The Works of Laurell K. Hamilton

[Deleted]

The last time I was in the bookstore with my boyfriend, I picked up ID to flip to the stupid cervix discussion I had read during a previous browsing, and he said "Look at you, you went right over to grab that book. You love it." I corrected him: "I love to hate it, actually." To which he replied, "Riiight. That's it--I'm going to buy you that book as a surprise one day."

Sweet of him to decide to do that, but I literally said "NOOOOO" [insert cinematic slow-mo] and told him that I appreciated the thought but that I truly did hate what LKH has done to her series and he couldn't help line her pockets. He started laughing and I explained that maybe I might pick some up in the library from now on, but no more purchasing because A) It's a waste of money and B) It's the only way I can effectively protest her writing. I wouldn't let him leave the store without promising he wouldn't buy it for me.

Yeah, I felt kind of dumb after that. But hey, I'm trying to flex my consumer muscle in whatever tiny way I can...

[Deleted]

When there are parts of an author's message board labelled "Happy Zones" where no criticism is allowed, it's time to stop reading the books.

But dang it, it used to be so fun! True, it was a Mary Sue from the beginning, but it was a good Mary Sue! (Can't believe I just typed that) Shessh, there should be regulations against authors trashing their own characters. /rant

[Deleted]

Happy Zones will probably be the title of her next book. It's named after a new sex shop in St. Louis that sells magic-infused dildos that grow to twice their size when the moon is full. A serial killer has been buying them and, when the toys are at full size, he uses them to kill people with a single blow to the head. Anita "investigates" these magic dildos for 568 pages. Oh, and she also conveniently runs into the killer at the end and shoots him in the chest and the case is solved, or something.

[Margo]

Bwah. Oh, you're wasting such a good opportunity. Why does it have to be a blow to the head, rather than fucking them to death?

[Deleted]

You know, I actually did think of that first since LKH would write something like that, but I chose the slapstick image of a man hitting someone over the head with a dildo because that's what her books have become to me, in a way--unintentional slapstick. ;D

[shawnalanne]

hoppingghost said:

Happy Zones will probably be the title of her next book. It's named after a new sex shop in St. Louis that sells magic-infused dildos that grow to twice their size when the moon is full. A serial killer has been buying them and, when the toys are at full size, he uses them to kill people with a single blow to the head. Anita "investigates" these magic dildos for 568 pages. Oh, and she also conveniently runs into the killer at the end and shoots him in the chest and the case is solved, or something.

That's far too imaginative, slyly funny, and free of grammar error to be anything from LKH. But for just a moment I was excited because it was also more of a plot than anything we've had in a while.

I was such a huge fan of hers when she first came out that I can't really believe how bad her work has become. I think it was 3 books ago when I finally decided that I couldn't handle her crap anymore.

[seton]

Never read her but she has been mentioned in blogs about authors behaving badly. Supposedly she takes incidents from her real life and use it as fodder for her sexcapades in her books. Some readers have decided to stop reading her books and just read her blog because she is just a trainwreck.

[Deleted]

seton said:

Never read her but she has been mentioned in blogs about authors behaving badly.

Heh, I found this.

[Deleted]

Hah, that's awesome. 'I have to write Anita as a sexaholic! I have no choice! She makes me!'. OK, that's fine - but surely the sex could be, you know, not boring. And perhaps there could be more than 6 pages of plot (3 in the first chapter, 3 in the last).

And can't some of her harem cut their damn hair? So sick of these guys and their stupidly long locks.

[Deleted]

OK, so I bought the most recent Merry and her band of Sexy Consorts books. In my defense, it was in the remainder bin and cost the princely sum of $2.99.

The first two chapters are unbearably boring - really, how many different ways can you compare eyes to gems or precious metals? And the fact that everyone's eyes have mult-coloured rings basically means she spends half the text just on eye and hair colour and descriptions of strong arms and manly abdomens. I'll keep an eye out for any particularly great/cringeworthy passages and post them here for mocking. No actual sex has taken place yet, but everyone is either half or fully naked and overwhelmingly attracted to and trying to seduce Merry, so it's pretty much business as usual.

I was suprised to see in the forward she thanks Sharon Shinn for comments on a draft - Sharon writes decent books, so I have trouble imagining what kinds of comments she might have made, although I don't know squat about Shinn personally.