why I loath Laurell K. Hamilton
There will come a time when I can walk through a bookstore, see the newest Laurell K. Hamilton book and be able to shrug and dismiss it as simply a book I don't care to read. Unfortunately, that time has not yet come. Each and every time it makes me want to rage.
It's not that she's a bad author or any of the other reasons why I don't care for any other given author. Part of it is that I did like her. The Anita Blake series started out really fun. "Guilty Pleasures" was a fun romp through the vampire genre, and the universe building is quite awesome with legalized vampirism and prejudice against lycanthropy and all. Not great literature by any means but fun and highly addictive. The next couple of books were pretty much in the same vein: fun romps that were still highly addictive, but the series went down hill fast until you suddenly realize that you're not reading PG fluff any more, but headed directly into some fairly hardcore porn.
In the first book, Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, was rolling her eyes over the vampire who was sending her flowers, saying she doesn't date vampires: she's kills them. I continued with the series through book 9: "Obsidian Butterfly," by which point she's in a forced menage a troi with the vampire master of the city and the local werewolf leader much to the disapproval of all of her friends. Since then, from the few books I've read the flap of, she's been possessed of a succubus-like-force that makes her sleep with anyone and everyone at the drop of a hat in order to survive. At the time of posting this, the series currently has 22 books, most recently "Blood Noir".. There comes a point, where even if she doesn't have the self-control to stop the situation, even if she's not sure anyone has the ability to fix it all, she still needs to go get help. Go to a woman's shelter or something. Say "no" and walk away. Because if she's rationalizing that it's all "sacrificing" to save other people, eventually she has to either decide that it's not a sacrifice after all, it's something she's doing willingly or that she has to take care of herself first before she'll ever be capable of taking care of anyone else.
So that's my beef.
Wow, I've been holding on to this rant for a while. It feels good to finally get it out of my system. Maybe next time I'm in a bookstore, I'll be able to just walk on by.
Hamilton's other series, following Merry Gentry, is pretty bad and not anything I'm particularly interested in following--plot line being that the heroine is a beautiful fae princess who has a stable of handsome fae men who are all vying for a place in her bedroom and she has to become pregnant before the bad guy gets someone else pregnant in order to win the faery thrown and save the world. But, it has several redeeming qualities: 1. It never pretended to be anything other than what it was, and 2. the main character, Merry, may make deals regarding her sex life but as far as I know she's never "forced" and she happily admits to enjoying it all.
It's not that she's a bad author or any of the other reasons why I don't care for any other given author. Part of it is that I did like her. The Anita Blake series started out really fun. "Guilty Pleasures" was a fun romp through the vampire genre, and the universe building is quite awesome with legalized vampirism and prejudice against lycanthropy and all. Not great literature by any means but fun and highly addictive. The next couple of books were pretty much in the same vein: fun romps that were still highly addictive, but the series went down hill fast until you suddenly realize that you're not reading PG fluff any more, but headed directly into some fairly hardcore porn.
In the first book, Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, was rolling her eyes over the vampire who was sending her flowers, saying she doesn't date vampires: she's kills them. I continued with the series through book 9: "Obsidian Butterfly," by which point she's in a forced menage a troi with the vampire master of the city and the local werewolf leader much to the disapproval of all of her friends. Since then, from the few books I've read the flap of, she's been possessed of a succubus-like-force that makes her sleep with anyone and everyone at the drop of a hat in order to survive. At the time of posting this, the series currently has 22 books, most recently "Blood Noir".. There comes a point, where even if she doesn't have the self-control to stop the situation, even if she's not sure anyone has the ability to fix it all, she still needs to go get help. Go to a woman's shelter or something. Say "no" and walk away. Because if she's rationalizing that it's all "sacrificing" to save other people, eventually she has to either decide that it's not a sacrifice after all, it's something she's doing willingly or that she has to take care of herself first before she'll ever be capable of taking care of anyone else.
So that's my beef.
Wow, I've been holding on to this rant for a while. It feels good to finally get it out of my system. Maybe next time I'm in a bookstore, I'll be able to just walk on by.
Hamilton's other series, following Merry Gentry, is pretty bad and not anything I'm particularly interested in following--plot line being that the heroine is a beautiful fae princess who has a stable of handsome fae men who are all vying for a place in her bedroom and she has to become pregnant before the bad guy gets someone else pregnant in order to win the faery thrown and save the world. But, it has several redeeming qualities: 1. It never pretended to be anything other than what it was, and 2. the main character, Merry, may make deals regarding her sex life but as far as I know she's never "forced" and she happily admits to enjoying it all.