Time for an end to Anita?
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Hmmm, when I saw the low star rating on this one I wanted to balance it out and add some stars because I enjoyed it. But first I read the other reviews and, to be honest, I agree with them.
There is too much pointless, plot-less sex in the books (since about book 9) and now any storyline is stuffed behind Anita 'thinking' about sex, relationships and other general moaning. It's not that much fun to read yet read it we (fans) all still do. I finished the book really quickly and I do love all the characters and the politics, but where's the Goddamned story?!?!!? The books are never as good as the early plot driven novels - One thing I get really annoyed at is Anita's immense powers that never seem to amount to much. A sign of dragging the series out too long maybe?
I know that here on amazon.co.uk we're British and maybe sex isn't something we're totally hindged on (The american reviews often praise the sex) and I have to say the sex in the Merry Gentry books is perfectly pitched - I really enjoy that, but we're only on book 6 there, by book 14 that too may not be enough to keep me reading.
I just wonder if it's time for the conclusion of Anita Blake?
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Why did I do it?
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I promised myself that, after the 'plot outline masquerading as a full length novel' debacle that was Dance Macabre (not to mention the increasingly plot free preceding 4 or 5 books), I wouldn't waste anymore money on LKH's books. Well, completist that I am, I'm embarrassed to say that I cracked.
Too be honest, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting; there were even moments, sadly never realized, when a cracking story threatened to break out - and Edward's presence was an absolute pleasure.
Sadly, Anita Blake has turned into one of the most unpleasant, cruel, self-obsessed and crudely drawn characters in literature. For example, when Richard, her former fiancé and sometime boy toy opens his heart to her and explains how he was tormented and sexually abused her reaction is to think that she can't be bothered with his whining and to tell him to get lost. She later condemns another character to death for the `crime' of wanting to remain faithful to his wife rather than have sex with Anita. What a prize she is!
The sooner someone puts a stake through (what's left of) Anita Blake's heart the better.
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Just good enough to be really annoying
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This series of books used to follow a fairly entertaining format of Anita versus the Monster of the Week with a bit of disposable light romance on the side. Recent offerings have had a format that consists of risible and puerile descriptions of sex, which are made more tedious as scenes all blend together in a repititious blur. This book appears to be a struggle to return to the original format, while keeping the sex of the latter offerings.
Personally, I found it the most annoying offering to date as it constantly reminded me that these books had the potential to be fun rather than boring me. I found that worse than the previous effort that was just simply boring.
The only benefit I have received from this book is that it has finally convinced me to dispose of this author's books, which at least means that I have gained some much needed shelf space.
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What's a little sex between allies?
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The Anita Blake series started off well, continued for awhile, then took a sharp plunge down into the literary abyss of bad porn.
Well, "The Harlequin" scrabbles PARTLY back out of that abyss, but Laurell K. Hamilton's fifteenth Blake book still suffers from a surfeit of squickly sex, constant sexual ramblings, and a promising plot that gets swamped by the sex-with-Anitacentric politics of vampires and weres.
First a vamp cleric tells her of a threat so terrible that he can't name it, then a movie night with Nathaniel leads to a strange warning -- a white mask. Jean-Claude reveals that it's the warning of the Harlequin, a cruel vampire police who can warp their victims' minds. And apparently Anita and her string of adoring lovers (plus the still-upset Richard) have upset them.
And the politics of the situation are getting quite nasty, with alliances between weres and vamps getting nasty as they try to all have sex with Anita for power and influence, and Anita repeatedly getting hit by her various "beasts." And if they don't manage to kill the Harlequin soon, then Marmee Noir will reawaken -- and the Harlequin will be working for her.
"The Harlequin" sounds promising at first -- it's almost a hundred and fifty pages before Anita has sex with anyone. It's been several books since Hamilton could boast a length like that, and at first glance it seems to be promising a return to prior form.
Unfortunately, the sexless parts even duller than actual sex would have been: talking/remembering/agonizing about sex. There's two long chapters devoted to Nathaniel wanting Anita to tie him up and hurt him during sex, and Anita getting squeamish about it. And about halfway through, she starts having public ardeur sex, bloody sex, lesbian vampire dream sex, feathery sex, and Hamilton seems to be paving the way for sex with Edward's sixteen-year-old stepson.
None of this would matter quite so much if the plot were good -- and some parts of it are excellent. Edward's family vs. job struggle, the were politics and their tenuous relationship with the vampires, the fight between Richard and Jean-Claude, and the whole threat of the Harlequin itself is pretty thrilling, and pared down, it could have been a truly excellent book.
Unfortunately, these promising plots are bogged down in -- you guessed it -- sex. Everyone wants sex with Anita, and chapters of arguing about who gets to is just stupefyingly dull. As if that weren't bad enough, Hamilton takes another jab at her former fans, by announcing disdainfully that, "God hasn't forsaken me; it's just that all the right-wing fundamentalist Christians want to believe he has." Nice that now Anita is God's mouthpiece.
And though Anita doesn't come across near the levels of arrogance in books past, she still comes off as annoying, hypocritical (she likes bloody sex, but gets squicked at the idea of tying a guy up?) and ridiculously superpowerful -- turns out that she's also superpowering anyone she has sex with. And few of the long-haired, animeish femme-men do much but adore Anita, and the few who don't are either banished again (Richard) or are pale shadows of their former selves (Edward).
"The Harlequin" takes some baby steps back toward quality, but the obsession with sex and long-winded arguments drown the promising plot points. Better keep the mask on this one.
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