The Works of Laurell K. Hamilton

[shawnalanne]

She just published a new book in her Merry Gentry series A Stroke of Midnight and from the reviews I've read on Amazon, it’s just as bad as we’ve come to expect from our favorite drama queen, Laurell K. Hamilton.

LK used to be a competent writer of some good mind candy. In 1994 she had her first book published in the Anita Blake Vampire Huntress series, Guilty Pleasures. And I loved it. At the time Guilty Pleasures was one of the first books in the Horror/Romance/Girl detective genre to have a wide measure of success. Her books were fun pieces out of time that I devoured in a single sitting.

Eleven books into the series later and the last book of hers that I read, I wanted to tear into little pieces and flush down the toilet, but I didn’t want to dirty the sewage line like that. I can’t believe that she even gets published. No one copy or content edits her books anymore. It must be that she either throws tantrums when they try to because she is such a “stah” or someone on staff seriously hates her. Her plots are non-consistent/existent and full of the most boring sex ever imagined, and her main characters are seriously inconsistent. Also, while I like me some erotica, romantica, and even porn her sex scenes, which are about 80% of each ‘story’, are boring, repetitive and unrepentantly purple. They just suck – literally and figuratively. And let's not even talk about her abuse of punctuation, inability to spell, and overuse of key phrases such as ‘ardour’ and meat. She’s so cocky she doesn’t even bother using spell check anymore.

Edited to say this is the first time I've started a thread, so I hope I didn't accidently screw something up.

[Door]

God, I so agree with you! I like sex in books and all, but GIVE IT A REST, LAURELL. Focus on more important things like PLOT for a while! Anita Blake was such a kick-ass character. Each book I keep hoping we'll see the old Anita, but she continues to be smothered under all the orgies.

I thought the Merry Gentry books were going to be the sex books, allowing Anita to focus on her Necromancy and her Executioning. I still hate how wrong I was.

[shawnalanne]

Door said:

Each book I keep hoping we'll see the old Anita, but she continues to be smothered under all the orgies.

There is no truer description out there!

Door said:

I thought the Merry Gentry books were going to be the sex books, allowing Anita to focus on her Necromancy and her Executioning. I still hate how wrong I was.

Me too! From what I heard at the time she started doing the ultra crappy smut books, which incidentally is when she went to the hardcover format -- which just ticked me off no end, is that she was going through a divorce. I thought, okay. She's working through some personal stuff here. I'm a big enough fan to live through one really bad book. But they keep on coming, the bad books, and the bad puns.

You know what makes me mad about the Merry Gentry books? The sex scenes all seem to be lifted from the Anita Blake books!

[Deleted]

I gave up on her a few books ago. Now I am no prude, while I am primarily a history buff, I love my Jackie Collins sleaze fest books and can handle sex scenes no problem. But the last few LKH books I did read made me so uncomfortable I felt like I was reading them out loud to my grandma. Way to skeevy for me.

[duskwolf]

I was totally into Anita Blake for a while there (people I knew even claimed I look like her...despite not having a real physical presence).

And I thought she was a great non-Buffy for real people. You know, she was small, didn't always have a smartass thing to say and had bad knees.

By the time the 4th book rolled around, I started sensing the leap into soft-core porn. Then, I went on to Amazon.com and read an excerpt from the 9th or 10th book...it was either Cerulean Sins or the one before it, where there's this graphic sex scene going on...on AMAZON, people!

Porn isn't a bad thing, at least IMO, but for cryin' out loud, if I want porn, I'll rent it from the video store, or I'll get a romance novel if I really insist on reading it. I stopped reading that series after that...and I avoided the Merry Gentry stuff entirely.

[shawnalanne]

DuskWolf said:

...

Porn isn't a bad thing, at least IMO, but for cryin' out loud, if I want porn, I'll rent it from the video store, or I'll get a romance novel if I really insist on reading it. I stopped reading that series after that...and I avoided the Merry Gentry stuff entirely.

It's good you avoided the MG stuff feeling as you do, because basically the whole premise of the series is that she needs to get pregnant and to do so -- yep you got it, she has to f*ck everything that moves

[Deleted]

because basically the whole premise of the series is that she needs to get pregnant and to do so -- yep you got it, she has to f*ck everything that moves

and don't forget all her boyfriends are SUPER DUPER PRETTY. Not to mention Skittle colored.and they all fight over her, when all she wants to do is give someone a BJ, but nooo they must make her knocked up.I read that and i scheduled a day and the brainbleach spa Gawd how i hate the writings of that woman.

Speaking of LKH's Divorce, isn't one of the charaters in the Anita Blake series based on her ex-husband?

[shawnalanne]

Limey said:

Speaking of LKH's Divorce, isn't one of the charaters in the Anita Blake series based on her ex-husband?

I think Richard was based on her ex-husband, which explains his total emasculation as a charecter.

... And oh man, the skittle colors. I'd blocked that horror. It's like she went to the basic crayola box for inspiration and thought "I want to make my charecters unique, forget charecter development, let's make 'em rainbow colored."

[valueofaloonie]

ShawnaLanne said:

I think Richard was based on her ex-husband, which explains his total emasculation as a charecter.

Yep. Richard is based on her now ex-husband, which explains his rapid slide from normal, interesting character to...whatever the hell he is now.

And to make it worse? Anita's new tru luv, Micah(?) is apparently based on her new boyfriend/lover.

Whom she met at some sort of fan function.

Yeah. I'm off to bleach my brain now.

[Mierin]

I enjoy LKH's books for what they are. Smutty guilty pleasure when I want a break from reading chemistry or anatomy stuff.

The thing I hate the most is the stupid ardeur. And Anita's having sex, then whining about it for 3 chapters afterwards.

I found this site Link. that has a parody story of Anita Blake. So funny!