The Works of Laurell K. Hamilton

[harrietvane]

I used to be all over LKH's books until they devolved into barely-conceealed wish-fulfillment meets bad porn. It's really funny, at least three or four times now, she's come up in various settings, and everyone I talk to basically says that they really enjoyed them until all the sex started. When I purged my bookcases prior to my move, I kept all the books up to The Killing Dance, but gave away the few I had that came after that. I reread the early ones occasionally, but never felt like revisiting the more recent ones.

I went to her website to see what I've been missing and saw that there's a comic book now. It looks like it's a retelling of Guilty Pleasures, which was actually not too bad -- has anyone seen these in person? What are they like?

[Deleted]

Has anyone read the latest Anita Blake, The Harlequin, I think it's called? I'm a sucker for punishment, so I might borrow it from the library. The plot actually sounds interesting, but I don't just want to read pages of gang-banging.

[Auroranorth]

erinnyes said:

Ooh, look - you can read chapters of The Harlequin. Actually, looks like you can read some chapters of most of them here.

(Um, if you want to read them without putting money in that woman's pocket, I am in no way in possession of pdfs of almost all of them and will in no way send them to you if you PM me, not under any circumstances.)

There are chapters of the mess here.

[Deleted]

Has anyone read the latest Anita Blake, The Harlequin, I think it's called? I'm a sucker for punishment, so I might borrow it from the library. The plot actually sounds interesting, but I don't just want to read pages of gang-banging.

I have...and as in the previous post, I will in no way provide it for you if you PM me. It is actually not quite as bad as Danse Macabre. She manages to go for about 120 pages without any porn. There is, however, a lot of rubbish psychoanalysis, and an awful lot of porno distraction from the plot, which might have been quite interesting otherwise. And the whole thing, as always, comes down to "everyone loves Anita, even though she is a psycho bitch".

I was thinking about this and really think the best thing for the series would be for Anita to be completely stripped of all her powers and have to start all over again. She has all her little "triumvirates" as an excuse for everything now - her power compells her to do all kinds of stuff. It would be much more interesting if she had to actually make a conscious decision about which relationships she really wanted, not just which ones she has to have.

It's funny, actually - LKH gives a lot of lip service to feminism (which, at least in the earlier books, I applauded), but lately Anita, despite being such a psycho, seems to have almost no agency in anything. Everything she does is because she's being forced into it. She pretends that it's her decision, but it really isn't.

everyone I talk to basically says that they really enjoyed them until all the sex started.

Yep. Actually, even when she was just sleeping with one person at a time, that was okay. But once the whole ardeur thing started, it all went to shit. Suddenly, Anita's proactiveness just because reactive and compulsive. Bleh. Stupid LKH. She's always babbling about freedom and how Anita's all independent and liberated, but actually she's completely trapped, and no one ever acknowledges it.

[Sunnyhorse]

I hadn't read anything of hers since the first Anita Blake (a friend is -- OK, used to be -- a big fan, and we live in St. Louis, so it was fun to see whether she got everything right), and I am amazed that her writing has not improved at all. She really does suck.

[Deleted]

I am amazed that her writing has not improved at all.

Quite the reverse, in fact.

[Auroranorth]

I read that collection of short stories and her early stuff wasn't half bad. Ditching the editor has done her no favors. Her writing is clunky as heck, has commas scattered like grass seed and is in serious need of pruning.

[venusdiva429]

Did someone mention comics?

Scroll down for all the Anita-hating goodness. He also compares Ms. Blake to Dracula and Batman.

[harrietvane]

venusdiva429 said:

Did someone mention comics?

Scroll down for all the Anita-hating goodness. He also compares Ms. Blake to Dracula and Batman.

Thanks Nefertiti Baker! That confirmed my suspicions --they're just as hilariously bad as the original books, but with extra-disturbing visuals. I'm glad that guy read them (and snarked on them) so I don't have to.

[pomegranate]

The most disturbing thing about those comics is the artist's thigh fetish.