This Anne Rice book contains detailed pages of cities new and ancient. Although the book does not pick up until page 180 or so it is still pretty good. I suggest reading it after Memnoch and before Merrick to understand completely, the storyline. The book has way too many sex scenes bringing the plot to hell. The book is very interesting in that Armand is really old therefore we get to read of the dark ages. It is pretty interesting to read about Marius more. I would not recommend this book unless you have no problem with books that are half (really 50%) boring!