the spirits present is the evil one Amel. He is a nasty bugger, and he has powers of a different nature.

As part of their demonstration, Amel gets a little out of hand and magics up an heirloom that belonged to Akasha’s mother. This presents Akasha with a paradox. She doesn’t believe that spirits exist, yet the only other explanation for the heirloom’s appearance is that someone stole it from her mother’s tomb – and this is too hurtful to contemplate.

Obviously, the only thing the queen can do to save face, demonstrate her power and show how trivial the spirits are is to administer some kind of punishment to the twins while the spirits look on helplessly. She and Enkil decide that Khayman should rape the twins. Khayman is essentially a good man and likes the twins but he is also loyal to his king and so he completes the punishment.

After their violation, Maharet and Mekare are allowed to go home on condition that they do not allow the spirits to do any harm.

Theirs is a long and difficult journey home, alone across the desert. Maharet knows that she is carrying Khayman’s child.

Along the way they meet a Bedouin village, whose inhabitants welcome them in and give them food. They leave, eventually reach the village they call home and Maharet has her child. A few blissful years pass before Khayman returns with bad news.

Amel, the evil spirit, has “possessed” the king and queen and they now need the twins to go to them and restore peace.

The Evil Spirit Amel

In ancient Egypt, the two witches Mararet and Mekare were able to communicate with spirits. By and large, spirits were good, if a little vain. Amel, however was a bad sort. Whereas other spirits could, at most, only move objects around, Amel could actually pierce the skin of humans with little needle pricks. Worryingly, he liked the taste of human blood.

In Queen Of The Damned, the story covers Daniel's first meeting with the Vampire Armand. Daniel is the mortal who interviewed Louis in Interview With The Vampire. After the interview, Daniel had begged Louis to give him the Dark Gift. Louis had fed upon Daniel and when Daniel awoke to find Louis gone, he replayed the interview tapes to find Lestat's address.

Queen Of The Damned reveals that Daniel had made his way to the house that Lestat lived in, whereupon Armand made him his victim. Armand find Daniel interesting and let's him go "free" saying that Daniel is safe for as long as Armand finds him interesting. Daniel spends the next few years travelling the world, only to find Armand there at the most unexpected moments. When they do meet, Armand feeds on him.

Daniel seems to wander in a half life between living and dying and feels despaire much of the time.

Their relationship develops to the point where Daniel longs for these encounters and finds himself looking for Armand and expecting to see him wherever he is. Eventually, they love each other. However, Armand will not make Daniel a vampire, much to Daniel's confusion and dismay. He wants to be united with Armand as a vampire himself.

As Armand denies this wish, and as Daniel realises that he is dying while Armand remains immortal, resentment grows. Daniel cares less and less about himself as he flees Armand after each meeting. Daniel can live off the royalties he makes from sales of Interview With The Vampire and he continues to travel to far away places to get away from Armand. Inevitably, each time he flees, runs himself down doesn't look after himself and in a very weakened state, he always wishes for Armand back. As if reading his mind (and he is!) Armand always appears to take him home.

This conflict of emotions continues within Daniel for years. He hates the life he has, wishes with all his might that Armand transforms him into a vampire, Armand refuses and Daniel resents him for it.

Unspoken and inexplicable danger stalks the vampires in Queen Of The Damned, and Armand, being scared and also in love with Daniel, eventually succombs to Daniels wishes to transform him. He gives the Dark Gift to Daniel.