Series that I still follow.
Sep. 16th, 2012 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matt_doyleRecently read two new installments in franchises I have followed after they well and truly jumped the shark. ((ETA: As it turns out I'm only going to talk about one of them in this post. Got carried away. Oops.))
First was Laurell K Hamilton's Kiss The Dead, the latest Anita Blake book. Vague spoilers for earlier books follow.
I've been reading Anita Blake Books since Blue Moon came out in 1998. These are the books that jumpstarted paranormal romance novels and took a new noir detective spin on urban fantasy. And the first nine-and-a-half books are dynamite (book 10, Narcissus In Chains), is actually quite good... but it's also where Anita starts getting magic sex powers, which is what turns the series into shameless porn.
Now, don't get me wrong, I have no issue with shameless porn... when LKH's other series, which started out as porn, began developing plot I was equally disappointed. I actually stopped reading them. But the sex magic in the Anita books takes center stage and obliterates cool noir plots one after the other. In some books, there are more pages with sex than without.
Cerulean Sins, book 11, had about half a good book in it. Incubus Dreams has no such virtues. Micah is a great character study, making a boring character more interesting... pity that nothing in it is ever followed up on in subsequent books, and that the novel's own B-plot is so weak. Danse Macabre has interesting politics, but as usual these are buried by sex. The Harlequin is a throwback to earlier Anita Blake -- intrigue and violence and tough ethical choices along with monstrous power plays -- I sort of like to pretend it comes right after Cerulean Sins. Blood Noir is the worst book in the series -- not just centered wholly on sex, but sex with characters we largely do not know or care about. And the alleged A-plot, which could have been at least as intriguing as Micah's character study, is given short shrift, and feels unresolved. Skin Trade has far too much sex but a decent, intriguing A-plot, sort of Obsidian Butterfly 2. Flirt is terrible. Bullet is terrible. Hit List is... sort of okay?
Anyway, Kiss The Dead, despite its nonsensical title, is easily the best book since The Harlequin. One of two books in the second half of the series I have unreservedly good feelings about. In forty-something chapters, only seven chapters contain sex. Only three sex scenes! I was very excited. New revelations about monstrous politics, a complex, multi-stage police case, actual progress on some fronts in Anita's evolving personal life... good times! If you've still been reading the series, or if you gave up after the first half, this would not be a bad place to come back in.
First was Laurell K Hamilton's Kiss The Dead, the latest Anita Blake book. Vague spoilers for earlier books follow.
I've been reading Anita Blake Books since Blue Moon came out in 1998. These are the books that jumpstarted paranormal romance novels and took a new noir detective spin on urban fantasy. And the first nine-and-a-half books are dynamite (book 10, Narcissus In Chains), is actually quite good... but it's also where Anita starts getting magic sex powers, which is what turns the series into shameless porn.
Now, don't get me wrong, I have no issue with shameless porn... when LKH's other series, which started out as porn, began developing plot I was equally disappointed. I actually stopped reading them. But the sex magic in the Anita books takes center stage and obliterates cool noir plots one after the other. In some books, there are more pages with sex than without.
Cerulean Sins, book 11, had about half a good book in it. Incubus Dreams has no such virtues. Micah is a great character study, making a boring character more interesting... pity that nothing in it is ever followed up on in subsequent books, and that the novel's own B-plot is so weak. Danse Macabre has interesting politics, but as usual these are buried by sex. The Harlequin is a throwback to earlier Anita Blake -- intrigue and violence and tough ethical choices along with monstrous power plays -- I sort of like to pretend it comes right after Cerulean Sins. Blood Noir is the worst book in the series -- not just centered wholly on sex, but sex with characters we largely do not know or care about. And the alleged A-plot, which could have been at least as intriguing as Micah's character study, is given short shrift, and feels unresolved. Skin Trade has far too much sex but a decent, intriguing A-plot, sort of Obsidian Butterfly 2. Flirt is terrible. Bullet is terrible. Hit List is... sort of okay?
Anyway, Kiss The Dead, despite its nonsensical title, is easily the best book since The Harlequin. One of two books in the second half of the series I have unreservedly good feelings about. In forty-something chapters, only seven chapters contain sex. Only three sex scenes! I was very excited. New revelations about monstrous politics, a complex, multi-stage police case, actual progress on some fronts in Anita's evolving personal life... good times! If you've still been reading the series, or if you gave up after the first half, this would not be a bad place to come back in.
