** spoiler alert ** 
 Many years ago, I remember seeing news items about Anne Rice writing a new book about immortals living in Atlantis. But after that, the book seemed to be forgotten. 
 I can only assume that Anne Rice submitted the book, was rejected, and then reworked and repackaged it as a Vampire Chronicle, because there is no other explanation for a book like "Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis." Aside from the hilariously pulpy title, this cascade of baffling failure feels less like an elegant, history-spanning tale of vampires... and more like the bizarre, New-Agey love child of "Highlander 2" and the "Super Mario Bros" movie. 
 Now the host to the ancient spirit Amel, Lestat has been having strange dreams of an advanced city being destroyed and swallowed up by the sea. Guess what it is. At the same time, the malevolent Rhoshamandes has captured a strange, not-quite-human person named Derek, and held him captive to exploit what he knows. One thing Derek does know is that he is not the only one of his kind on this world. And he needs to find Amel. 
 As the vampire community becomes aware of the others -- and terrified of them -- Lestat attempts to unravel the secret origins of Amel and how exactly he has a connection to Atlantis (or Atalantaya, as Rice calls it). But the story of the mysterious immortals will not only explain the origins of Amel (and thus of vampires), but explain the origins of human civilization. 
 I can only conclude that Anne Rice has been watching a lot of "Ancient Aliens" and old sci-fi movies, and reading some of the weirder New Age books out there. Otherwise, there is little explanation for why she would turn her established mythology inside-out. The supernatural is sacrificed for pseudo-science (frequently less plausible), and the murky mythic origins of the vampires and civilization itself are given a whole new explanation. 
 Want to know what the new explanation is? 
 Really? 
 Really, really want to know? 
 Okay, the explanation is that Atlantis was run by immortal aliens called Replimoids -- yes, really -- sent to unleash a plague on the world so that all mammal life would die, because the Replimoids' makers believe that the only dominant life that should evolve is reptilian life... because mammals have too many feels. But in a nauseatingly humanistic twist, the Replimoids become infatuated with how wonderful human beings are, because we have love and community and "fairness." 
 Yes, it does sound like a spectacularly bad B-movie from the 1950s, and Rice handles it just as well -- her visions of Atalantaya are painfully pedestrian (a pastel-colored Manhattan, full of floaty-clothed hippies and New-Agey futuristic tech) and bizarrely preachy (more bigotry against Christianity, which she claims was made up by the evil reptile aliens). And the science-fictiony things she makes up are almost ludicrous enough to be written by L. Ron Hubbard (the Replimoids are a combo of all species on Earth!). 
 The first half of the book is not much better -- it's mostly various vampires hanging around and discussing things together, including an interminable talk between Lestat and various ghosts and spirits. It has the occasional grotesquely memorable scene (a bizarre scene where a severed hand grows a face and starts BREASTFEEDING from a man), but mostly Rice focuses on luxury porn and vampires chatting. It really feels like padding to expand the central story of Atalantaya to the full length of a book. 
 As for Lestat, he's become almost a parody of himself -- he loafs around, declaring his love for every person he encounters and contemplating how boring it is to be a ruler. The only one of the Replimoids to be developed is Derek, a wilting weeping woobie; everyone else is either a vampire cameo or an undeveloped shell. The only character who ended up interesting me was Amel, mainly because he is snarky, cynical and irritable -- a pleasant antidote to the love-obsessed vampires and drippy aliens. 
 It is quite literally difficult to believe that the woman who wrote "Interview with the Vampire" and "Queen of the Damned" could destroy her own legacy quite so effectively. And yet, there is "Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis." Q. E. D.