When did it become unbearable?

[bluesauce.livejournal.com]

    Hi, I've lurked for quite awhile; I found the community when I started reading Guilty Pleasures(because I was at ends as to what exactly to grab for paranormal detective fiction).  So far, having read that and Laughing Corpse, it isn't horrible.  At what point do they become unbearably porny?
 

Comments

[shadowbloodwing.livejournal.com]

For me they got unbearable during Narcissus in Chains, which is the tenth book. I'd stop there unless you've got a strong stomach for bad porn and tripod wereleopards.

[drho.livejournal.com]

Narcissus in Chains is the sharp turning point. However, Incubus Dreams is where the series became completely unreadable.

[pith]

I'd suggest stopping at Obsidian Butterfly if you want to leave with good memories. *L* OB, to me, is the last book where Anita acts remotely Anitaish.

(Modly: Please note that oneliners/really short posts aren't allowed. We try to aim for 5+ lines.)

[foxfire74.livejournal.com]

Personally speaking? I have a fairly high tolerance level and lasted through...um, whatever the book was that was after "Obsidian Butterfly". I think they're supposed to be best (?) up through "Killing Dance" or thereabouts, but my personal stopping point is "Blue Moon". All the plots and emotional entanglements from the earlier books are more-or-less tied up, Anita's in a threesome but isn't yet the Eater of Worlds that she later became, and she just faced down a demon that had her in actual, y'know, peril. I can handle the Sue-ness when it's a case of her surviving a demon by the skin of her teeth. After that is when it got to be unbearable for me personally.

So, much like "Buffy", which ended at season 5 no matter what all those websites and Internet friends try to tell me, there were no more Anita Blake books after "Blue Moon". I am much happier this way. :-)

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

I second Obsidian Butterfly as the last tolerable book - and that one isn't particularly good - espeically if you like Edward as he becomes 'domesticated' here.

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

No, no, no--Buffy ended at the end of Season four. :D

But seriously, I think the decay set in before Obsidian Butterfly, but that Obsidian Butterfly was an "indian summer" of improvement. That novel gave me (and my wife) false hope that maybe LKH had seen the error of her ways and turned around. There was a vastly refreshing absence of Richard, Jean Claude and most of the angst associated with all the characters in St. Louis.

I had feared that she'd ruin Edward in that novel* but I thought she did an excellent job of revealing more about him without destroying him. Something I thought Robert Parker failed to do with Hawk in a couple of Spenser novels. (Some uber-cool and violent sidekicks should remain mysterious.)

Some might stop before Obsidian Butterfly, but I'd recommend that one--but that's definitely the last one I'd suggest reading.

*And I know that some people think she did, of course. I disagree.

[estllechauvelin.livejournal.com]

No, no, no--Buffy ended at the end of Season four. :D

So did West Wing, no matter what anybody tells me.

[shadowbloodwing.livejournal.com]

Yes. Buffy ended at season five, everyone else is sorely mistaken.

[bluesauce.livejournal.com]

Duly noted, sorry about that.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Second this. I managed to get through NiC without too much trouble, because she was still introducing likable characters and Anita wasn't humping everything that moved, just some of them. But in ID? That's the benchmark for the rest of the dreck that follows.

[cywrain.livejournal.com]

Obsidian Butterfly is my personal stopping point. I thought the plot ending there served nicely as an overall ending for the series.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

But... season 8? *sniff*

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

Can I just say, though, that LKH has some of the best and most evocative titles EVER? I spent years thinking "Narcissus in Chains" was a work by Anais Nin, or some French poststructuralist or other. (SO disappointed when I finally looked at a copy on the front rack at Barnes and Noble...)

[moonsinger.livejournal.com]

Most people will say Narcissus in Chains, but that is probably the last book of hers that still has a mystery plot in it that is significant.

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

Thirded. I knew I was done when I reached the end of that and realised the plot could have covered three chapters out of what was a massive book.

No more. Even if it did a sharp 360 I'm done. It's even tainted my experience of the better ones to the point I'm embarrassed to say I own them:(

[dkphoenix.livejournal.com]

Without getting too spoilery here...

Blue Moon was the last one I really enjoyed, the "everyone chase Anita through the woods" segment notwithstanding. Obsidian Butterfly isn't terrible... but I have mixed feelings about how LKH handled the broadening of Edward's private life in it, and Anita pulls a massive power boost out of her ass in order to defeat the Big Bad in the end. Narcissus in Chains is where the series takes a sharp turn into Pornville, but it does still have some plot interspersing the sex scenes. Incubus Dreams is where it turns into 400 pages of orgy bookended by 20 pages of plot.

The first 5 or so books in the series being good is what makes the last few so painful for those of us in this community.

[medusa-stare.livejournal.com]

Personally, I wish I'd given up after The Killing Dance. That wasn't where the porn got unbearable, but it was where the Richard/Anita soap opera got to be more than I could stand, and it soured the rest of the series for me. It was also, I think, where the All About Sex started - not where it got overwhelming, but the beginning of the end.

As others have said, though, wherever you give up it is worth coming back for Obsidian Butterfly. If all else fails, do what I did - skip the main plot and only read the scenes involving Edward.

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that. Like I said, having read Double Deuce by Robert B. Parker (which was, uhm...not his best work, shall we say?) I feared that LKH would ruin Edward when I learned that we would finally get a look into his life.

I was surprised--and pleased--that while we saw more of Edward, and more of what went on behind his eyes, she didn't (in my opinion, anyhow--other people may disagree). I thought she did an excellent job of giving us more about Edward without destroying him as the scary killer we know.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

King also had "Danse Macabre"...which is why The Killing Dance is titled thus.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Stop at OB. That is, if you can tolerate the shift from detective/crime fiction into the wonderful world of Soap Opera after Circus of the Damned. Seriously, as soon as the Designated Love Interests are introduced, all crime-solving takes a backseat. After the love is consumated, well...then nearly everything else is a pesky inconvenience. OB was a bit of a reprieve from that mess because Anita was off on her own and had to rely on herself while she tried to get her shit together.

Annnd then there was NiC, which was such a slap in the face to me -- I know I'd read the warnings that this was a more "introspective" book and was meant to have Anita pondering her ties and relationships and whatever...well, it didn't take until two books later for it to sink in that NiC wasn't a fluke at all and everything that had come before in the series had been forgotten, while whatever remained turned tricks like a two-dollar hooker. Course, I don't claim to be the sharpest tool in the shed.

I think Danse Macabre is the epitome of the pornination -- as the book not only revolves around Anita trying to pick a new lover to add to her collection, but there's much wangsting about how she might be pregnant. Annnd that's it. That's all there is to it. At least in the previous books, there was crime and bad guys to fight or screw. Granted, in Incubus Dreams, the bad guys sorta just called it in (possibly because there was a Buffy marathon on at the time) -- which is good...because all that evil stuff just gets in the way of Anita and her many, many mens. Like we readers really want to read about action and smarts and shooting stuff and being awesome? HELL NO! *headdesk*

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

Genius simply POURS from this woman's fingertips!

Or from the fingertips of some intrepid intern. ^___^

* resuscitates you*

I do (sheepishly, I admit) kinda like them. Except for Guilty Pleasures, which struck me as lame -- coincidentally, perhaps, it is also the only one of the series I read through.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

It took me two attempts to get past chapter two of ID. I bought it, I went to work and tried to read it in my lunch breaks. But then the guys playing football in the kitchen area was much more fun, and by the time I got to Tammy being taller than Larry, but in heels was taller still (wtf? I still can't work that out -- I mean, obviously, Tammy in heels would be taller than Larry if she was taller than him in the first place...or maybe she was wearing flats and was still taller than Larry...who was in heels?) and the fifth, "done something to his/her hair so that it was smooth and left his/her face clean and beautiful!" I shut the book and declared this to be the worst book ever.

Course, then I read the MST3K of The Eye of Argon (http://www.bmsc.washington.edu/people/merritt/books/Eye_of_Argon.html) and have gained new respect for several of my PWP books. And I discovered the fun of Simon R. Green's Nightside series.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

*scoops up brainmeats*

Seriously. I think by the time DM came out, she'd discovered that omg, there's like...a gajillion books called DM (and possibly even got confused with the Saint-Saens tune -- though, if she ganked it because she's a Jonathan Creek (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118363/) fan -- which Danse Macabre was the theme music -- I'll just cry. Alan Davies deserves to remain unsullied.) and figured, what the hey...it's safe to finally use the title that she originally wanted, even though this book seems to have little or nothing to do with DM the club. Or something along those lines.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Oh, Lord yes. *uses Toby icon* I know West Wing tried to pick up its feet in s7, but it was two seasons too late. I'll never forgive them for what they did to Toby and Will.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

The worst part is, I can sorta see what she was trying to say...it's just that she wasn't saying it. Which...is...really wierd, because hey, she's a writer -- I always took that to mean that one has a solid grasp upon the English language and the ways in which it can be successfully applied to storytelling.

Obviously I was wrong on that last part, and it turns out that the industry is more like music...a lack of talent totally never stops anyone from selling bigtime. I'm now gonna kick back and wait for the Book Idol shows to begin. "Out of thousands of prospective authors from around the country, we've narrowed the field to twenty! Now read their exercises and let the country vote on who you think is your favourite writer!"

...you know, I'd totally watch that show. It's got to be way better than the singing and dancing ones.