Funny and unfunny

[rivkat]

How I love the Style Invitational. A recent contest was to update lines from literature with product placement. As is often the case, I found the first runner up much funnier than the winner: "And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the amazing Ginsu knife to slay his son, and the angel of the Lord called out, 'But wait, there's more

Comments

50 pages tops

[jonquil]

Yip. In fact, 90% of the book is either sex scenes or whining about sex scenes. I think the ardeur is going to count as one of the worst plot decisions in an ongoing series.

This is the last Anita book I buy, and this time I really mean it. Back when I looked forward to Anita, I read them for the danger and the tension; both have long since disappeared.

Re: 50 pages tops

[ex_iocaste2]

I dunno if it'll be the last, but I agree with the assessment. The thing is, I find that a lot of artists with a kink start well, when they keep their kinks relatively under wraps, like subtext. Then they get more successful and the kinks sort of take over. Examples: Hitchcock (Marnie), Chris Carter (later seasons of XF and more obsession with reproduction and femme-loathing), Boris Vallejo (early pics beautiful; then slowly became only female asses).

Re: 50 pages tops

[rivkat]

Marnie happens to be one of my favorite movies, because it's all so stylized and overt, but I take your point. Another way to read "kinks taking over" is as laziness, or as shifting in the direction of producing only what the audience said it loved about the original -- and maybe therein lies a failure to recognize that at least some of the audience liked that part only as the jewel in the crown, rather than on its own.

I doubt this will be my last Hamilton novel either ... but I think from now on it's used copies months after the release, rather than even Amazon's discounted new price.

Re: 50 pages tops

[rivkat]

Don't know if you've seen this, a very interesting theory about writing one's kinks and when it works and when it fails.

I'll be going to NYC after the holiday party to stay there until Saturday -- any chance you want to take the train back together?

[kellyfaboo]

The whole wife/homemaker thing reaches epically nauseating proportions by the wrap-up. Why, oh why, are we so hung up on gender roles in this series? Somehow I get the feeling she thinks she's being progressive by making the male characters femme.

And surprise, a whole plot point ... wasn't. I think I now read these for the 4 readable pages of copy she provides.

[thisisbone]

I haven't gotten the new one yet (I hit "free shipping" before realizing the other book in my shipment took 2-3 WEEKS to come in), but I'm still looking forward to it.

I like the Anita books MUCH better than the Merry Gentry ones -- too much faerie court or just that thing I have against little green men. I remember thinking while reading the last faerie book that she sure had spent a hell of a lot of pages on a whole lot of nothing.

I may find that's true of Incubus Dreams, too, but so far, the multiple partner thing has hit enough of my own kinks to continue to be entertaining. Cerulean Sins was my favorite of the series so far, so...Wish she'd get off her high horse about the boys doin' each other, though.

I'm reading Emma Holly for my m/m, m/f, m/f/m lit fix. It's like fan fic, only without knowing the characters ahead of time. ;)

[rivkat]

It would be nice to see some hot man on man action, but I doubt Anita's going there. Anyway, I'd trade it all for Edward, wonderful Edward. He's probably abandoned the series because Anita is too scary for him now.

[thisisbone]

I'd trade it all for Edward, wonderful Edward

I now picture CKR as Edward, and it makes it all just that much better.

The Edward-centric book is the one I enjoyed least -- I missed the shape shifters -- but I like Edward a lot as a character.

[herewiss13]

I'm not sure what it says about me that I can rip through the book in two sittings, completely oblivious to all grammar errors and typos. People continually rant about the commas and apostrophes in LKH's work and I'm all "punctuation...what?"

I'm not sure if this means I'm care-free or just careless. ;-)

Personally, long as it was, I thought Incubus Dreams was a nice turning point in the Soap Opera that is Anita's Life. She actuallys (gasp!) seemed to be gaining sanity in the area of relationships. Certainly, it's not all hugs and puppies, but an improvement is an improvement and if the angst remained, it was, at least, angst moving toward a resolution of sorts. Light can be seen at the end of the tunnel (until the next book, of course

[rivkat]

Obviously I'm still buying the LKH books, so I can't say they've lost their hold on me. But I'm easily ripped out of stories through errors; it just happens to me. I can say, now that I've reached p.384, that I do see the forward movement. It still strikes me that the first 250 pages were way too little in way too many words; we already know Anita's issues if we're reading this book.

I get what you're saying about Pratchett, and it makes sense. Maybe he's achieved a version of what JK Rowling is having to try, writing a series of books at different levels of moral complexity. Feet of Clay remains my favorite of the Discworld books.

[seperis]

I'm still kind of blinking at the concept of 'ripeness'.

*winces* Of course, I still reads Regency romance where someone refers to a penis as burgeoning masculinity and giggles, so really, I'm no judge.

Though I have entertained myself by coming up behind a coworker reading Catherine Coulter and saying "You're reading girly porn!"

Ooh. And I almost forgot! I'm glad you think you can make it to NY that weekend. I'm currently staring at my future carry on bag, trying to figure out what I consider essential. So far, DVDs and my lipstick are all that's made the cut. And clean underwear. Essentials should the rest of my luggage be lost.