[identity profile] watersheerie.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] lkh_lashouts

I’m not sure if this particular author has been discussed already, so please excuse me if I’m bringing up an old point. Also, this rant is a bit long, so please forgive me. I just couldn’t sum up the horrible badness of this author within a short space...she’s just so bad....

 

Sunny.

 

One name, a whole world of pain and utter trash. I can’t begin to describe how horrendous her story was. Only that I spent the entire thinking to myself, “Is this LKH in disguise?”

Warning Spoilers:

 

I was introduced to Sunny via a short story collection, On The Prowl. A slim paperback with half dressed woman in leopard print on the front (my God, why?), and the tagline ‘inhuman passions’. Of course I’d be surprised if a urban paranormal book could be described without the words ‘dark’, ‘passions’, ‘dark passions,’ ‘inhuman passions/lusts’, or ‘dark orgasmic mayhem.’ The ‘inhuman’ part is a bit ridiculous. As a human, I really would be more interested in human passions, as oppose to inhuman ones. ‘Inhuman passions’ makes me think of dogs getting it on, or cats. Yeah, not my cup of tea.

 

 The only reason I bought this book, was because Patricia Briggs had contributed one story (and a very fine story it was). Keep in mind, this was a slim book containing four short stories. Briggs managed to write a good story about love without the obligatory sex scene. The other two writers restrained themselves to one fairly short sex scene. While Sunny had to fit in not one, but two incredibly long and horribly drawn out sex scenes.

 

I am convinced that if Sunny is not merely a bad writer copying LKH, then she is LKH in disguise. The writing was reminiscent of LKH’s abysmally florid and adjective packed prose. Why, she can make anything into a descriptive adjective. Verbs, nouns, none are safe. The very title of her short story, Mona Lisa Betwining, shows Sunny’s special word skills. I can only assume that ‘betwining’ is supposed to refer to Mona Lisa’s need to ‘twine’ herself around every man in that story.

 

Mona Lisa is the Anita Blake of the story, only she doesn’t have big breasts so it isn’t outright plagiarism (such a clever ploy.) Having Mona Lisa bemoan the fact that she isn’t big breasted, is also some failed attempt to try and diminish the epic Mary Sue’ness of the character. Sort of a “she’s not perfect, since she doesn’t have big breasts.” Of course she is pale like Anita, since pale is the new tan. She has dark hair like Anita, doesn’t like to wear ‘girly’ clothes like Anita. She is the Queen of the Monere (I have no clue what those things are, other then Moon people/shape-shifter/Sues), but is of Mixed Blood so she gets even more awesome powers, another Anita trait. She has a harem of attractive men falling over themselves for a chance to fuck her...like Anita. Sunny herself even describes the Mona Lisa series with this very LKH sentence:

 

For more on Mona Lisa and her beautiful men, indulge your senses....

 

Wow, LKH and Dove chocolate combine into one glorious whole.

 

Now that Sunny has given the world another Anita Blake, she also proceeds to skip over the plot in her story and just write awkwardly bad sex scenes, standard LKH procedure of course. However instead of long drawn out conversations, we get a scene where Mona Lisa runs around the forest half-naked, until her sexy man Amber catches her and proceeds to have sex with her in one of the most disturbingly rape-like sex scenes I have ever read.

 

He filled my soft emptiness with his hard fullness. Crammingly so.

 

Crammingly so...that...oh God, I think my brain just shorted out. Crammingly, yes, Sunny has invented yet another word, a painful word that I think is supposed to be erotic.

 

He was a big man, everywhere. And his sudden invasion stretched me almost unbearably, caught me between the prongs of acute pain and acute pleasure, blurring the lines between them.

 

If this isn’t LKH in disguise, then Sunny is doing a disturbingly accurate job of channeling LKH. Pain and pleasure become one, as that is erotic. Mona Lisa/Anita certainly loves the painful sex.

 

Swallowed my cry.

 

Another LKH treasure is presented to us via Sunny.

 

Called forth the lunar lightness that dwelt within us, so that our glow illuminated our skin and filled the night air with building incandescence, growing brighter and brighter as I wound tighter and tighter.

 

More of a Merry moment here. Mona Lisa can glow ‘like she swallowed the moon.’ She can also describe it with more words.

 

So we move on with this halting and barely there plot. I have no idea what is going on, since nothing is going on. Except sex. Mona Lisa ends up in the woods again, with a different man, Dontaine. Now she has some sort of ‘bloodlust’ going on (Anita moment). Of course she solves the problem with an Anita solution. Channel the bloodlust into sex, very logical.

 

...leading me to where he pointed straight up like a giant tree towering over thick brush.

 

Sunny and LKH have shown us all that sex just isn’t worth it, if they’re not hung like a horse. And really, how hard is it to say ‘penis?’ Sunny and LKH are very apt at dancing around the word and using ‘male hardness’, ‘throbbing hardness’, ‘maleness’, ‘manhood’, ‘throbbing/pulsing/bursting/magical member.’ Sunny, LKH, it’s time to use grown-up words.

 

As I realized that what filled that supple hardness in my mouth was not muscle, but blood. Blood that called so strongly to me, so suddenly, that I ripped myself away from him...

 

Too bad for Mona Lisa, she can’t indulge Anita’s great love of oral. She can’t get pregnant as well, so it limits her options and gives Sunny the opportunity to write more ridiculously bad phrases.

 

...as the golden fall of his hair brushed the sensitive skin of my belly, my thighs, like a thousand whispering kisses.

 

???

 

...his forefinger feathering lightly over my plump and swollen pearl that he had plucked free from the outer folds.

 

It can’t get worse....but it does.

 

...a pinching pluck of my swollen nub. A deep plunge of his thick tongue spearing into me, as if he were driving a blade home.

 

After the orgasmic climax of that atrocity, Mona Lisa realizes that she loves him. Because they had sex...or something. Yeah, I don’t get it either. So then Mona Lisa has to see to his pleasure, because that’s just the kind of gal she is. Like Anita, giving her man an orgasm shows that she loves him, and cares of for him...instead of giving actual love and care. But since Mona Lisa can’t get pregnant, Sunny dares to write something that not even LKH has done. One of the most horrifying moments in literature...a painfully written anal sex scene...painful in more ways then one.

 

I will spare you all the horror of that, needless to say that I scrubbed out my eyes with bleach after that. Of course since Mona Lisa is Anita, the pain and tightness was enjoyable. Leading to yet another LKH moment:

 

Until that fine line of pleasure and pain became blurred, and then it became one...

 

After that, Sunny writes the standard LKH epilogue. Where Mona Lisa/Anita talks about what she has learned in the midst of her orgies. Mona Lisa has become a succubus...and I am seriously considering the possibility that Sunny is LKH in disguise.

 

The descriptive tagline under Sunny’s name sums it all up.

 

Fans of Laurell K. Hamilton will love Sunny.

 

They would be the only ones who could appreciate something like this.

 

Sunny ends her story with a short message to her readers (does she even have any?).

 

But for every pain, my darlings, I promise there will be pleasure...

 

I can certainly guarantee the pain.

 

Date: 2008-05-28 10:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gwynethfar.livejournal.com
Thick brush? He needs to trim that, for realz, yo.

Alas, I have seen Sunny in the flesh, and she is not Laurel. There are two of these creatures writing among us.

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YAY PUPPY!

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Date: 2008-05-29 12:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] orthent.livejournal.com
Thick brush? He needs to trim that, for realz, yo.

I'd suggest Roundup, myself.

Date: 2008-05-28 10:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] x--shameless.livejournal.com
HOW DOES THIS CRAP GET PUBLISHED. DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY READ THAT AND ENJOY IT?

I don't understand ;_;

But at leaast it makes me feel a bit better about my writing. No matter how much I may dislike something of mine, at least it's not this bad!

Date: 2008-05-28 10:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] suzycat.livejournal.com
Crammingly so.

This makes me think of a man who is losing his erection and desperately trying to stuff the wilting thing in in the hopes it will get hard again.

And he "plucks" her clitoris out of her labia? It's detachable?

Personally, fellow lashers, I'm not afraid to say that a very very very very big cock is actually not a great deal of fun sometimes because it BLOODY HURTS.

Date: 2008-05-28 11:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pastygothchick.livejournal.com
It only hurts when the guy doesn't pre-heat the oven. Which none of these gifted men seem to know how to do even after eons of living.

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Date: 2008-05-28 11:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dameruth.livejournal.com
Even without [livejournal.com profile] gwynethfar's comment above, I'd say this couldn't be LKH, cuz her Sue character actually has a clit (no matter how appallingly it's described -- sorry, I don't want to imagine that body part getting "plucked" from anywhere, ow!).

I will, however, be giggling my ass off over "crammingly" for the rest of the day. XD

Date: 2008-05-28 11:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lilian413.livejournal.com
But the senseless metaphors- and the disgusting imagery- and the grammar- CANNOT COMPUTE. *explodes*

When did 'we had sex, therefore I must love you. And more importantly, you must worship the ground I walk upon. So have I said, so mote it be' become mainstream??? And where can I hide until it goes away?

Who publishes this crap? Just so I know NOT to submit my manuscript to them, in the possibility of being even remotely associated with this drivel!!!!

P.S: The first person POV is also a dead give away that Sunny (what, was SparklyMcDarkityPants taken already??) is of the LKH 'school' (and I use the term loosely) of writing...

Date: 2008-05-28 11:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] suzycat.livejournal.com
we had sex, therefore I must love you.

See all 70s Mills and Boon/Harlequin novels. It happens ALL THE TIME. Even in the ones where the women are forced to marry a man they hate, who rapes them. They have a self-loathing orgasm and are instantly, irrevocably in love.

Fortunately after he's abused her for a few more chapters, he reveals that he loves her and all is well. In fact often he only rapes her because he thinks she's a whore, and then when he realises - because men can 'tell', you know - that she's actually a virgin, he freaks out and runs off to the town tramp and weeps in her arms because he's OMGSOINLOVE. But our heroine doesn't know that till page 123.

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(deleted comment)

Re: the shame - I has it.

Date: 2008-05-28 11:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pastygothchick.livejournal.com
A long as you don't think she's wonderful there is no shame.

Re: the shame - I has it.

Date: 2008-05-29 02:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com
I did the same thing in a book store. Sunny acknowledges LKH and Anne Bishop -- which made me cry, because I love Anne Bishop. Apparently she has blatantly ripped off aspects of LKH and Bishop's worlds. Sad, really.

Re: the shame - I has it.

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Date: 2008-05-28 11:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bleedtoblue.livejournal.com
um,pass the brain bleach please. Ew, just....ew.
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Date: 2008-06-27 11:45 pm (UTC)
ext_26933: (amelie - bookish)
From: [identity profile] apis-mellifera.livejournal.com
Coming in really late on this--please tell me you have a citation or link for Anne Bishop looking into suing Sunny for plagiarism because, see, I reviewed the first Mona Lisa book for Romantic Times and mentioned it in my review and there was a LOT of back and forth about it--I even have an itemized Word document written by Sunny explaining why all the similarities to the Black Jewel books aren't really similarities at all.
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Date: 2008-05-29 01:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cactus-wren.livejournal.com
Oh my, the crammingly is just so effing bad. Nononononono.

But really, is the Briggs story in the Mercedes Thompson universe? Because someone here mentioned her name a few weeks ago and I ordered her Mercedes books from the library. I'm starting #3 tonight and I have to say I'm really enjoying them. I'm a little tired of all these authors thinking they have to have a love triangle going on between their female and lead and two hot supernatural dudes (Mercedes, Kitty, Sookie) but I do enjoy the rest of the storylines, so it helps me ignore the annoying love triangles.

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Date: 2008-05-29 02:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bubblefaerie.livejournal.com
I actually read the first two books. I was curious because I heard that she basically copied LKH. Sadly, as lame as they were, they were better written than LKH's books currently are. But they were pretty forgettable. I'd actually forgotten about them until now.

Date: 2008-05-29 04:49 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] entropyastaroth.livejournal.com
I just read On the Prowl as well and my thoughts were similar. I was slightly shocked over how awful Sunny actually was.

For some reason I decided to check out her website after reading this thread. So her first book got a "Award of Excellence winner"? What kind of fake award is that? At least her website isn't as awful as LKH's, even if her navigation is strange.

Date: 2008-05-29 03:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thesaneminority.livejournal.com
The folks over at [livejournal.com profile] weepingcock would love this.

Date: 2008-05-29 05:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] icecreamempress.livejournal.com
OH JOHN RINGO NO

Date: 2008-05-29 07:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] missamii.livejournal.com
Ya know, I once threw up on the table of Red Lobster after dinner. The embarrassment I felt then is nothing compared to the embarrassment I feel for someone who has a published worked out for public consumption that contains the phrase "crammingly so."

Date: 2008-05-29 09:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kira-snugz.livejournal.com
argh! i read that same book! sunnys baddly written peace of crap scarred me for life.

the other stories were great, and then suddenly there is badly written tripe and anal sex. after no other sex scenes all of a sudden, there is horrifying anal sex. in an anthology!which are usually famous for no sex scenes at all or at least really really soft core ones.

Date: 2008-05-30 04:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pastygothchick.livejournal.com
One of the many things that really sicken me about these books is hearing LKH go on an on about how Anita is a strong female character. Maybe at the beginning she was, but as the series has devolved the "strength" of the character has become "might makes right."

When I think of a strong female lead it has nothing to do with magic, profession, or anything outside. It has to do with strength of character. Do they have ethics, integrity, compassion, humility, or decency? In short is this someone I can admire?

The breaking point for me where the character was concerned was actually when she suddenly had no problem with JC feeding off the people in his club. No he wasn't taking their blood he was feeding of their emotions and that somehow made it ok. Suddenly the Executioner gave a vampire a free feed pass. I saw her slipping before and thought foolishly something like this would wake her the heck up. Instead "oh, JC, I was so wrong. Feel free to sip from any juice box you come across." Why? No real reason given, but the moment she started "dating" him, he wasn't a monster to her anymore. That's not strength that's bravado, whistling in the graveyard. The same kind of woman who would attack the cops for trying to arrest the husband that just broke her face. It's sickening and even worse it seems to have become not only acceptable in this "genre" but the norm.

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Date: 2008-06-02 12:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cywrain.livejournal.com
Her name is just "Sunny"? She has no last name? Ick. How totally cutting edge and uberspecial.

I picked up On the Prowl because of Briggs' story, too, but I didn't do more that flip through the other stories in the book. It's quite nice to have the confirmation that I wasn't missing anything.

You may be interest to know that Briggs will be the guest of honor at an East-coast convention this fall. Check out the con website: http://www.darkovercon.org

Date: 2008-06-03 02:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ephemeralthings.livejournal.com
I...well...hmm.

I'm not certain what I feel right this very moment; I either want to cry or burst into an hysterical giggling fit. What a difficult decision. I just read the "sample" chapters on her website, and quite frankly, I didn't think characters had sex that quickly ever. (Is there a record for these things?) I hate to decrease the LKH snarking, but Sunny channels more Anne Bishop than anything else. (Except for the sex scenes. The sex scenes are all LKH. Ack. I just threw up in my mouth.)

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