Much better then "Interview With the Vampire" This combined with "The Vampire Lestat" forms the best part of the Vampire Chronicles series and details the core mythos of Anne Rice’s vampires. In this book unlike the others in this series there are several narrators all with very interesting view points who each tell their own part of the story until the plot lines converge. If you intend to read any of Anne Rice’s Vampire novels (except possibly "Interview") make sure you read these first and are not trying to figure things out based on what you read in "Interview", Louis knows so little and his perspective is so skewed that he doesn't provide a very good introduction to this world. At least that's the literary version, in truth I suppose that Anne Rice hadn't made all of the world building decisions she needed to make yet and changed her mind on several points as well when she decided to take the vampires concept and run with it.