Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana

Back in high-school I fell in love with Anne Rice's vampire novels. It was my attempt to be gothic. Her fantastic characters fit into the real world so seamlessly due to Rice's deep research about the histories these characters were set in. When writing about vampires, the characters tend to be extremely old. I jumped on board about the time the fourth book came out and waited a couple of years before the next one was released. Returning to that universe, I remember feeling like I was meeting old friends again.

There was an element of that when I read Rice's second book in her new series - Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. There is no cross over with her previous series, it was that Anne Rice's writing is so familiar to me that Christ's narrative brought back that quality story telling. This time no worries about any corruption of my soul.

I thought this was much better than the first book. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to write from the P.O.V. of Christ, but I think Rice captures His voice masterfully. I was surprised to find myself feeling sorry for Jesus through the first half. In the 2nd half, however, we see a transformation that reminded me of Neo in the Matrix. The dialog between He and Satan in the desert was interesting in that Jesus was portrayed as having the upper hand, not something that I think is traditionally taught with the passage. It usually seems like Jesus' ability to resist temptation was the victory in the desert. In this book He clearly out maneuvers the devil conversationally. Basically, Jesus verbally kicked his ass. I loved the way Rice planted characters from the biblical account throughout the story. She is a master storyteller.

She's still writing about immortals.