lkh_lashouts | LKH, seriously. W.T.F. (Reply)

I thought maybe I'd try to read the rest of your Anita Blake series, just for the heck of it, and to see just how horrible this book really was. But man, I had no idea just how bad it really was. I'm over halfway through this book and there has been no considerable plot whatsoever. Just Anita getting the ardeurerur and having lots and lots of sex with lots and lots of guys. And I never really noticed before, or maybe have just forgotten, how incredibly annoying and hypocritical Anita is. She admits she's self-deluding and a burden on everyone with her stubbornness and whatnot, but won't do anything to change it.

It really makes me mad and sad at the same time that instead of making up one or two strong, solid plotlines and following them through to the end, instead she creates five or six of them but gets so wrapped up in the sex and bickering b/w Anita and, well, everyone else, that those poor little plotlines fall to the wayside and are never resolved. What a serious waste of potential. I mean, come on she's met at least one or two people in the book thus far (I'm not finished with it yet so I can't speak as to whether she does resolve these plots) that could serve as major villains--Narcissus, who has definite cool bad guy or at least meddlesome semi-ally potential, and the werelions/snakes whatever they are. She introduces them at the beginning of the book, and as of where I am in the book right now we have yet to hear from them again.  It makes me kind of buy into the whole LKH's-divorce-ruined-her-writing theory, since I believe the whole debaucle was going down while she was in the middle of writing this book, correct? It seems like she started out in the right direction, then the divorce came along and she decided, "hey! now I can get over this by writing all that "kinky" sex I've always wanted to write but my mean old husband wouldn't let me!"

Or what about Damien? I haven't gotten past the lupanar yet, so I don't know if she makes good on her promise to come retrieve him, but just his whole presence in the book pisses me off. Not because I have anything against Damien, but because the way she glosses over his whole ordeal made me realize what wasted potential lay in his story too. Asher briefly asks Anita if she remembers anything about a couple who were seemingly killed by a rabid beast, and tells her it was Damien. I, for one, would have really liked to see LKH scrap NiC altogether and instead, maybe write a book where Anita is in St. Louis when all of this shit is going down and--gasp!--actually does some policework and Executioning to hunt him down and maybe even, dare I say it, be forced to do her job and kill him??? Imagine what fun Anita could have had wangsting over that whole ordeal! Imagine a book with no PWP and where Anita finds out Damien is the one doing the killings and must decide if he can be saved or must be executed! Where Micah and the ardeur have yet to exist! The fact that LKH chose to casually bring up such a topic and cast it aside pisses me off. What happened to vampires that attack or kill humans being executed by Anita? Because if you ask me, here is a clear-cut case of a vampire killing some humans, and I don't care if it was Anita's fault or not, it could have made a kickass book.

But yes, the ardeur. I actually had no idea that it turned up as early as NiC. If this plot-device had been handled in a different manner, I could see it having at least some value and adding something to the books and Anita becoming more like "the monsters", but no, of course Anita must be her stubborn self, keep maintaining she is not and will never be a slut (at which I point and laugh at her) and try to fight the ardeur instead of doing something, oh, I don't know practical for once and feeding it when it needs fed, and going to Jean-Claude for help in controlling it so that she doesn't end up doing something stupid or just downright wrong. Then maybe we wouldn't still be putting up with this crap several books later.

*sigh* okay, I'm done. Just had to get that off my chest. I've been making note of amusing quotes as I've been reading, when I finish I plan to post them complete with snark. SOme of them provide some startling insight into Laurellita's oh-so-dark head.