Sep 11 2007
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
ISBN: 1841494747 DDC: 813.54
#14 in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter verse
Read for the RIP Challenge
See also: LibraryThing ; Voracious Reader ; It’s not the heat, it’s the humanity
It was the middle of November. I was supposed to be out jogging, but instead I was sitting at my breakfast table talking about men, sex, werewolves, vampires, and that thing that most unmarried but sexual active women fear most of all - a missed period.
May 07 2006
ISBN: 0515140872
Author: Laurel K Hamilton
Series: Anita Blake #13
DDC: 813.54
It was half past dawn when the phone rang. It shattered the first dreams of the night into a thousand peices so that I couldn’t even remember what the dream had been about.
I’m not really sure why I picked this book up, after the last few turned into nothing but porn I thought I’d give them a miss. But it was only €7, and I’ve read the others so I thought I may as well be a completioniest. But this doesn’t really seem to be the same as the others in the series. Its shorter, and there really isn’t any plot. I mean there is a storyline about raising some fella who died of a heart attack before he could testify to the FBI, but that isn’t what the book is about. It is just the setting Hamilton chose to get Micah and Anita on their own.
In a way this is a character piece. Micah has never really had a strong role in any of the other books, so this is Hamilton’s chance to explain a bit about him, and his background. And there isn’t even that much sex. So little plot, little smut, its all about character interaction and Anita and Micah getting to know each other a little better.
I do have to wonder about the cover though. Honestly look at it and say it isn’t off-putting.
Tags: 813.54, Anita Blake series, character study, horror, Laurell K. Hamilton, meh, Micah, pornorific, sff, vampire hunters, vampires, wereleopards, werewolvesNov 08 2005
My first non-review post here. Oooooo.
But then again, I suppose, in a way, it is a review. I recently read Alice Borchardt’s The Dragon Queen. The first book in the Tales of Guinevere. As you can guess from the title it is an Arthurian legend retelling, from the point of view of Guinevere. Borchardt also throws in Maenial, the were-wolf from her other books.
I’m going to be brutally honest here…. I’ve read and enjoyed some of Borchardt’s books! Shocking though this may seem, The Silver Wolf and The Night of the Wolf were okay, enjoyable reads. The Wolf King on the other hand was a piece of disjointed, mixed up writing that never made sense. So why on earth did I pick up anything else by Borchardt?
And more than that, why did I keep reading it, despite not enoying it. Despite thinking that the characters were pretty two dimensional, actually strike that because this book didn’t have characters. It had stand-ins.
There is no development, Guinevere may be “coming of age” but she herself doesn’t grow or change at all. At 14 she is as self-possessed, smart, dangerous, powerful and beautiful as anything on earth. Excuse me while I try to suspend my disbelief!
I could excuse that if the rest of the book was well-written. If the story itself was entertaining. If the prose was engaging. But nope. So I ask again, why on earth did I finish the book?
And why did I start the second one?
Now I’ve read books I know aren’t great works of literature. Jilly Cooper’s for example. I’ve read books where the characters have been really beyond belief, eg Anita Blake’s transformation into a Mary-Sue.[1] But this book has all those terrible things and yet is terribly dull and boring at the same time.
But the point of this post doesn’t really have anything to do with the book itself. It has to do with me and the fact that I spent time reading this book. Not only that, but once I’d finished it and knew I didn’t like it what did I do? Picked up the second one The Raven Warrior. Am I insane? I mean, I know Borchardt may be, for turning her Merlin character into a baddie, and making Guinevere a descendent of Boudecia[2] and I also think she is going to turn Black Leg into the Lancelot character, but I’m not reading on, so I don’t know. But can anyone explain why I was able to toss The Da Vinci Code so quickly yet kept on with this one? Anyone?
Why, oh why did I waste my time?
Dec 16 2004
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Part I here; You might as well read it first
I know, I know, I said in my first review of these books that I prolly wouldn’t be buying the rest, but who am I to resist a bargain, and of course there is my completest tendency 
So I’ve now read them all apart from no.4 Lunatic Cafe, I’m sure I’ll get around to it.
First, the good points, less of the Nikes. Yeah!
But apart from that this review is going to be fairly similar to the other; I am talking about the same ‘verse, with the same characters and everything. Only difference, way more sex, and a whole lot less story, plot and characterisation (I guess I’m on to the bad parts already).
My favourite of all of these books is Obsidian Butterfly, because Hamilton actually gets her ass in gear and tells the story. There are characters that we learn about, and who doesn’t love the character of Edward, what with his love of killing?
But that one book excepted it feels like Hamilton has decided to give plots a wide berth, and instead focus not just on emotion, but sex. And boy it feels like you cant turn a page without landing in the middle of another sex scene. In my opinion that is just plain boring. As Kelley Armstrong wrote somewhere; there is only so much “sex in the woods” that one person can write before it becomes crap (my words there, but you get the gist). And frankly I don’t need all those indepth descriptions everytime Anita does someone. Sure, I get that sex is important, and because of certain things that happen, becomes a power source, but still. I mean at times it is just plain ridiculous.
So ridiculous in fact that the mystery in the last two books need not exist. Its not even dealt with, just brought up in order to get Anita into position for sex in a different position, or situation or with someone new. Yawn.
Yet, despite this I do like the characters of Anita, Jean-Claude and the others. But we don’t get to see enough of them as anything but sex on legs. And as for Richard and his hang-ups, my god has that been going on for an age and a half.
Tags: Anita Blake series, crap, Laurell K. Hamilton, shudderificly bad