The Works of Laurell K. Hamilton

[Deleted]

hey...I want to be Anita Blake, okay

I'm with you there, DuskWolf.

Every now and again I stumble across a book/series of books that transports me completely into that world, and when I put them down I walk around in a daze for a while before I re-enter the real world. The Anita Blake series was like that, and all snark aside I'm really disappointed by the decline in quality.

Slightly O/T, but has anybody here read any of Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries? I know there's a literary recommendations thread, but I figure if you're in this thread you're more likely to have read them.

[Deleted]

I've read all the books in Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series and really enjoyed them. I even splurged on the most recent one in hardback (40% off, but still). I'd cry if they went the same way as the Anita Blake series. Highly recommended.

[duskwolf]

bunny said:

Or you could just leave it full of porn and pitch it to Showtime.

Bunny, my dear, you win. *slow clap*

[Auroranorth]

I read the first two of the Southern Vampire series, but am hearing that it seems to be going downhill.

I haven't gotten around to Anita Blake and Merry Gentry. The impression I've gotten from, oh, EVERY MESSAGE BOARD I'm on, is not to bother. I don't think I will. I AM a prude and the idea of trying not to gag my way through one of these books- no, thanks.

She made fandom_wank a while back with a snit about the guest book on her blog, designed by her husband Micah (er, I mean Jon.)

[sarabear]

I think the Southern Vampire series has stayed consistently good. No crazy sex, no ardeur, no Anita Blake taint. Try them out; you'll like 'em.

[Deleted]

bunny, Auroranorth, SareBear, thanks for the answers, I think I'll at least check the first two out.

[LurkerNan]

I just finished the third Dead book by Kim Harrison yesterday, and I finally think I've caught on. She's totally making fun of Anita Blake in these books.

Either that, or she's following a similar situational setup, only doing in the way it should be done.

[shawnalanne]

lurkernan said:

I just finished the third Dead book by Kim Harrison yesterday, and I finally think I've caught on. She's totally making fun of Anita Blake in these books.

Either that, or she's following a similar situational setup, only doing in the way it should be done.

Hmmm. ... I suddenly want to re-read the first couple Kim Harrison books and the first couple LK Hamilton books.

[Inkyblott]

I'm really enjoying both Kim Harrison and Charlene Harris. I do have some concerns about Charlene Harris' character, Sookie Stackhouse, doing an Anita/Merry, though because some of the storytelling seems to be turning into 'every man that sees her, wants her'. But it hasn't completely turned into all sex, all the time.

I wonder what made LKH turn the focus of the Anita Blake books to sex. I also remember when they were in the young adult section. It really wasn't necessary to suddenly overload on the sweaty vamp/were humping.

[Margo]

Sorry to drag out this thread back out in the open but I just finished reading one of the latest in Hamilton's oeuvre (Incubus Dreams) and I need somewhere to vent. Oh, the horror, the horror.

I don't have a problem with the fact that it's porn, it's the bad writing that bugs me (and the fact that it's bad, unsexy, whiny porn). It's as if someone wrote a shitty novel about totally different characters and decided to name them after the characters in Anita Blake books.

Anyone notice that LH found a new expression to latch on to? These days she's fond of "so not + [something]". She's only 5 or 6 years behind the trend.

The worst thing is that I can't enjoy the earlier Anita books anymore.