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Douglas E. Winter (review date 9 October 1994)

SOURCE: “Son of a Witch,” in Washington Post Book World, October 9, 1994, p. 4.

[In the following review, Winter offers qualified assessment of Taltos. “Certain to please the many fans of Anne Rice,” writes Winter, Taltos “is not likely to gain her any new readers.”]

It seems natural that new novels by Stephen King and Anne Rice should be linked with the seemingly unavoidable word “horror.” Yet King writes from a decidedly populist perspective; he is a Faulkner by way of Jim Thompson, Don Robertson and Richard Matheson, with a lot of B movies and episodes of “Twilight Zone” and “Outer Limits” thrown in for good measure. The essence of his fiction is the disruption of everyday life by the outre: a funfair for the common man. Anne Rice, on the other hand, finds her roots in fairy tales; medieval romances and gothic novels—particularly the decadent...

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1. Introduction
2. Criticism
   1. Pat Hilton (review date 19 December 1982)
   2. E. F. Bleiler (review date 6 November 1988)
   3. Laurence Coven (review date 6 November 1988)
   4. Eric Kraft (review date 27 November 1988)
   5. Frank J. Prial (review date 11 June 1989)
   6. Angela Carter (review date 1 September 1989)
   7. Patrick McGrath (review date 4 November 1990)
   8. Rita Mae Brown (review date 18 November 1990)
   9. Barbara Frey Waxman (essay date Summer 1992)
   10. Carolyn See (review date 25 October 1992)
   11. Elizabeth Hand (review date 10 October 1993)
   12. Paul West (review date 24 October 1993)
   13. Douglas E. Winter (review date 9 October 1994)
   14. Ken Gelder (essay date 1994)
   15. Anne Rice with Mikal Gilmore (interview date 13-27 July 1995)
   16. Kevin Allman (review date 6 August 1995)
   17. Daniel Mendelsohn (review date 11 August 1996)
   18. Sandra Tomc (essay date 1997)
3. Further Reading
4. Copyright