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    Taltos
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    Taltos
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    Taltos
    Audiobook (abridged)3 hours

    Taltos

    Written by Anne Rice

    Narrated by Tim Curry

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    "RICE IS A FORMIDABLE TALENT...[Taltos] is a curious amalgam of gothic, glamour fiction, alternate history and high soap opera."
    --The Washington Post Book World
    "CAPTIVATING...TALTOS IS A WONDERFUL OFFERING...THE BEST SHE'S DONE....There is a new member of Anne Rice's macabre family of monsters, and he's probably the loneliest, most melancholy creature on earth....Rice keeps the mystic fires burning strong."
    --The Milwaukee Journal
    "SPELLBINDING...MYTHICAL...Anne Rice is a pure storyteller."
    --Cosmopolitan
    "RICE IS A STYLISH WRITER...What works best throughout the book is the magical collusion of the real and the mythical, the intermingling of the Taltos and witches with ordinary mortals in the present-day world."
    --New York Newsday
    "BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN."
    --Kirkus Reviews (starred)
    "WHAT CAN I CONFESS? I'M ASHLAR. I'M A TALTOS.
    It's centuries since I've seen one single other member of my own species. Oh, there have been others. I've heard of them, chased after them, and in some instances almost found them. Mark, I say almost. But not in centuries have I touched my own flesh and blood, as humans are so fond of saying. Never in all this time....[pg. 64]
    When Ashlar learns that another Taltos has been seen, he is suddenly propelled into the haunting world of the Mayfair family, the New Orleans dynasty of witches forever besieged by ghosts, spirits, and their own dizzying powers. For Ashlar knows this powerful clan is intimately linked to the heritage of the Taltos.
    In a swirling universe filled with death and life, corruption and innocence, this mesmerizing novel takes us on a wondrous journey back through the centuries to a civilization half-human, of wholly mysterious origin, at odds with mortality and immortality, justice and guilt. It is an enchanted, hypnotic world that could only come from the imagination of Anne Rice . . .
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 4, 2000
    ISBN9780375418327
    Unavailable
    Taltos
    Author

    Anne Rice

    A.N. Roquelaure is the pseudonym for bestselling author Anne Rice, the author of 25 books. She lives in New Orleans.

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    Reviews for Taltos

    3.5/5

    1,211 ratings19 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Check it out, it's Bella's baby - ten years before Twilight. Or at least the race to which she ought to belong. Hmm, I wonder if Meyer read this one? Much better writing than Twilight. If you are not a fan of odd and somewhat melodramatic settings, you are not a fan of Anne Rice. Thankfully though, this is before she entered her extremely weird phase, from which, as far as I know, she has yet to return - the one dating from about Pandora on. If you liked her earlier work, or enjoy both the supernatural and a little romance, you will probably like this one. Or if you are a Meyer fan, and wonder what to read next, you should definitely try Anne Rice. I'd probably start with The Vampire Lestat or The Witching Hour, though.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I read this book many years ago and it is still one I find myself thinking of now and then. I remember it as a lighter read than most of the vampire novels (although I loved all that angst as a teen), and one with a unique and very interesting sort of creature. It truly caught my imagination. I'd like to read again as an adult and see how it holds up.
    • 2/5
      The final, and in my opinion, weakest of the trilogy. We learn about the history of the Taltos, some annoying new characters arrive on the scene and I have only read this book twice, which means it just wasn't that great.
    • 3/5
      A few years ago, I got back into reading Anne Rice, and found there was huge backlog of books to catch up on. Determined to go through them in order of publication, I picked up with the second stage of the Vampire Chronicles, and then moved on to the Mayfair Witches. These were a trilogy, set in the Louisiana and New Orleans of Lestat, and Louis, and the Talamasca, but with a set of characters completely separate from her universe of bloodsuckers. And as I stated in earlier reviews of THE WITCHING HOUR, and LASHER, I much preferred her tales of the undead to the hot and heavy story of the voluminous Mayfair family, and the “ghost” who had attached itself to them. The soft core eroticism, incest, and border line pedophilia were not really my cup of tea, and it is a testament to Rice’s talents as a storyteller and creator of compelling characters that I hung in there. It’s easy to be drawn in by Rice’s style, which is heavy on detail and mood, and she uses them to their zenith in the Mayfair books. If the pace slackened, which if often did, then the next chapter usually held the promise of something interesting, if only momentarily. The main problem with TALTOS is that it is so unnecessary after the events of the previous two books which tied up the tale of Michael Curry and Rowan Mayfair, and their relationship with the entity known as Lasher, along with telling us everything we felt we needed to know about the Mayfair family. Yet Rice seems to have not wanted to leave this world behind, so she typed out one more epic elaborating on the mythos she had created. This time around, Rowan and Michael are not center stage, although they do figure in the story. Instead, we get the story of Ashlar, a personage alluded to in the previous books. He is a seven foot tall Taltos, a survivor of an ancient race passing among humans, and of course, at one point he sits down and tells Michael and Rowan his story, which extends back before the beginning of civilization. As I have stated in other reviews, this is where Rice really shines, as she clearly knows how to do research, and more important, she knows what to do with it. We get an interesting take on Britain from the pre Roman era to the coming of Christianity. We also get a look at the Talamasca from the inside, as the plotting of certain members figures in the story; a scene where justice is meted out to the treacherous Marklin and Tommy is right out of Poe, as is as good as Rice gets. Most of the Mayfair clan is absent, except for teenage Mona, a character some readers do not like, and her country cousin, Mary Jane, a welcome addition as I thought the interaction between those two really lit up their chapters. Unfortunately, none of this comes together for anything close to a satisfying whole. There is no sense of a strong narrative or real plot tension building toward a climax, certain elements are introduced, and then dispensed with long before the final page. The question of whether the Taltos will survive as a species is the main plot point of the story, but it is hardly feels like a compelling one by the final chapters. And I found the climax of the book to be unsatisfying, as it felt as though it were leaving the door open for another sequel. As I understand it, Anne Rice resisted that temptation, and wrote MERRICK, a book that crosses over the Mayfair witches with her vampires. Already have a copy, and it’s on my Too Read pile.
    • 3/5
      Beautifully narrated by Tim Curry but a severely abridged version. Sadly. Would have been nice to have had the complete book - because of this unsatisfactory feeling it's only three stars for me..
    • 4/5
      Check it out, it's Bella's baby - ten years before Twilight. Or at least the race to which she ought to belong. Hmm, I wonder if Meyer read this one? Much better writing than Twilight. If you are not a fan of odd and somewhat melodramatic settings, you are not a fan of Anne Rice. Thankfully though, this is before she entered her extremely weird phase, from which, as far as I know, she has yet to return - the one dating from about Pandora on. If you liked her earlier work, or enjoy both the supernatural and a little romance, you will probably like this one. Or if you are a Meyer fan, and wonder what to read next, you should definitely try Anne Rice. I'd probably start with The Vampire Lestat or The Witching Hour, though.
    • 3/5
      Almost a book-length exposition and bridge between Lasher and whatever comes next in the "Witch Chronicles." It read very well and I found it interesting because I had read the previous books, but it would not stand alone at all. Nothing really happens (to speak of) -- mostly history and explanations.
    • 3/5
      This is the third of the Mayfair Witch books, and it wasn't quite what the other two were.

    • 2/5
      In Taltos, the sequel in the Mayfair Witches series, when Michael Curry and Rowan Mayfair have an offspring, because of an chromosomal abnormality, their offspring is Lasher, an ancient superhuman creature known as a taltos. In this often times ridiculous, sometimes hard to read novel, Michael Curry now has a child with Rowan’s 13 year old niece, Mona (can someone say statuatory rape). Apparently Anne Rice doesn’t think this is a big deal since Mona is a witch. Meanwhile, the secret order of the Talamasca is trying to kidnap the taltos.This novel is a bit convoluted and extremely over-sexed. Anne Rice has seemingly lost her way. Although the novel isn’t terrible and has its good points, it’s far off the mark from her excellent early novels that are part of the Vampire Chronicles. There is something lacking here. It’s too long. It’s hard to take seriously, and it doesn’t resonate in any way. It’s not a bad read, but it isn’t anything special.Carl Alves – author of Blood Street
    • 2/5
      Why the hell did she kill the baby Taltos?
    • 1/5
      _The Witching Hour_ is one of my favorite books, but I was so disappointed by both _Lasher_ and this sequel. They're both just muddled messes in my opinion. The Lasher/Taltos mythology is nowhere near as interesting as the Mayfair witches themselves. Mayfairs were the primary characters in TWH, but here they end up almost supporting characters.
    • 3/5
      Taltos revealed some important things. Still, it's not as great as The Witching Hour.
    • 4/5
      This book was good, but in contrast with the first book, getting a little strange. I was forcing myself into reading this end of this book. I was getting confused.
    • 3/5
      Taltos is the third book about the Mayfair witches for Anne Rice. I have mixed feelings about the book. The first two books, The Witching Hour and Lasher, while extremely interesting they took forever to get through. That said the story was so well developed that I felt compeled to read the second and the third just to find out what happens to the characters. Taltos was great because it moved faster and I didn't feel like I was stuck trying to finish it. However, after the first two books I feel cheated because there wasn't as much investment in the characters and story. I would read taltos to wrap up some of the Mayfair's story, but don't expect it to be as good as the first two books. I feel like in order to speed it up and get through Rice sacrificed some of what makes her books so wonderful.
    • 3/5
      Read it during my 'obsessed with Anne Rice' phase. It's a typical Anne Rice book, with lush, beautiful prose, and thank the gods, the plot actually does move along pretty fast. A good read and a more than adequate ending to the Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy.
    • 5/5
      Hmmm. It's impossible to write about the plot in a coherent manner because there are several intertwining threads:As the title implies, this book is mainly about the Taltos--a race of beings we were introduced to in The Witching Hour. Ashlar is, or at least believes himself to be, the last of his kind. He's lonely, currently obsessed with dolls (collecting and manufacturing them), and when he discovers another Taltos has been seen, he drops everything to check it out.And of course there are the Mayfairs, as this is the last book of the Mayfair Witch trilogy. Rowan seems to be following in her mother's footsteps at the beginning of the book, though she's not quite as completely catatonic--she walks, eats, dresses herself, etc., but doesn't speak, communicate, or acknowledge the presence of others.The family seems to be turning to the 12-year-old designee of the legacy, Mona, who's pregnant with Michael's child.Then there's the Talamasca. There's corruption within the Talamasca: Aaron Lightner is killed, and his friend and contemporary Stuart Gordon is behind it, motivated by his plan to resurrect the Taltos race. He has a female Taltos, and he plans to find a male so they can mate.Contrary to the average opinions on Amazon, I enjoyed this more than I did The Witching Hour. The Taltos race was an interesting concept, and we got a lot more detail about them. (This was presumably also present in Lasher, but I haven't read it.) It also lacked a lot of the problems I had with The Witching Hour: it had a coherent plot--even if there were several threads, the story itself held together quite well; and while there were still a few tangential flashbacks, they weren't nearly as numerous or intrusive as those in The Witching Hour.However. I was completely creeped out by Mona, and not in the way you're creeped out by vampires or spiders, but in a lose-my-lunch kind of way. The nonchalant way an "affair" between a 12-year-old and a man in his 40s was handled pushed my squick buttons hard. The affair was bad enough, but that it was presented as normal.... Added to that is the fact that she's treated as the head of the family, and everyone defers to her. She's 12. T W E L V E. Not 18, not 16, not even 14--12. She's a child. Nope, just could not swallow this. As with the other witches in The Witching Hour, we're told she's very powerful, which might account for some of the attitude, if we ever saw any evidence of that power, which we don't.And then there was the stylistic choice that was seriously nails-on-the-chalkboard irritating. Mona becomes friends with her teenage cousin Mary Jane. I rather liked Mary Jane, but she talks like this: I'll get it, you rest there against that tree, that's the tree I told you about, the cypress tree, oldest one in these parts, you see this was the pond out there, the little pond???? You know??? Where the family would go rowing??? Here, take the lantern, the handle doesn't get hot.Grrrrr. Why use 3 and 4 question marks? One would do, really, to show the speech patterns. Just bugged the heck out of me. I'm not even going to mention the comma splices. Of course, if I'd loved the rest of the book, that would be a minor niggle.Though I liked it better than the first of the trilogy, even if Mona had been 16 or 18, I wasn't more than mildly interested in the story. Mona at 12 just made me disgusted.I have two more Anne Rice books in my TBR pile. They were, in fact, at the top, since they'd been random picks a while ago, but I'd postponed reading them until I read the earlier books (The Mummy and The Witching Hour). I picked up the next one to read--one of the vampire ones, I can't remember which--and found myself reading very skeptically, expecting to dislike it. So I put them both back on the bottom of the TBR pile until I get my annoyance with this series out of my head.
    • 4/5
      I disagree with the many other reviews which opine that this book is not any good. I continued to enjoy the tales contained in both Lasher and Taltos, and do not think that they detract from the excellent narrative that is The Witching Hour. I like that Rice has created an entirely new species about which to write, having possibly exhausted vampire lore. I am fascinated by the Taltos and extremely interested in reading about them further.
    • 2/5
      loved the witching hour, not particularly found of the follow-ups.
    • 3/5
      I got pretty tired of Mona in this book. This one didn't live up to my expectations. It was good and I enjoyed it, but it could have been so much more.