Interview with the Vampires Fans must read this Dark Fantasy book trilogy

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“Interview with the Vampire,” now retitled “Lestat the Vampire,” is back on AMC, offering fans another bite to eat. Anne Rice’s original “Vampire Chronicles” series consists of 13 books, and “Interview” https://www.slashfilm.com/”Lestat” Rollin Jones said in 2022 that AMC intends to adapt all of them (via Syfy).

But if Rice’s 13 sexy vampire books aren’t enough for you, you have plenty of vampire book options. There’s George R.R. Martin’s Fever Dream , set on a Mississippi steamboat in the 1850s, which might bring to mind the New Orleans sections of The Interview . Martin wants Guillermo del Toro to direct “Fever Dream”.but don’t hold your breath to read it.

One of the best recent vampire books is Jay Kristoff’s dark fantasy trilogy, Empire of the Vampires which ended in 2025 with the finale “Empire of the Dawn.” Kristoff’s previous fantasy trilogy, “never,” takes place in a fantasy version of the Roman Empire where the sun never set. For his Vampire trilogy, he turned it right on its head. In the country of Elidaen, “Daysdeath” is always followed by night. Without the sun to keep the vampires at bay, they turned from predators to conquerors.

Christophe stars the famous vampire hunter Gabriel de Leon, a “paleblood” or dhampir (son of a human mother and a vampire father). He is a hero whose exploits are worthy of his leonine name, part of the holy order of the Silver Saint… but when the books begin, he is already lost. His order and friends are destroyed, and he sits locked in the dungeon of the vampire empress Margot Chastain. One of her servants, Jean-Francois, asks Gabriel to tell the story of his life before it ends with execution.

Anne Rice defined modern vampire literatureand Christophe strips his first book of the device of (half) vampire and interviewer.

In most vampire stories, ghouls are outsiders or shadows that threaten human civilization. Take Dracula, where the count lives alone in the Carpathians and then invades London with his evil.

In Jay Kristoff’s Empire series, this is reversed. Vampires rule kingdoms and lead armies, while humanity retreats. The second book, Empire of the Damned, takes us to a vampire stronghold ruled by siblings Nikita and Lilid Divok (with devilish ram’s horns sprouting from her blood-red hair). Describing a slaughterhouse for human mobility will make your blood run so cold that even a vampire bite can’t get it flowing.

Different vampire stories have unique rules for monsters, and “Empire” is no exception. Four vampiric “bloodlines”, each possessing different qualities: Chastain, who controls animals, the super-powered Divok, Elon, who controls emotions, and the iron-skinned Wasp, who controls the mind.

If you can describe Christophe’s prose in one word, it is debauchery, and not only because of the large number of sex scenes. The flowery language and jaw-dropping plot twists are so perversely delicious that the Empire books are easy to burn through, even though all three clock in at around 700 pages.

Christophe is not alone in drawing Elidaene; while not even close to being graphic novels, there are about two dozen illustrations in each book. If you’re more of a visual person, they offer clear images of the characters and monsters they face. Artist Bon Ortwick drew for the first two books, but Gonzalo Mendivari took over Empire of the Dawn and the art style went from storybook and stained glass to photorealism. Compare below:

HarperCollins

HarperCollins

Dracula may have created the archetype of English or Eastern European vampires, but Elidain is more like a dark fantasy set in medieval France. (I wonder if it was Jay Christophe’s hat before France’s most famous vampire, Lestat de Liencourt.)

French words and phrases appear frequently in the dialogue, and the country’s religion is Catholicism mixed with vampire mythology. Gabriel and the Silver Saints like him support their vampiric urges by smoking a powder made from blood, a substance distinctly called “Sanctum” and “Sacrament”. Let us remind you that it is one of the main sacraments of Catholics there is drink wine turned into blood.

This leads to the other lead of the series; Dior, a white-haired youth whose blood can heal. In a twist straight out of The Da Vinci Code, Dior is seen as the descendant of the messiah and the key to ending the day’s death. As Gabriel and Dior grow closer, Empire of the Vampire reveals that it is also a dark fantasy take on The Last of Us, an old warrior who has lost his family and is now willing to curse the world to save his adopted child. A fierce swordsman who travels with a little girl through a monster-infested land will also invoke everything from Berserker to The Black Plague Horror Novel by Christopher Buhlman Between Two Fires.

However, remember that it is Gabriel who is spinning this story to amuse his captors. This brings everything back to Interview with the Vampire, a series about the subjectivity of experience – memories change, especially if you live for centuries. Without going into specific spoilers, the ending invites you to re-read with the new knowledge gained, and it made me reconsider Christophe’s statement that “he doesn’t believe in happy endings.” The real world may not offer happy endings, but the stories we tell can.