I often wondered if the majority of the reviewers on Amazon.com were on crack when they posted their effulgent reviews of Anne Rice's more recent efforts, and it turns out, maybe about 75% were drugged when they wrote them and the other percent were written either by her friends or herself. It could happen!
It's sad when author's and their friends post anonymously to give a book a glowing review. Deceitful, despicable, and hypocritacle are just a few words that come to mind, and on Amazon no less. Are we really heading towards a society where five little stars trusted by 100 people will matter more than by a well established critic writing for the New Yorker? Do we want to trust the words of a nobody who may not have even read the book, versus a friend or a colleague with a better understanding of our likes and dislikes?
Extreme. Perhaps. But I find this mildly disturbing and amusing at the same time because it just proves that there's no way in hell that that many people could have liked that pile of rubbish known as Merrick and everything else written afterwards. We're talking character assassination, people and Anne Rice is queen at that.
