Anne Rice Lashes Back at Amazon Critics and Offers Refunds
Blood Canticle, Anne Rice's last book, has been getting royally flamed on Amazon.com by fans and foes alike, for being below par and having the beloved Vampire Lestat behaving out of character (Bookchick doesn't agree). However, the book could have used some editing, which Rice famously never accepts.

And no, I have no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate sentences that I have edited and re-edited, and organized and polished myself. I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me, and I will never relinquish that status. For me, novel writing is a virtuoso performance. It is not a collaborative art.

Apparently Rice doesn't accept bad criticism either, because on September 6 she logged on to Amazon and fired back at her critics calling them stupid and ignorant. She responds at length to reviewers' criticisms about the novel in a long, single-spaced screed.

But your stupid arrogant assumptions about me and what I am doing are slander. And you have used this site as if it were a public urinal to publish falsehood and lies. I'll never challenge your democratic freedom to do so, and yes, I'm answering you, but for what it's worth, be assured of the utter contempt I feel for you, especially those of you who post anonymously (and perhaps repeatedly?) and how glad I am that this book is the last one in a series that has invited your hateful and ugly responses.

At the end she posts her address and offers any dissatisfied readers a refund if they send her the book. One reader responds: "Madam, you are not well." Rice lost her husband of 25 years recently and several readers suggest she needs to take time off.