Vaya con Dios, Anita Blake.
If you've never read any of the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton, I have to say that I recommend her early work. The first several books of the series go a long way to painting a vivid picture of a world mostly like our own, but in which vampires, werewolves, and other things that go bump in the night are known and ... well, maybe not accepted. Maybe not even understood. But recognized, at any rate.
Without giving away anything material, let me just say that the series gradually makes a transition. As Anita plunges more and more deeply into the paranormal underbelly of her world, the books make a gradual transition from supernatural adventure/mystery to supernatural erotica.
To be fair, supernatural erotica is Laurell K. Hamilton's bread and butter at this point (witness her Faerie books). But the thing is, the first few books of the Anita series *aren't*. And while I'm as much a fan of erotica as the next girl, if it's not what I'm in the mood for, then it isn't what I want to read.
I'm currently 140 pages into Blood Noir - the most recent installment of the series - which started with a sex scene between Anita and two shapeshifters (one of which she lives with). This scene lasts FOUR CHAPTERS. Maybe I'm unclear on the precise definition of the chapter, but the scene should take a meaningful turn in each one, shouldn't it? And if the scene was so long that it needed four chapters, shouldn't that have been a signal that maybe, just maybe, it was dragging?
A hundred-plus pages later, Anita is back in bed with one of the same two shapeshifters. The intervening pages have been filled with a lot of dialogue, mostly introspective soul-searching and relationship balancing as Anita continues to balance her paranormal polyamorous life without hurting anyone's feelings - at least among those she's sleeping with or cares about, which seem to be the same list with very few exceptions anyway.
But - and this is where I get back to my point - the intervening pages haven't involved any bloodshed, any actual shapeshifters changing shape, or even a gun so much as clearing its holster. The action, such as it is, has been exclusively in the bedroom... and this is not a poperty unique to this installment of the series.
To make a long story short, halfway through Blood Noir I'm staring at it like Peter Griffin at a performance of Uncle Vanya. ("Somebody throw a frickin' pie or something!")
Dear reader, should you take my recommendation and read the first few books of this series, I offer you this disclaimer: at some point, the story will turn on you. At some point, you'll realize that you know more than you ever wanted to know about Anita's sexual appetites. When exactly it will cross that line for you depends on you. Heck, maybe it won't bother you. But if it reaches that point, just know that it won't get better. Once it bothers you, put it down, because for all practical purposes, the story you started out reading is over. That flavor never comes back.
Up to now I have kept hoping, because Hamilton keeps writing... but it's time to face facts. The gritty life of a paranormal expert who wants to stay independent but has to make compromises to stay alive wasn't interesting enough to hold Hamilton's attention, so now she's telling the story of a BDSM-loving polyamorous paranormal expert who barely has time to share that expertise outside of her bedroom. The characters I want to read about are, for all practical purposes, dead... and for me, the story is over.
Without giving away anything material, let me just say that the series gradually makes a transition. As Anita plunges more and more deeply into the paranormal underbelly of her world, the books make a gradual transition from supernatural adventure/mystery to supernatural erotica.
To be fair, supernatural erotica is Laurell K. Hamilton's bread and butter at this point (witness her Faerie books). But the thing is, the first few books of the Anita series *aren't*. And while I'm as much a fan of erotica as the next girl, if it's not what I'm in the mood for, then it isn't what I want to read.
I'm currently 140 pages into Blood Noir - the most recent installment of the series - which started with a sex scene between Anita and two shapeshifters (one of which she lives with). This scene lasts FOUR CHAPTERS. Maybe I'm unclear on the precise definition of the chapter, but the scene should take a meaningful turn in each one, shouldn't it? And if the scene was so long that it needed four chapters, shouldn't that have been a signal that maybe, just maybe, it was dragging?
A hundred-plus pages later, Anita is back in bed with one of the same two shapeshifters. The intervening pages have been filled with a lot of dialogue, mostly introspective soul-searching and relationship balancing as Anita continues to balance her paranormal polyamorous life without hurting anyone's feelings - at least among those she's sleeping with or cares about, which seem to be the same list with very few exceptions anyway.
But - and this is where I get back to my point - the intervening pages haven't involved any bloodshed, any actual shapeshifters changing shape, or even a gun so much as clearing its holster. The action, such as it is, has been exclusively in the bedroom... and this is not a poperty unique to this installment of the series.
To make a long story short, halfway through Blood Noir I'm staring at it like Peter Griffin at a performance of Uncle Vanya. ("Somebody throw a frickin' pie or something!")
Dear reader, should you take my recommendation and read the first few books of this series, I offer you this disclaimer: at some point, the story will turn on you. At some point, you'll realize that you know more than you ever wanted to know about Anita's sexual appetites. When exactly it will cross that line for you depends on you. Heck, maybe it won't bother you. But if it reaches that point, just know that it won't get better. Once it bothers you, put it down, because for all practical purposes, the story you started out reading is over. That flavor never comes back.
Up to now I have kept hoping, because Hamilton keeps writing... but it's time to face facts. The gritty life of a paranormal expert who wants to stay independent but has to make compromises to stay alive wasn't interesting enough to hold Hamilton's attention, so now she's telling the story of a BDSM-loving polyamorous paranormal expert who barely has time to share that expertise outside of her bedroom. The characters I want to read about are, for all practical purposes, dead... and for me, the story is over.