There was an old woman...

Now, admittedly I'm stealing this story from the Neil Gaiman blog, but I just can't help myself.

I'm a Rice addict. Now, I mean, I pride myself on reading just about anything I can get my hands on. Some of it's good, I mean, really smart and interesting. Some of it's what's known as "chick lit," some of which is smart itself; most of which is drivel. But one of my favourites has got to be Anne Rice. She's one of my guiltiest of guilty pleasures.

The woman isn't really that great a writer. Sometimes she's really articulate, but for the most part, she's really just a great story teller. And there's merit in that alone, although I'm sure there are those out there who would disagree with me.

The funny thing is, I'm not one of those people who has to look at car accidents on the highway. In fact, I can't stand rubberneckers. My particular vulturism is celebrity burn out. I love a good old fashioned freakout. The more public the better. Courtney Love is one who's always good. And it doesn't help that I'm a huge fan - I'll still eat up all the dirty stories about her that I can get my hands on. I just can't wait for Paris Hilton's super nova. It's going to be spectacular.

Anyway, I can understand where Anne Rice is coming from. This is the last book in her series, a series she's been writing since before I was born. A lot has gone into those books, and for the most part the stories were wonderful. Okay, Vittorio, the Vampire was sort of dull and out of place, and I never did finish Memnoch the Devil, but that was because her version of heaven depressed me. Other than that, I've eaten these things up, including her last one, Blood Canticle.

I liked most of the stuff that everyone seems to be complaining about. Lestat has always "kept with the times," so it didn't even matter to me that he was using modern speech. I like Mona Mayfair. She was always one of the more interesting characters in the Mayfair Witch series (And that's a difficult claim, most of the Mayfairs were completely batty, and therefore fascinating).

So she snapped. Next week it won't be anything at all. By then Paris' ass will be on the internet again, or Courtney will have tried to kill some new "unsuspecting bystander" (Seriously, she's Courtney Love, who're you trying to fool? You can't take her!)

For now, let us join hands and ask god to bless the independent internet cartoonist.