Who still reads the books?

[moonsinger.livejournal.com]

I'm just curious how many people still read the books, and how many people wait until paperback to buy them.  I joined the community because her AB books since and including Cerulean Sins have gone way down hill.  Since I'm a bit fond of erotica, I liked the MG series, but the book before last didn't even cover a day in time, and I felt very cheated.  I was hoping for improvement, and while I think she has done character development with Nathaniel (despite the apron and pearls) that's been about it.  I'm not going to buy any of her books until paperback and then I'm only reading them to poke fun at her writing and hope that she actually does get better.  I hate to see a writer with her potential fall prey to their ego.  I mean Jim Butcher has an extremely long series with Harry Dresden and his character is still developing and the plots are still fresh. 

Also, what's her deal with lesbian/bisexual scenes? 

And how many people think it is just plain cruel what she is doing to Jean Claude and Asher?

Comments

[cherith.livejournal.com]

For a while, I was only buying them after they came out in paperback. Now? I'm waiting until the paperbacks hit the half priced bookstore. :)

[frabjously.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't take too long right?

[digitalusrex.livejournal.com]

i bought DM on the first day. i didn't know about the harlequin until 2 days after it was released (but haven't read it yet).
but i'm an "i want right NOW" veruca salt kinda gal.
that being said, i haven't given up hope on miss laurell.
her website says she has 7 more books to go.
they can't all be so frackin terrible, can they? *sniff sniff*
DM was really painful at first read, the second time is not as bad.
if TH is more painful than DM, i don't really know what i'll do....

[moonsinger.livejournal.com]

DM decided me on not buying any of her books in hardback. Honestly though when I buy hardbacks, I buy them on amazon for around $16 or $17 as a premium member, but I don't think I should encourage her hardback market, so I'll wait until paperback. Her writing is too subpar lately for me to justify paying double price for one of her books.

[saucyirishlass.livejournal.com]

Actually, someone who went to the St. Louis signing told me that she said she still expected to be doing this 20 years from now, and at one point, in the rules for her official forum was a statement that she already had at least 17 more plots in mind.

[avierra.livejournal.com]

I wait until the library has them.

[jeannette.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear.

[shadowbloodwing.livejournal.com]

I still read them. Mostly because I just can't walk away from a series until it's either done, or really and truly dead. And AB isn't complete or dead... yet. Dunno about the lesbian/bisexual scenes, but I want LKH to stay away from my sexuality and stick with writing about her own.


What's she done to Jean Claude and Asher now? Last I heard Anita was giving them permission to fuck like bunnies in heat if they want, then I stopped paying attention to the two of them.

[jeannette.livejournal.com]

When was that? Because last I checked, she was letting Asher stand around watching Jean-Claude get to fuck other boys, and hohumming about how cruel she was being, but not really doing much.

[rozasharn.livejournal.com]

I still re-read the old ones, but only from the library--I've never bought them. I requested "The Harlequin" from the library as soon as they ordered it, but I think I'm going to stop partway through. Thats very rare for me; I have a bit of a plot-compulsion to find out how a book ends. But I checked out the transcript from the forums, and the way Anita treats the lions seems worse to me than anything else in the series. I think this is where I stop keeping up.

[kerame.livejournal.com]

The way she treats JC and Asher is horrendous. They are forbidden to have sex with each other while Anita is open for every big-dicked supernatural in St. Louis, even during their 3-ways with Anita.

Can you imagine? These two characters are in love with each other, they are close together in a sexual situation, but are too afraid to touch each other beacause of what monkey-in-the-middle might do.

[lastshotringing.livejournal.com]

iawtc. It makes me really sad. :/

[tenaya-owlcat.livejournal.com]

Honestly, the only reason that I have (and have read) The Harlequin already is because I found it in my drawer o' goodies. :) It makes me wonder whether I suddenly rate a review copy of AB, or if they're just that desperate for reviews... I prefer to think the former, obviously, but who knows? Otherwise, I'd probably have waited for it to come out in paperback or gotten it from the library.

No clue what's up with the lesbian/bi scenes, but they seem to be increasing in frequency as the series goes on. I find it odd to see those scenes showing up, especially given how prudish Anita started out (and oddly enough, in some ways, still is).

As far as I'm concerned, Anita is cruel to just about everybody in the books, in one way or another, because she makes no efforts to change and accomodate all these people. Everything has to be her way or else. I think the main reason that she's living with Micah and Nathaniel is because neither of them will argue with her. O.o And anything spontaneous that happens can be blamed on the ardeur. *rolls eyes* I'm notoriously forgiving of books and their silliness, but even I got fed up this time.

[moonsinger.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about LKH's real life other than I've heard that Richard is supposed to be loosely based on her real life ex. I don't like the character Richard, and I haven't in a long while, but now I dislike the character Anita, and I think Ronnie has a lot of valid points about her.

[rpangel.livejournal.com]

I wait till it comes out on paper back.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I still buy the books. I've gotten into the habit of downloading an ebook first so I can get the full horror into my system before really sitting down to digest it, though.

And I'm slowly learning how to say no to hardcovers. Slowly. I'm going to try and wait for the paperbacks to be cheap before I get them.

And god yes, I think she's being cruel to JC and Asher. I'm happy with the notion that they're screwing like the lustbunnies that they are whenever Anita's not around.

[moonsinger.livejournal.com]

Does that happen in Harlequin? I haven't read that one yet, since I'm waiting for paperback although I suppose I may try a half-price.

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

I stopped, and the trouble is the newer books are tainting my memory of the older ones to the point I'm embarrassed to even consider going back over that ground.

In reference to the less than 24 hours book, seriously, how much character development can you possibly hope to gain in such a short span? How much do you change over one day (unless it's something drastic and not sex related?) LKH seems to revel in stretching her books over increasingly tiny time frames. She's not writing, she's blogging!

[moonsinger.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. At least with Merry, we have a character that LKH doesn't identify with as herself, and I was hoping that she'd keep with a plot, but the last book I read was the 2nd to last MG book. I don't have the one that is currently in hardback.

[mm_madb]

I don't buy them, I don't read them. My roommate has someone who keeps giving them to her, but she doesn't read them either. I come here because it suits my daily snark requirement and, well...if there is proof, real proof, that LKH gets over herself and lets her characters go I...

I don't know. I might read them again, but what I've heard of Harlequin makes me sad. Raphael and Edward were my favorite characters and I'm...horribly sad that she remembered them. I'd like to see Raphael take all the rats out of the city and go carve himself a mini-empire in the Mexican jungle somewhere with orders to shoot any short, 80's reject sluts that came near.

Er. Tangent, sorry.

[moonsinger.livejournal.com]

Hey, we all need something to snark at.

[foxfire74.livejournal.com]

I don't read them any more. I gave up at...whatever the one before Cerulean Sins was. Narcissus in Chains, I think? When I was promised shapeshifter coolness and wound up with more bad sex, plus the polywere. Who I still think is the stupidest villain in literary history.

I can't even read my copies of the early books any more, because I know the giant pit of suck they eventually descend into.

[viridian5.livejournal.com]

I read the series until I couldn't take the idea of Bloody Bones being all about the increasingly whiny Richard and came back just to read Obsidian Butterfly for Edward, though I WTFed over the thing with Edward having a family. I haven't touched another Anite Blake book since. I never started Merry Gentry because it sounded like a lot of what I'd come to hate about AB but concentrated.

[leggomylegolas.livejournal.com]

The first one I ever read came from the library. My best friend handed it to me and said "this is the worst thing I've ever read, you have to read it" (we say that to each other a lot, we like pointing and laughing).

The rest have only come from used bookstores. I have a big problem with the idea of giving her any money. She doesn't deserve it.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

I stopped reading them long ago -- I read one because several of my friends gushed profusely over it (Guilty Pleasures). It was diverting enough, but not my cup of tea. Online excerpts convinced me not to seek out any further ones.

THIS FORUM, though, is really tempting me to go out and find the rest! At least a couple. Most likely library versions. It's a state-of-wonder, "can it be? can it really be?" rubbernecking sort of thing. Since Phillip (poor guy) was the only character I remembered from my own reading and not other people's discussions, I expect to be utterly confused, but I don't think I'll care.

I came very close to buying a Merry Gentry once, uninfluenced and knowing nothing about that series at the time (and because I slightly prefer fairies to vampires, in most cases. Slightly). But I was broke and it was a tossup between that and the last-ever book by Octavia Butler. It was newly in paperback. I got excited. Had to go with Octavia. (Coincidentally, it was also about vampires, come to think of it! Which is weird for that author. I didn't love it as much as some of her other work, but it was pretty good. She had a reasonably different take on the vampire mythos. It was definitely sci-fi, not fantasy.)

I am totally going to read (LIBRARY VERSIONS OF) Anita Blake now, I can feel it. But I don't feel the same glee, the same push, to look up any Merry Gentry.

[summersdream.livejournal.com]

I read Merry Gentry first. I was so intrigued by the first one, then the 2nd one was alright-ish, and then... it was a rapid downhill slide. The last one reads more like a vicadin-induced fan fiction dream than an actual novel. Seriously. And you think the AB books are bad? They're still managing more coherency than MG. It's sad because she had the glimmerings of some actual good ideas in the earlier Merry books.

[zgirl714.livejournal.com]

I only borrow from friends and the library. If I read them at all. I brought two of the early books, but that was it.

[longtail.livejournal.com]

I'm almost hoping that the AB series doesn't get better, because then I'd have to go back and read the crap.

I bought Guilty Pleasures and IB, and I have NiC and CS on audiotape. I have a guilty confession that I liked NiC and CS on audiotape so much more than the books. The gal who reads actually makes them interesting.

And fascinatingly enough, I got the abridged audio of NiC. Normally I hate abridged anything, but it actually made NiC much better after it got streamlined.

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

I bought Danse Macabre last October after borrowing it once in hardcover, but haven't gotten around to finishing it a second time. I keep starting it but never last longer than thirty pages when the mind-numbing boredom sets in. And I read Mistral's Kiss in about at hour, settled in one of Barnes & Noble's comfy chairs.

I might buy Strange Candy, but only used online...I can't bring myself to buy it new in stores.

I have never bought any of them in hardcover.

[rinkori.livejournal.com]

Honestly? I haven't read anything past Cerulean Sins. I don't really plan to, either, unless I get a fancy to check them out from the library someday.

TBH I don't think I am never giving her money again.

[roguetailkinker.livejournal.com]

I temporarily nicked Cerulean Sins from my mom the night she got it and knocked it out in that one night. (I loves me some vampire politics, I do.) I couldn't wait to see what happened next, so I bought Incubus Dreams the day it came out. That sucked so badly that I didn't even bother with Danse Macabre until my mother offloaded gave me her copy.

I haven't bothered with The Harlequin yet, but since the general opinion seems to be that it doesn't suck too badly, I might go to B&N and start reading it when I have a few hours.


And how many people think it is just plain cruel what she is doing to Jean Claude and Asher?

OH HELL YES. Don't even get me started. It's hard to believe she felt guilty about being a hypocrite to Jean-Claude about a much smaller matter back in Killing Dance, and now she's being unbelievably hypocritical about two people she supposedly loves, is fully aware she's doing it, and doesn't do a damn thing to change it. Oh, that pisses me off so badly.

The main reason I like Merry so much better than Anita at this point? No stupid sexual hangups. No "I'm a good midwestern girl" wangsting. Just good sex with hot men (and one hot woman) and no whining about it. If you're going to write 'adult' fic, that's the way to do it.

[ladymuttly1.livejournal.com]

Before you say it doesn't sound too bad can I remind you of Podward? The lions being driven out of St. Louis for not feeding AB? Peter being a sexual victim? Richard being character assassinated? 2 chapters of Nate whining that he wants some BSDM (no BDSM... just whining) Alleged feather sex (I haven't read the book... everything I listed above was spoilers)

Read with caution

[bubblefaerie.livejournal.com]

I still read them, mainly because I want to know what's going to happen.

I started reading LKH with the Merry ones, so I was actually surprised (but happy) that the first Anita ones weren't all sex. I wasn't really surprised that they turned into it... but didn't like that they had less plot than the first Merry ones (this last one didn't have a plot either). The sex is just amusing, if not poorly written, and I can skim if it gets too much.

It does bother me, though, that no character can disagree with Anita. Sometimes I think she's uses the minor human characters to say what the "fans" think so she can tell them in her book how stupid and wrong she thinks they are.

But as much as I hate that Anita is a huge control freak who treats everyone like her pet, I hate the fact that the pets put up with it. It's always about begging Anita to do something for them, or to be allowed to do something without her. They can't be with anyone else, but she can.

I don't feel that Anita has grown as a character. I feel like she's become more flat. There is only one side to her now. She used to have a job, she used to go outside, she used to have friends that were just friends, she used to wear clothes. Now she just has a bunch of weak male cardboard cutouts, a bedroom, a tub, and sex.

[rianax.livejournal.com]

And no one ever gets tired of fucking. I wince when reading those sex scenes because there has to be a staturation point where the damm ardeur fails and the body can't take it any more.

Seriously for immortals, the vampires are strictly stuck in the horny teenager phase. Where is the lust for grand literature, theater, the arts? The weird and amusing hobbies? Something other than sex?

There is no sense of community or culture in any of these societies. Nothing shallow ritual that picks and falls away as convience dict takes.

Library

[ffordegroupie.livejournal.com]

I put my holds in early at the library.