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HISTORICAL FICTION The Smithsonian Institution
Gore Vidal (Little, Brown £16.99)
_ VI
Smithsoman (a
If God had intended for as to tinie- traxel, he'd not have invented H G \‘t‘ells, or M:thae!l fox for that matter Btit VOL. try tel.ing that to a Hung legend of Aiiieritai‘ letters This must be \.’itial's 307th book, e>tt ititling st'iool piavs anti shopping lists, but 't fair /![)8 along the spat (‘-TII“(‘ tontinuuni
T is a pretot ious 13-\./eai'-oiti, botn II‘Tt‘ii(‘( tuaily ar‘ti sexually, ‘.‘.l1() :s ear'nar'lteti by the artaiie powers that be ‘.‘.'TiTIIT the grand Sriiitlisonian i)..li(iili(} as a saxrour of al: thugs lulori‘ anti Apple Pie Torri between “is libido anti his niatlieniatital genius, he hangs out '.'.'II:" presidents, Intiians, tsmnos anti deatl soitiiers Drawn into niat ninations that tut at "oss pre-xxar‘ politits anti Arneritan history, he helps out Einstein and ODDO'IT‘OII‘TOI' and fates up to the eth.tal dilemma of his 'netldling Floguently tolti nonsense 'RE‘
GOTHIC HORROR The Vampire Armand Anne Rice (Chatto & Windus £16.99)
Since the publication of Interview With The Vampire in 1976, Anne Rice has written four sequels detailing the self- aggrandising adventures of the Vampire Lestat. Now she expands her series of Chronicles' With the autobiograpl'iy of Armand, the teenage bloodsucker first seen in /riter\./iew, as leader of the Paris coven
Annoyingly, the new novel drags out boring stretches of vampire history and skirns over other periods that sound infinitely more interesting, Episodes that overlap With Lestat's accounts are seen from a different -— more laborious VIGVVDOInI.
As in her last instalment of the
AMERICAN FICTION The Loop
Nicholas Evans (Bantam Press £16.99)
N oiAs
This time it's wolves The setontl novel by the author of The Horse ‘/=/r'nsperer tentres on 29-year-old Helen Ross, ‘.".’()lT-t)l()i()()IST with a personal life in tatters, (ali(‘(i to the isolated Rot Ry Mountain town of Hope, Montana prieie '.‘.olf-hatin’ tountry unhere a rogue pat lx from the tonservation areas have shown up to ret laiin their antestrai hunting ground
Unfortunately, the wolves annount e the r presence by attat lting the in‘ant grandson of BLKK Calder powerful rant her anti a dirett tiesteriti'ent of the slaughterers of yesteryear The oppostion between Ross anti r‘asti (alder intensif'es when she takes up mth his lonesonie, stuttering eighteen- year-oiti son, lulte
At ‘100 pages, Evans booét is more than siightly top-heavy anti at times feels lilte ‘.“.'tiik|li(; through a posttarti \.‘.’IIlI a tafiy-floor Already, a team of digital i'nagineers labour tieep ‘.‘.'|Tli|l‘. the bowels of I'itiusti‘al light anti Magit, treating a tornputer:sed lupine posse in readiness for the movie adaptation Probably tDL‘
Continued over page
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‘Vampire Chronit'les', Rice abandons the horror epic approach of the early novels in favour of theological debate in which the shocks are few and far between Readers new to the series should start anywhere but here, and even fans might feel bogged down in prose that’s a little too prOucl of its own richness (AM)
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