lkh_lashouts | Best Amazon.com review of DM, EVAR!

Call me crazy, but I love-love-LOVE reading the snarky and pissed-off Amazon reviews of Hamilton's latest AB works. I seriously do this when I'm at my desk from breaks in the lab. It relaxes me; I'm dead serious. It's my Guilty Pleasure (TM). ^^

So I found a rather good one, today, and thought I'd share:

From a reviewer called "L.J. Lewis":

I swore Incubus Dreams would be the last new Laurelle K Hamilton novel I ever read. I was six months clean and I probably would have stayed on the wagon if the author hadn't posted a spectaclularly nasty post on her blog in which she eludes that people who dislike her new porn-tastic writing style are dumb, just don't get it, and should go away. The siren call of the series that had once been my book-crack whispered in my ear "Get me from the library!" My curiosity aroused, I had to obey. If I am anything, it's a glutton for punishment, and I thought if the book was even half as entertaining as the author's arrogant posturing of literary superiority (albeit not in the way the author intended) it would be time well spent.

I'll preface this by saying I didn't get very far in before I started skimming passages and then gave up all together. To paraphrase Popeye, I 'couldn't stands no more.' If books had a theme song, this one's would be Marvin Gaye's 70's soul classic "Let's Get It On". This isn't so much a novel as it is Hamilton flipping the bird wildly in every direct. A novel has a plot. By far her worst effort yet, the author has finally dispensed with any pretense of that piffling matter, and instead Danse Macabre is more like a collection of scenes held together by boring sex scenes and the stroking of Anita Blake's egotism. This is all made creepier because it is pretty much an established fact that Anita is Hamilton's Mary Sue avatar. Danse Macabre sees Anita's vampire lover Jean Claude hosting some vampire shin-dig. Supernaturals are arriving in St Louis by the bus load and they all want to have sex with Anita.

The first one hundred pages are almost entirely dedicated to showing that Anita is the greatest woman in the world, and anyone who says otherwise is a nasty ole witch. One vampire immediately dumps her girlfriend when she bad mouths Anita. Another vampire woman flies into a rage when her lover dumps her for Anita. Anita's best friend Ronnie is revealed to be insanely jealous of Anita's many horse-weenered lovers. A vampire that had sex with Anita in a previous novel has become addicted to sex with Anita. All these scenes are meant to make the few other women in this series come across as hateful and petty, and indeed they are all cringe-worthy. Anita is a bizarre combination of a misogynist, a chauvinist, and a man-hater. She can't stand anyone being better at her at anything. However, she can accept men if they become her subordinates. Her hatred of other women is much stronger. The mere act of existing, and possibly catching the eye of Anita's "men", makes them pretty much evil incarnate.

And of course, there is the sex. Lots of boring, mechanical, and unhygienic sex. When Anita Blake isn't pairing off with two or more men to shag like bunnies, they are talking about sex, negotiating about sex. Sex is ever present, because ultimately this book is all about how Anita Blake has the best something that that is another word for a kitty cat in the universe. She's the world's best lover, able to turn gay men straight, gives the best foreplay, and loves you long time. The first full blown sex seen of the novel is a threeway between Anita, Jean Claude, and some joker named Auggie. It is also the first instant of full on gay sex in the series. I was just amazed at how prudish it was written considering how Hamilton prides herself on being some kind of feminist, sexual, alt-lifestyle pioneer. The problems I've always had with Hamilton's sex scenes is 1) no one ever really enjoys the sex despite the scream-the-house-down orgasms everyone has. They always had to do it or someone will die. Anita has only had sex for sex's sake maybe one time way earlier in the series. 2) besides the problems of being boring, floridly written, and often gross, sometimes it gets so ridiculous its funny. My favorite scene in DM was during the climax of first three-way when all the people the participants know get to psychically share in the big O. Some henchman of Auggie's is driving his car, and the poor chump nearly has a traffic accident. I laughed until I cried.

I think Hamilton realizes her days are probably numbered and that is what is suddenly provoking her attacks against her readers. It's not that her former fans are stupid or prudish; it's more the case that they see right through the swill she's pushing. She turned a fascinating character into a hateful nymphomaniac and she can't write a sex scene or a cohesive line to save her life anymore. Her fan base from the earlier days is drying up faster than a puddle on the equator and even the people who loved the monster porn at first are getting bored. Hamilton is a prime example of talent squandered. With this book am finally at peace with that. Good-bye Anita Blake and Laurelle K Hamilton, I've finally quit you.

I think this reader effectively nailed on the head everything (and I mean, everything!) that's wrong with this series now as a whole. It was snarky, fun, well-worded and well-thought-out. *sheds tears of mirth and happiness* That was awesome.