Into and a Rant

[akisora.livejournal.com]

Hi! I'm new (obviously), but I have to be here for a reason, right? :)

I just started reading the Anita Blake books about three weeks ago. A friend of mine has been trying to get me to read them for a few years, and I never bothered to try until after the 10th issue of the comic was released. I'm only as far as Obsidian Butterfly, I just finished that one yesterday. So, if I may, I would like to state a few gripes/annoyances/confusions I have, please and thank you for putting up with me.

1. Spellcheck...for the love of god, spellcheck. I understand LKH may be busy....but shouldn't an editor catch this?


2. Why does it seem like everyone under the sun is all drooly over Jean-Claude? There's nothing impressive there - the seductive French vamp has been done before.


3. Too many blondes.


4. Anita gets sueier and sueier as the books go on - I hate it when God Mode is turned on.


5. . Her (Anita's) religion. I don't have anything against Christians...I really don't. And that's not to say AB is all uppity about it...but she is a snot when it comes to other religions (though it's mainly just been hints towards Wiccans). As for her faith...well frankly I would have thought it to have been challenged more often/in depth than it has been. But maybe that's just the WoD gamer in me talking.

There's other things. I just can't think of them right now. Honest :)

I went in knowing that the books were fluff, and not expecting a lot out of them. Anita has gotten to be, for me anyway, an unrealistic character. So largely I read the books for the secondary characters - Edward and Zerbrowski mainly, with spatterings of Jason and the wereleopards. And to an extent, I do like the way lycanthropes are handled.

That's my rant. At least for now.

Comments

[akisora.livejournal.com]

3. What I meant by that was it seems like all people not main character or wet dreamness has to be blonde. Boo....Give me the baldies, teh brunettes, the redheades and hell, what about funky dyed colors? Like purple. Gimmie purple.

5. Snowflake Alert. WTF?

I may end up reading the other stuff, for lack of anything else to do. Well, besides take care of my little ones.

[bluesauce.livejournal.com]

No, seriously, don't read the rest of them; they're really very terrible, and why waste time with terrible books when there's so much good stuff to be had? Dresden Files, Happy Hour of the Damned, Bryon Morrigan, Brian Keene...too much good stuff to read to waste time on the bad, in my opinion anyway.

[no-ron.livejournal.com]

many people got pissed off by the series after 'Blue Moon'.
for me personally everything up to 'Obsidian Butterfly' (including) was readable, and the books managed to meet my expectations.

if at OB you already have gripes about the series, just wait for the next novel and every single one after that! you'll love them! :ppp

[akisora.livejournal.com]

I've enjoyed bitching about them with one friend of mine online here (not the same that recommended them to me). I've tried explaining/bitching about it to my husband, but he's been stuck on the whole pasty nipples thing from a few books ago.

[dragon-mouse.livejournal.com]

You've read to OB?
GO NO FURTHER!
Trust me.
Just pretend the rest don't exist. That LKH took a sabbatical and has not written anything else. ANYTHING to keep you from picking up the rest.

Try the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs for a strong female lead, or The Dresden Files for an awesome series period. Much more worth it.

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

I'll add my voice to the mob -- you've just finished the last good book in the series. There were some problems with the earlier books, true, but I enjoyed them for the popcorn fun stories that they were. Once you hit NiC, though, ew.

Another vote for Dresden Files and Briggs' Mercy Thompson series for much better stuff in a similar vein (no pun intended). ;)

[drygo.livejournal.com]

I loved the series up until Obsidian Butterfly and read them voraciously, amazed at how addictive these books were. So, if you're already not liking them, you really shouldn't read any further because from here on out they degenerate into nothing but pornography and everything you already mentioned times ten.

[gwynethfar.livejournal.com]

What do you mean, she gets Sueier? Just because she has flawless skin and "rarely wears base"? *blinks innocently*

[akisora.livejournal.com]

Heh. I just mean she keeps getting "speshul".

[easol.livejournal.com]

Speaking of makeup, does it really amuse anyone else that Anita looks down on any woman who wears heels or makeup, yet she somehow is exempt and a-feminine when SHE wears them? Oh wait, she's the only "natural beauty" in the world.

[ladymuttly1.livejournal.com]

Go ahead read the next few books as long as you read them for the snark. It's kind of like reading (instead of watching) a pornographic Ed Wood fest.

[akisora.livejournal.com]

I have been reading for the snark. I've enjoyed the last few becuase of snark. Granted some stuff was good, or at least okay.

[mizmalice.livejournal.com]

Im up to Obsidian Butterfly too and I swear to G I cant go any further.

Also I'm a roman catholic and I'm telling you now Anita is the worst kind of catholic.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Ditto here. It's actually kind of funny to watch her pretend to be a Catholic beyond the whole no-abortion thing, when it also has various tenets forbidding random wanton sex, rape, murder, torture, etc.

And LKH seems to have misunderstood the whole "if you're forced into it it's not a sin" idea. Your pet wussy wereleopard being threatened does not count as "forced." Being angry and provoked does not count as "forced." Lust does not count as "forced." You have a choice in most of life's situation, and merely having the pressure cooker put on does not mean that what you do isn't wrong.

(For examples, note Harry's dealings with Lasciel where he refused to use the coin even if his friends and him were going to die)

[frabjously.livejournal.com]

Isn't Anita Episcopalian?

[morriganscrow.livejournal.com]

Don't forget her Mexican granny mind-fucked her into a truck-load of guilt about sex being dirty, and animating being evil.

[deadroman.livejournal.com]

First: HI! Nice to meet you!

And wow, you read to Obsidian Butterfly! Myself, I couldn't even get that far. I had to stop in the middle of Blue Moon. My brain was threatening to melt; I couldn't take it anymore.

And really, I only even read THAT far because I liked Jean-Claude. OK! Sue me! He was my favorite dude. I'm a complete sucker for the sexy French vampire type (no pun intended). And although LKH's writing skillz prevented her from ever managing to portray Jean-Clause (or any of her playthings, for that matter) with anything that might resemble talent, I think his character had lots of potential in the first book. He was *OMGOSH* a REAL character! Not just some servile prick with a dick. In my imagination, I still see him as a ruthless cunning self-serving vampire and I love that. :)

[deadroman.livejournal.com]

Eep, misspelt Jean-ClauDe. XD

/end paranoid self-correction obsession.

[kerame.livejournal.com]

5) If you think the way religion is handled in the early books is narrow minded, you ain't seen nothin yet. One of the many, many insane developments later in the series is the way Anita's transformation from a shallow, judgemental, fear-based Christian, into a shallow, judgemental, perverted, power-mad, fear-inspiring goddess is viewed as a positive development by the equally mad author. Laurita is an angry, jealous goddess, who demands absolute faith and mindless obedience.

The foundation of the Church of the Crotch of Doom was probably in BM when God gives her his personal blessing after her torture and unnecessary murders.

Then God becomes the "Diety", who has such a special relationship with her disciple, that she tells Anita (through a tarot reading) that she has been given the harem-men (including Nathaniel, with whom she has a molester-like relationship) as her personal, gift-wrapped goddess-gifts.

At the end of the last book, Anita is the Diety. Nathaniel is now the disciple, and has "absolute faith" that Anita will punish the evil and protect the good, a few paragraphs after she has condemned a man and his family to near-certain death when he refuses to have sex with her. He might have been spared, had he not been foolish enough to say that being compelled to sexually service her was a form of slavery. As he was literally kneeling at her feet and asking for mercy, another one of her sycophants goes between mocking and threatening him, to praising the greatness of Anita. When Richard (the only regular character to retain any independence) rightly calls her evil, he is cast out of the Crotch's Cone of Protection to be tortured as punishment for his lack of faith.

[easol.livejournal.com]

We should have T-shirts that say "Heretics Against the Church of the Crotch."

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

And then there was the whole thing with her taking over Malcolm's church and saving them all with loveloveloveloveLOVE. *curls up and rocks in the corner, babbling madly to herself*

[syrinx.livejournal.com]

Oh wow...I haven't read up to there, and I'm glad I haven't. I would say she's obviously reached a new low, but, well, she's already been there for a while.

LKH needs to accept Anita is the bad guy now--not misunderstood. Plenty of authors have written from the "villain's" point of view, even managed to make them sympathetic. What's disturbing here is LKH is sympathetic to her Mary Sue and thinks Anita's in the right. Everyone else is just a jealous hater, y'all.

[ladyniko.livejournal.com]

# Spellcheck...for the love of god, spellcheck. I understand LKH may be busy....but shouldn't an editor catch this?

Because she has JonBoi & Butch!Darla fawning all over her and acting as her editors now. She doesn't need a real editor to chop her crappy repetitive crapola down to size & tell her what she's producing is just pure dreck. :-p

[akisora.livejournal.com]

Someone should figure out what spell she's using to entrance all these people, and disspell it. And her. Unless it's all subliminal?