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If the computer eats this entry I will be majorly pissed because its been wonky since last week and I still haven't fixed the problem. There wouldn't be a problem, however, if I could get The 'Rent and her sons to practice proper 'Net safety. They play Sims and then get off the game and go directly to the internet. Playing Sims requires you to turn off as many of the background stuff as possible (re: virus check and safety zone). I've told them to just reboot after they've finished playing that way everything comes back up automatically. Alas. I am neither scene nor heard unless someone wants something.
Okay. Done.
Now, on to business.
Finished Obsidian Butterfly, part of the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton, and I peaked at some threads on Incubus Dreams, the most recent book. I've got two book before I get there, and I'm scared because it looks like it's all going downhill. The books seem to be spiralling out of control and going into all the directions that Joss managed to keep Buffy from swerving into and, trust me, this is not a good thing.
See, Hamilton is not the best writer ever. That is a fact, but, her books are wildly entertaining and as they progress pretty compelling. However, as the series is progressing and Anita becomes more of a 'monster', Hamilton is digging herself in to a hole. Anita is turning into this mythical figure with all of the burdens, powers, morality issues but with fewer and fewer real repercussions. There has been little physical damage to her sudden shift into super humanity. As Hamilton builds the character she, I fear, is losing her audience because they can no longer relate. Anita just isn't even close to being a recognizable anything. Her morality is almost non-existent and that's not to say that she has to be a prude for the readers to relate but that she has gone from being ultra reserved on certain subjects to free for all in the space of about two fictious years. There is a huge character shift and I don't think two years is enough to allow her to come to grips with those changes especially considering what she's been up to. Everything is happening to easily.
There is also a trend in the later books to divorce Anita from the human world and submerge her into a world inhabited almost exclusively by monsters. I think part of the reason that I enjoyed Obsidian Butterfly so much was that it was a chance to see her once again interacting outside of this very closed off world that she has built in St Louis. OB takes her to Santa Fe, New Mexico and to Edward. Narcissus in Chains and Cerulean Sins, I fear, is just going to drop us right back to where we started. I'm not even sure that I want to read Incubus Dreams for fear of where we're going with that.
There is also some reservations concerning her taste in men. Jean-Claude, resident Master of the City and one of Anita's lovers is a vampire and I am having a great deal of difficulty reconciling the relationship and not just because I prefer her other lover, the werewolf Richard. I think it has more to do with how much she emphasises the alieness of vampires and the fact that they are dead. Then you throw in Jean-Claude who also happens to be one of the most self-centered, manipulating bastards that you're ever likely to meet and it's like, huh?
I had read that Jean-Claude was originally meant to die at the end of Circus of the Damned but that the author suddenly realized how much he meant to Anita and to herself and so he was spared. I am often regretting that Hamilton made that choice because Jean-Claude gets on my nerves rather royally. Add to that the fact that I think, in the end, Anita is going to pick Jean-Claude over Anita and it's making my skin crawl. He is just an unlikable character and Anita (read Hamilton) is very ambivalent about his character and his relationship with Anita. She continually insists that she loves Richard but maybe loves Jean-Claude but isn't sure. I want to pull out my hair. Make a choise. Pick one for gods sake.
Arrgghh!!!
Outside of personal issues there are also plot problems and terrible editing. I read the books and wander if her editor even looked at them before they were published. They are terribly repetitive at times within the books as well as between books. These books need to be copy edited as well as read and re-read for content. The Meredith Genry books are much better, although just barely, and I wonder if it has to do with them being published by a larger house -- Ballantine rather than ACE. Whatever it is, someone needs to fix it.
I just don't feel confident that Hamilton is going to be able to pull everything together. After nine books it's a disconcerting thought.
Okay. I'm exhausted enough to really need to go to bed. I have to be up and at 'em because we're having new carpets put in. gods! I get to move furniture, like, all damn day. It would be my luck that tomorrow it will rain, preventing us from putting any of the bigger stuff outside.
Great.
Whatever, dude.
Okay. Done.
Now, on to business.
Finished Obsidian Butterfly, part of the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton, and I peaked at some threads on Incubus Dreams, the most recent book. I've got two book before I get there, and I'm scared because it looks like it's all going downhill. The books seem to be spiralling out of control and going into all the directions that Joss managed to keep Buffy from swerving into and, trust me, this is not a good thing.
See, Hamilton is not the best writer ever. That is a fact, but, her books are wildly entertaining and as they progress pretty compelling. However, as the series is progressing and Anita becomes more of a 'monster', Hamilton is digging herself in to a hole. Anita is turning into this mythical figure with all of the burdens, powers, morality issues but with fewer and fewer real repercussions. There has been little physical damage to her sudden shift into super humanity. As Hamilton builds the character she, I fear, is losing her audience because they can no longer relate. Anita just isn't even close to being a recognizable anything. Her morality is almost non-existent and that's not to say that she has to be a prude for the readers to relate but that she has gone from being ultra reserved on certain subjects to free for all in the space of about two fictious years. There is a huge character shift and I don't think two years is enough to allow her to come to grips with those changes especially considering what she's been up to. Everything is happening to easily.
There is also a trend in the later books to divorce Anita from the human world and submerge her into a world inhabited almost exclusively by monsters. I think part of the reason that I enjoyed Obsidian Butterfly so much was that it was a chance to see her once again interacting outside of this very closed off world that she has built in St Louis. OB takes her to Santa Fe, New Mexico and to Edward. Narcissus in Chains and Cerulean Sins, I fear, is just going to drop us right back to where we started. I'm not even sure that I want to read Incubus Dreams for fear of where we're going with that.
There is also some reservations concerning her taste in men. Jean-Claude, resident Master of the City and one of Anita's lovers is a vampire and I am having a great deal of difficulty reconciling the relationship and not just because I prefer her other lover, the werewolf Richard. I think it has more to do with how much she emphasises the alieness of vampires and the fact that they are dead. Then you throw in Jean-Claude who also happens to be one of the most self-centered, manipulating bastards that you're ever likely to meet and it's like, huh?
I had read that Jean-Claude was originally meant to die at the end of Circus of the Damned but that the author suddenly realized how much he meant to Anita and to herself and so he was spared. I am often regretting that Hamilton made that choice because Jean-Claude gets on my nerves rather royally. Add to that the fact that I think, in the end, Anita is going to pick Jean-Claude over Anita and it's making my skin crawl. He is just an unlikable character and Anita (read Hamilton) is very ambivalent about his character and his relationship with Anita. She continually insists that she loves Richard but maybe loves Jean-Claude but isn't sure. I want to pull out my hair. Make a choise. Pick one for gods sake.
Arrgghh!!!
Outside of personal issues there are also plot problems and terrible editing. I read the books and wander if her editor even looked at them before they were published. They are terribly repetitive at times within the books as well as between books. These books need to be copy edited as well as read and re-read for content. The Meredith Genry books are much better, although just barely, and I wonder if it has to do with them being published by a larger house -- Ballantine rather than ACE. Whatever it is, someone needs to fix it.
I just don't feel confident that Hamilton is going to be able to pull everything together. After nine books it's a disconcerting thought.
Okay. I'm exhausted enough to really need to go to bed. I have to be up and at 'em because we're having new carpets put in. gods! I get to move furniture, like, all damn day. It would be my luck that tomorrow it will rain, preventing us from putting any of the bigger stuff outside.
Great.
Whatever, dude.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-07 11:04 pm (UTC)From:Jean-Claude is just way too manipulative for my tastes, Richard is about as up front as the men in her life seem to get and despite his constant whining, I prefer him. AND there's Anita's initial insistence on the inhumanity of vampires and the dead issue. Now, she's just gotten mostly over that?
I just don't know what to make of the Anita Blake series. The Meredith Gentry books are better, but now that I've read the Anita books I'm beginning to worry because I can see some of the same themes arising. I really don't want to see her fall into the same traps for a second time.