I never learn
So, I picked up the latest Anita Blake from the library, presumably because I am completely fucking mad.
How is this trainwreck still going on? Jesus Christ - I think I've read about six chapters so far and I didn't think it was possible for a human being to be this fucking bored. Five chapters have been devoted to a totally pointless dance recital, peppered with endless descriptions of Anita's long haired, moodring-eyed My Little Pornys. And if the physical descriptions weren't dull enough in themselves she has to get into what they were all wearing. I don't even know how many of these pointless fucksicles there are - um...Micah, Nathaniel, Jason, Asher, Jean-Claude the Comedy Frenchman? Was that it? I don't know. Worse, I don't care. Then some people dance a bit, Micah slips Nathaniel the tongue and Asher has a massive hissy fit about how he's not getting boned or some such shit.
Then they talk about sex. Threeway sex. Gay sex. And is it really gay if you don't do anal?
What?
Then they talk some more about sex and we find out that Nathaniel has no gag reflex because he apparently spent an afternoon deepthroating Micah's monster cock. By this time I already feel like Louis Theroux at that swingers party - my face a mask of frozen restraint as I am forced to listen to the terrible, clammy details of these peoples' awful and unlikely fuckpiles.
And yet nobody leaves the room. In fact, they all join in and have a loooooooooooooong conversation about one another's sexual feelings - and bear in mind there are about five pet boys, a comedy Frenchman and Anita herself in the room. That's a lot of feelings. A lot of feelings I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT.
This just reads like padding, honestly. What the fuck, Laurell? This isn't NaNoWriMo. You're supposed to shave off the superfluous bits of your narrative. Does the dialogue move the story along? Does it develop or demonstrate character? If it doesn't then you red pen that shit. I thought this was one of the first and most fundamental rules of creative writing.
Of course, I have a horrible feeling that I know what purpose this dialogue is going to serve. It's basically to set up Who's Fucking Who in the later pages of this novel. A skillful writer could set this up with a charged glance between characters, a touch that lingers too long or a slip of the tongue (literal or figurative) but LKH is so talented she can rewrite the rules and instead bludgeons us with numerous pages of clunky dialogue full of TMI.
(Fake edit)
I read the rest. Apparently some Big Bad is going to kill them all and Jean Claude the Comedy Frenchmen saves them all by conjuring up the dreaded Ardeur.
Result, they all fuck each other in a massive orgy so full of werecreatures that the whole thing is rendered disconcertingly... yiffy. (And if you don't know what yiffy means, you must be new here. Welcome to the Internet. You're going to find lots of interesting things to see and do.)
Then Anita's 'phone rings in various ways, which means we get to find out about her various ringtones and who they represent. Isn't that interesting? Anyway, some blue-haired werelion turns up, gets a bit arsey and Anita has to shoot him in the face. Nathaniel takes a bullet in the gunfight and Anita is distraught.
Well, sort of. Anita's kind of distress is...complicated. Rather than rushing to Nathaniel's side and staying there watching his every move, which I would think is a normal reaction to someone you love being shot, Anita launches headfirst into one of her now infamous existential shitfits. She is so distressed that Jean-Claude has to take her off to his boudoir, roll her hair (after washing the blood and brains out of it.) put her lipstick on and tell her she's beautiful in her way because God does not make mistakes. Or something. Yes, while Nathaniel's bleeding from a gunshot wound to the shoulder Anita is curled up sobbing in the arms of a Comedy Frenchman because she's freaking out about having shot Haven (yes, really) the werelion.
Apparently they had a thing once. For about five minutes. You know how it goes with Anita. But yes - how could she have looked into his eyes and pulled the trigger when once she gazed into his eyes while ~*~making love~*~?
Well, you know Anita - you're a federal marshal, necromancer, Queen of the Pussy People and unlicensed succubus or whatever you are these days. You're heavily armed and deal with bad shit and bad paranormal monsters. Maybe, on the offchance that you might one day have to lay down the smackdown, it might be a good idea to stop FUCKING ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE?
It's just a suggestion.
It's not one that Jean-Claude makes, obviously. He sings her another chorus of Lady Gaga, straightens her stocking seams and tells her she's awesome. Meanwhile Nathaniel continues to bleed to death.
Only he doesn't, because of his wereleopard powers. Apparently werecreatures can be cured of near-mortal wounds by snuggling. Naked snuggling. I think this was the point where my eyes nearly rolled clean out of my skull.
Oh and the Big Bad like totally slaughtered shitloads of people - chopped them up and blood and guts and all manner of biological nasty. It made Anita so angry that she had to go to the gym for five chapters.
Really.
She went to the gym.
She was angry and Micah came along and said "Anita, you should totally work out your anger in the gym," or some such shit. Anita's feelings (and workout routine) are more important than the pain of anyone related or remotely friendly with the dismembered people left behind by the Big Bad. So she goes to the gym for several chapters and we are treated to more pointless new characters whose only purpose seems to be telling Anita she's awesome, complimenting her on her latest superpower and giving her a new badass nickname.
I don't know what happened with the Big Bad because it was dealt with in about two paragraphs in the final chapter and by then I was barely skimming. Anyway, she didn't actually have to deal with it because some other werethings turned up from another city and for some reason, either political or magical or I-don't-give-a-fuck-anymorical, Anita, Micah and Asher had to have fiveway sex with them. Ho hum.
Let's just pray she doesn't ever have to shoot either of them because if she does she'll whinge about it for the whole of the next book.
Actually I have dark presentiments about Anita's next shitfit. It'll probably be of the positive pregnancy test kind. Again. She's done this before - spent an entire book freaking her fucking socks off about having to widdle on a stick while the prospective paranormal babydaddies line up Jerry Springer style. Then after screaming, crying and antagonising everyone she finally piddles on the stick and it was negative after all. This was a whole book.
In this one she had some kind of deep connection with the five year old son of a friend - well, not a friend, exactly. More of an acquaintance. No, less of an acquaintance than a loathesome hateful bitch who apparently fucked Anita over at some point but earns extra ire-points for having one of those vagina things. Anita does not play nice with other girls. Especially if they're blonde. She's got a thing about blondes.
But yeah - the five year old won't kiss her on the cheek because he says he "kisses like a big boy now" and kisses her smack on her red spackled gob. That's not creepy at all. Then he says "All the big boys kiss you, Anita," and there is no hope, no joy, no justice and no love in the entire universe anymore. It is dark and cold and sad because whenever writers use small, lisping child characters in this way the angels weep, gibber and shit the bed.
And no amount of naked snuggling will ever make them better. They're lost - either succumbed to drivelling, hopeless alcoholism, a shotgun mouthwash or full-on jabbering, pant-soiling Lovecraftian madness. I hope you're proud of yourself, Ms. Hamilton.
How is this trainwreck still going on? Jesus Christ - I think I've read about six chapters so far and I didn't think it was possible for a human being to be this fucking bored. Five chapters have been devoted to a totally pointless dance recital, peppered with endless descriptions of Anita's long haired, moodring-eyed My Little Pornys. And if the physical descriptions weren't dull enough in themselves she has to get into what they were all wearing. I don't even know how many of these pointless fucksicles there are - um...Micah, Nathaniel, Jason, Asher, Jean-Claude the Comedy Frenchman? Was that it? I don't know. Worse, I don't care. Then some people dance a bit, Micah slips Nathaniel the tongue and Asher has a massive hissy fit about how he's not getting boned or some such shit.
Then they talk about sex. Threeway sex. Gay sex. And is it really gay if you don't do anal?
What?
Then they talk some more about sex and we find out that Nathaniel has no gag reflex because he apparently spent an afternoon deepthroating Micah's monster cock. By this time I already feel like Louis Theroux at that swingers party - my face a mask of frozen restraint as I am forced to listen to the terrible, clammy details of these peoples' awful and unlikely fuckpiles.
And yet nobody leaves the room. In fact, they all join in and have a loooooooooooooong conversation about one another's sexual feelings - and bear in mind there are about five pet boys, a comedy Frenchman and Anita herself in the room. That's a lot of feelings. A lot of feelings I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT.
This just reads like padding, honestly. What the fuck, Laurell? This isn't NaNoWriMo. You're supposed to shave off the superfluous bits of your narrative. Does the dialogue move the story along? Does it develop or demonstrate character? If it doesn't then you red pen that shit. I thought this was one of the first and most fundamental rules of creative writing.
Of course, I have a horrible feeling that I know what purpose this dialogue is going to serve. It's basically to set up Who's Fucking Who in the later pages of this novel. A skillful writer could set this up with a charged glance between characters, a touch that lingers too long or a slip of the tongue (literal or figurative) but LKH is so talented she can rewrite the rules and instead bludgeons us with numerous pages of clunky dialogue full of TMI.
(Fake edit)
I read the rest. Apparently some Big Bad is going to kill them all and Jean Claude the Comedy Frenchmen saves them all by conjuring up the dreaded Ardeur.
Result, they all fuck each other in a massive orgy so full of werecreatures that the whole thing is rendered disconcertingly... yiffy. (And if you don't know what yiffy means, you must be new here. Welcome to the Internet. You're going to find lots of interesting things to see and do.)
Then Anita's 'phone rings in various ways, which means we get to find out about her various ringtones and who they represent. Isn't that interesting? Anyway, some blue-haired werelion turns up, gets a bit arsey and Anita has to shoot him in the face. Nathaniel takes a bullet in the gunfight and Anita is distraught.
Well, sort of. Anita's kind of distress is...complicated. Rather than rushing to Nathaniel's side and staying there watching his every move, which I would think is a normal reaction to someone you love being shot, Anita launches headfirst into one of her now infamous existential shitfits. She is so distressed that Jean-Claude has to take her off to his boudoir, roll her hair (after washing the blood and brains out of it.) put her lipstick on and tell her she's beautiful in her way because God does not make mistakes. Or something. Yes, while Nathaniel's bleeding from a gunshot wound to the shoulder Anita is curled up sobbing in the arms of a Comedy Frenchman because she's freaking out about having shot Haven (yes, really) the werelion.
Apparently they had a thing once. For about five minutes. You know how it goes with Anita. But yes - how could she have looked into his eyes and pulled the trigger when once she gazed into his eyes while ~*~making love~*~?
Well, you know Anita - you're a federal marshal, necromancer, Queen of the Pussy People and unlicensed succubus or whatever you are these days. You're heavily armed and deal with bad shit and bad paranormal monsters. Maybe, on the offchance that you might one day have to lay down the smackdown, it might be a good idea to stop FUCKING ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE?
It's just a suggestion.
It's not one that Jean-Claude makes, obviously. He sings her another chorus of Lady Gaga, straightens her stocking seams and tells her she's awesome. Meanwhile Nathaniel continues to bleed to death.
Only he doesn't, because of his wereleopard powers. Apparently werecreatures can be cured of near-mortal wounds by snuggling. Naked snuggling. I think this was the point where my eyes nearly rolled clean out of my skull.
Oh and the Big Bad like totally slaughtered shitloads of people - chopped them up and blood and guts and all manner of biological nasty. It made Anita so angry that she had to go to the gym for five chapters.
Really.
She went to the gym.
She was angry and Micah came along and said "Anita, you should totally work out your anger in the gym," or some such shit. Anita's feelings (and workout routine) are more important than the pain of anyone related or remotely friendly with the dismembered people left behind by the Big Bad. So she goes to the gym for several chapters and we are treated to more pointless new characters whose only purpose seems to be telling Anita she's awesome, complimenting her on her latest superpower and giving her a new badass nickname.
I don't know what happened with the Big Bad because it was dealt with in about two paragraphs in the final chapter and by then I was barely skimming. Anyway, she didn't actually have to deal with it because some other werethings turned up from another city and for some reason, either political or magical or I-don't-give-a-fuck-anymorical, Anita, Micah and Asher had to have fiveway sex with them. Ho hum.
Let's just pray she doesn't ever have to shoot either of them because if she does she'll whinge about it for the whole of the next book.
Actually I have dark presentiments about Anita's next shitfit. It'll probably be of the positive pregnancy test kind. Again. She's done this before - spent an entire book freaking her fucking socks off about having to widdle on a stick while the prospective paranormal babydaddies line up Jerry Springer style. Then after screaming, crying and antagonising everyone she finally piddles on the stick and it was negative after all. This was a whole book.
In this one she had some kind of deep connection with the five year old son of a friend - well, not a friend, exactly. More of an acquaintance. No, less of an acquaintance than a loathesome hateful bitch who apparently fucked Anita over at some point but earns extra ire-points for having one of those vagina things. Anita does not play nice with other girls. Especially if they're blonde. She's got a thing about blondes.
But yeah - the five year old won't kiss her on the cheek because he says he "kisses like a big boy now" and kisses her smack on her red spackled gob. That's not creepy at all. Then he says "All the big boys kiss you, Anita," and there is no hope, no joy, no justice and no love in the entire universe anymore. It is dark and cold and sad because whenever writers use small, lisping child characters in this way the angels weep, gibber and shit the bed.
And no amount of naked snuggling will ever make them better. They're lost - either succumbed to drivelling, hopeless alcoholism, a shotgun mouthwash or full-on jabbering, pant-soiling Lovecraftian madness. I hope you're proud of yourself, Ms. Hamilton.