Fantasy Fiction

[lemuralley]

Oh man, the whole Hadley thing had me flipping through previous books, looking around online, and feeling totally lost at sea. Same thing happened to me with a MaryJanice Davidson novel: suddenly "George" had a girlfriend and a real name, and I was totally confused. That whole bit in the book (well, both books, really) was really written as if everything awesome had happened in a previous book.

OK, I'll be the bad guy and say that not only do I not like Book Bill, I don't even like TV Bill. I think Stephen Moyer is attractive in other things and photos, but MAN he totally doesn't do it for me at ALL as Bill! I actually find him icky. Keep in mind, please, that I didn't dig the guy on Moonlight either. Apparently my idea of Hot Vampire is different from everyone else's, as I really, really like Eric if we're gonna go all alpha vampire. Book Bill is just such a . . . I don't even know. I just don't like him, and this is coming from someone that digs computer geeks. Eric is skeevy and snarky, and while I definitely wouldn't want Sookie to have a long-term relationship with him, I do find him fascinating and hilarious.

So, was the book about cleaning out Hadley's apartment really strange to anyone else? The whole tone and style struck me as odd and unusual compared to the rest of the series. Even the language shifted into Sookie being much more foul-mouthed (for her) than other books, and I just felt like the whole thing was awkward.

Finally, I CAN'T STAND QUINN. Amelia annoys the hell out of me, too. Actually, by the eighth book, I've grown to hate a lot of the supernatural community. These books, IMO, need to go back to comparing Sookie balancing her everyday, Bon Temps life with the strange and violent supernatural.

[LurkerNan]

I think the Sookie books have the same flaw that can be found in almost the whole genre: each subsequent book needs to out-do the previous one. So if the main character interacts with one werewolf or vampire, the next book she or he has to interact with a whole pack or clan (or pride or den) of them, then the next book expands so that both vampires and werewolves are included, then comes the fairies, and so on and so on. The worst example of this is Anita Blake, the biggest Mary Sue evah. I would hate for Sookie to become a close second or third to Anita, but she could easily slip into the running if Harris isn't careful. That's why I think bringing Sookie back to Bon Temps would be the best thing to do.

And I agree: Quinn bugs.

[Coffeecakes]

On another list, a reader said that they would never want them back together because his betrayal led to her rape. That's a pretty good point as well, but I thought she snapped him out of it before he raped her. It's been so long since I read them, I've forgotten a lot. I'm not saying an almost-rape isn't as horrifying, but Debbie was really to blame for that.

He does rape her though if we're talking about the whole trunk incident. So yeah after the whole thing of going with Lorena, I can't stand his bitch ass.

[comfortablynumb]

Plot holes or not, I really like these books. A friend of mine tried to get me to read a series of books by Christine Feehan. Dark-something-or-other. Oh. My. God. I read the first one, and thought that surely they would get better. I read the second one, and just barely got through it. The way the men were so He-men, and the women were so tiny and fragile and barely hanging onto life before these He-men came and saved them made me sick. And talk about rape issues, yikes...I can't even put into words my disgust with them. My friend couldn't believe I didn't just love them. <<shudder>>

[LurkerNan]

I feel the same way about the Mary Janice Davidson books. All the men are beyond beautiful and manly, and the women are all spunky, and every aspect of being supernatural creatures is done away with... Vampires don't have to feed and can walk around in daylight and werewolves can change whenever they feel like into big fluffy puppies... blegh. There's got to be some downside to being supernatural, otherwise there's no reason to want to avoid it.

[chiqui]

My store is beginning to stock more of these in its fantasy/SF section. I'd say there's about a dozen obviously supernatural fantasy titles now, which is way more than there was a year ago (it's a small section.) There are more titles that aren't so obviously vampiry or werewolfy scattered about also.

Out of curiosity I picked up one and began to read it, and to my surprise it was soft-core porn, something like "The thin linen gown clung to my erect nipples and mist nether lips as I walked down the hall." The hell? (I'll get the name of the nether lip book today.)

ETA: The book was Mona Lisa Awakening (Monere: Children of the Moon, Book 1) by an author simply known as "Sunny" - a porn writer name if I'd ever I'd heard one. Book here

[LurkerNan]

Whoa, that sounds bad. Thanks foir the warning.

Speaking of warning, I'd been avoiding the Twilight books because I heard they weren't so good. But I got the full set for Xmas, so I guess I'm going to put in the time to read them eventually. That's what I get for telling my friends I read vampire novels.

[smockery]

Perhaps this should go in unpopular literary opinions, but I'm really getting tired of vampire books. Every time I go to the bookstore, there's another whole raft of the things. It probably wouldn't be an issue except that, like chiqui said, most are just soft core porn. I just want to read well-written fantasy and sci-fi books. If I want porn, I'll buy it, but most of the time I don't want to read it. Its getting to a point where I wish I could just stake the books and be done with the genre.

[chiqui]

I don't mind the mix of fantasy and porn, per se, just that it's so awfully done most of the time, and human/supernatural creature sex has become a cliche. You can tell the authors are cribbing from Anne Rice (as Anne Rice most probably cribbed from Whitley Strieber in "The Hunger.")

[Auroranorth]

Dec 27, 2008 13:25:55 GMT -4 chiqui said:

My store is beginning to stock more of these in its fantasy/SF section. I'd say there's about a dozen obviously supernatural fantasy titles now, which is way more than there was a year ago (it's a small section.) There are more titles that aren't so obviously vampiry or werewolfy scattered about also.

Out of curiosity I picked up one and began to read it, and to my surprise it was soft-core porn, something like "The thin linen gown clung to my erect nipples and mist nether lips as I walked down the hall." The hell? (I'll get the name of the nether lip book today.)

ETA: The book was Mona Lisa Awakening (Monere: Children of the Moon, Book 1) by an author simply known as "Sunny" - a porn writer name if I'd ever I'd heard one. Book here

I've read it. Mona Lisa is a screaming Mary Sue and I want to slap her. It's bad internet porn at best.

Christine Feehan and MaryJanice Davidson are both authors I won't read because they seem to feel, "When in doubt, rape."