Synchronicity in a Paranormal World...Not!

[parafan.livejournal.com]

Sadly I must say I read a great many paranormal novels and find myself unduly influenced by LKH’s Anita Blake legacy. As I devour each supernatural morsel (you can pity me later) I am constantly on the lookout and find echoes from her characters and stories in the work of others.

I recently read Lilith Saintcrows’ Night Shift whose principal character Jill Kismet is another in a long line of empowered female Hunters, in this case of the demon variety. Here are a few tidbits from the novel that have striking similarities to things we have seen in the Anitaverse.

LKH: Zerbrowski, Anita’s RPIT police buddy in the early novels would show up at crime scenes directly from bed wearing his PJ’s with the choo choo trains.

Night Shift (pg.21) – Montaigne [Jill’s police counterpart], his dark hair rumpled was in a pair of black-striped pajama pants.

LKH: Even though cell phones existed Anita insisted on running around with a pager until all but the most recent books.

Night Shift (pg.76) – [JILL] Yet another night spent on the run. I opened my mouth, but my pager buzzed again. “Jesus Christ.” [Anita’s attitude too]
[Avery] “Why don’t you get a cell phone?”

LKH: The whole touchy-feely thing and puppy-piles with weres. Ad nauseum.

Night Shift (pg. 135) – Right into my personal space as a matter of fact. I took a deep breath controlling my twitch. Weres don’t have the same concept of space that humans do, and most every hunter gets itchy when someone else gets too close. When a were moves in like that it means they’re offering support. Cats and canine weres are very touchy-feely…”

LKH: Nathaniel, Anita’s little leopard that looks after her every domestic need and is often referred to as a proper wife for Anita.

Night Shift (pg.235) – He [Saul, also a were, also Jill’s love interest] nodded, took a bite off his beer. A Corona, and he’d even rubbed the mouth of the bottle with a slice of lime. He’d make someone a fine wife someday.

There must be a universal template somewhere…

Coincidence. Subconscious influence….maybe. Go figure. Her tentacles are everywhere.

Comments

[gwynethfar.livejournal.com]

More importantly, how do you take a bite of beer?

Oh, but the pager thing is easily explained. It's possible the author A) thought detectives carry pagers, B) wrote the story a long time ago, when people did still use pagers, or C) had no clue that pagers had gone out of vogue, and then, when her editor said, "Why is she using a pager?" it was easier to add a couple of lines about why she prefers a pager at the first mention than go through the whole manuscript, hunting down and eradicating any mention of pagers.

[knowthyself.livejournal.com]

I was also just wondering how takes a bite out of beer. Also, most people I know, guys and girls alike, put limes in their Coronas.

...man, now I want a Corona with a lime in it.

[othellia.livejournal.com]

More importantly, how do you take a bite of beer?

Maybe he was biting the cap off? I fail when it comes to alcohol related stuff.

[librarista.livejournal.com]

Saintcrow's last series had shades of Anita Blake as well. Luckily not so much with the sex, but in the attitude. Dante Valentine is stubborn, a tough ass, doesn't think about the people around her and lets them take care of her instead of looking out for them. She became so unlikable that I couldn't finish the series. If it wasn't for all the sex and cuddly weres and vamps around AB, I think she'd have ended up the same way Dante did. I can't make myself start the Jill Kismet series because I already hate the main character. Saintcrow has a short story about one of the secondary characers in the Dante series and I thought I'd like that woman but was very wrong.

Honestly, I think most of the similarities are just old cliches. The cop who jumps out of bed, wereanimals being like their animal counterparts, tough women thinking of considerate men in sexist terms. The pager thing, I don't know. But these things aren't so much influences as they are bad writing. Or unimaginative writing at the least.

[parafan.livejournal.com]

Yes but cliches are like comfort food - we know it isn't good for us but we keep coming back for more...

[shalanar.livejournal.com]

Preface: I am a diehard Lili Saintcrow fan.

I can see the comparisons. I still think the writing is a thousand times better though. And the biggest difference. Lack of sex.

My issue with drawing comparisons (between any authors where it's NOT blatent names changed to protect the guilty fanfic) is that, so what? Both authors use the concept (as an example) of domesticated weres. Does it mean that LKH influenced LSC? Not necessarily. Nothing new under the sun and all that. Also, having read LSC's other three series, comparisons could be drawn between here and quite a few other authors (both on the influenced by and influencing of sides).

Bah, I'm not sure what I'm saying, other than sometimes I think LKH is given more credit than she deserves for "starting" the genre of empowered women in paranormal settings. Not everything that has come since is directly influenced by her.

[parafan.livejournal.com]

I also quite like Saintcrows' writing despite the snark above and she is a much better stylist.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

You know how it goes. One person--call her Adele--comes up with an idea--say, the notion (unstated in the series) that Buffy smells like vanilla. Then several other people--call them Barnabas, Colette and Dana--read the story and think, "That's pretty cool! I'm going to do that!" And they do. Now there are four series with a Buffy that smells like vanilla, and people who don't read Adele's porn are reading it in Barnabas's science fiction series, Colette's historical fantasy series, or Dana's horror series. Elena reads Barnabas and decides that all killers of vampires smell like vanilla. Frank goes Elena one better and decides that for his series, all killers of anything supernatural smell like vanilla as a warning device. Georgie reads Dana's series and thinks that maybe the vanilla smell indicates that supernatural killers aren't quite human.

And pretty soon everyone seems to be swapping the same ideas back and forth...as if they're the only possible ideas. And if anyone dared to say anything, there would be utter shock. This is the way things are, they would say. This is the way things have always been.

It's the same principle as the essay by Arduinna Finn about the people who keep bringing store-bought hummus to a potluck banquet (http://www.trickster.org/fannishbutterfly/hummus.html). Let me quote from that.

...people who were used to a varied banquet, with lots of different choices, started feeling unsatisfied with all the hummus, and said so. But people who were used to just being able to get at the hummus tried to hush them -- if you start complaining about hummus, people will stop bringing it! And then there will be nothing to eat!

And all those people who brought store-bought identical hummus glowed with pleasure at their reception -- not surprisingly -- and vowed to keep buying the same thing. Why risk learning to make it yourself, to make something original -- or, god forbid, to make a different dish altogether -- when clearly people are overjoyed at the thought of the standard lemon-garlic hummus? Why even bother making a different kind of hummus?

And people who hadn't quite dared contribute yet looked at all those glowing people, and listened to the cheers, and decided that store-bought lemon-garlic hummus was the way to go, and determined to bring some to the banquet, so they'd get cheered, too.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm tired of the same damned things in paranormal fiction. It's gotten to the point where if I see something about a vampire in a story, I gnash my teeth, because I KNOW that the vampire is going to be the standard post-Interview With the Vampire, Underworld and Whedonverse vamp: handsome/beautiful, sexy, stylish, marble-pale (and often as hard as marble all over as well), rich, angsty/tormented by his DARK and DESTRUCTIVE nature, the enemy of all lycanthropes, able to fly and do Matrix-like acrobatics, possessed of a hypnotic charm over women and men (which I think of as "magical Rohypnol") and, most likely, subsisting strictly on animal blood while being immune to sunlight. I also know that the shapeshifters are going to shift into powerful animals--you never run into a were-rabbit or a were-fawn, for example. They are, in almost all cases, predators (though a few were-scavengers exist), and they're almost uniformly gorgeous...not to mention possessed of considerable sexual attraction. They're powerful, they've been living in hiding for centuries because of the prejudice against their kind, they're hostile toward vampires...do I really need to go on?

I'm not saying people can't tell paranormal stories. I mind that people keep telling the same story about THE SAME DAMNED CHARACTERS. I'd prefer variety to stereotype and stock characters, whether in the sub-genre of paranormal romance or in mainstream literature.

Life--and lit--should be a true banquet. Not a banquet of hummus.

[watersheerie.livejournal.com]

I've gone to the bookstore looking for a good paranormal urban story, one that doesn't involve the strong female lead who must save the world, while fighting her own heart and trying decide between the sexy were-wolf and the sexy vampire. Any book with the words 'inhuman passions', 'the man who will fill her with a dangerous desire', 'being dead is hard, being in love is harder,' is a book I'm going to skip over. Needless to say, I often leave the bookstore empty-handed.

Shameless self-promoting here: I've written a urban paranormal novel that ::gasp:: doesn't involve sexy vampires or 'uber-powerful' female leads involved in love triangles. Unfortunately it's been hell trying to get it published, I've got a lovely collection of rejection letters. Literary agencies seem to be still interested in the whole sexy vampire romances/erotica. Your hummus example puts it nicely (I have to say, I love hummus myself). Agencies are wary of trying to market something new, so vampire romances are the way to go, despite how tired and trite that shit has become.

[droa.livejournal.com]

As someone who has given up on vampires in literature completely, huzzah to your comment. I can't even force myself to read books with vampires in them anymore, and it's only thanks to a few clever friends of mine and their own short stories that were-anything has been salvaged for me. It's a shame, but as you said, applause and hummus.

Although to be fair, I co-run a RPG based off the AB-verse sans canon, and my co-moderator is in the midst of creating a were-rabbit. She is completely useless when it comes to physical altercations, probably smells like delicious roadkill to any other predators, and spends her weekends selling fertility charms. Because, you know, rabbit.

[deadroman.livejournal.com]

I have to say that I like most of the kinds of vampire traits you said you're tired of seeing; ever since I was a little kid vampires have been my favourite monsters and I won't ever get tired of them. I love the dark mood, I love reading about the conflict, the mystery, scenes with moonlit moldering castles or urban wastelands... etc. That's my cup of tea. Good action/horror stories with vampires, not so much romance and definitely no sissy vampires. :)

It seems many of today's vampires are becoming idiotic superheroes (can't stand Underworld or Stephenie Meyer's vampLITES)... man, how I would love to read a story about more traditional vampires, who are not freakin' VEGETARIANS, and are truly scary and have real potential for violence (but not mindless monsters like in 30 Days of Night)... /rambling.

[othellia.livejournal.com]

IAWTC. Which is sad... because I love writing about vampire-based species. So if my books are ever published, they'll get the traditional cliche!vampire cover stamp, even though I work really hard on making them unique. Granted, the main vampire-based character is sexy and handsome, but that's only because his father is the Spirit of Lust. You do not become a child of Lust and not get some of the sexy genes. That and his country is Russian-based.... which are enemies of the French-based country. And while he has some obvious father issues, he doesn't angst, is extremely composed, and at peace with himself.

And I'll shut up before I really go off on a tangent...

[morriganscrow.livejournal.com]

Besides the fact that I HATE hummus, your comments are incredibly apt. Well said!

Chickpeas are the poop of Satan.

[beloved828.livejournal.com]

Life--and lit--should be a true banquet. Not a banquet of hummus.
Amen. Hummus looks like snot.


Don't forget, these books sell. Most people don't actually want change. They say they do, sure. Actions speak louder than words, and what people are doing is lapping up all this generic paranormal slop like it's going out of style. Years ago, Anne Rice couldn't find a publisher for "Interview" because, she was told, that the story was too unique and that people wouldn't be able to deal with it. When she finally got a publisher, she became a cult icon. She is now copied and mimicked by just about every vampire-novel writer in the business. Now a writer with a huge imagination and a raging libido came onto the scene, changed up some of the names, threw in some very popular Buffy the Vampire slayer-type action, and "Anita Blake:Vampire Hunter" was born. Since "Interview" was so popular, more publishing houses were interested in vampire fiction. It made it easier for LKH to get published, but not by much. People bought the books because, frankly, there wasn't much else out there in the way of paranormal fiction/romance to be had, unless Anne Rice came out with a new book. She only did that once every couple years, if that. People wanted a sexy, bisexual vampire angst fix to tide them over. Now, every publishing house who wants to make a dime is begging for carbon-copy, cookie-cutter paranormal fic to fill their coffers. The same thing happened to J.K. Rowling. She, too, was too unique. No one wanted to take a chance. When a publisher finally did take that chance, J.K. hit the big time because she was new and different. All of a sudden, the publishing houses that turned Ms. Rowling down were kicking themselves and trying desperately to churn out Harry Potter clones. Now, I'm not saying that the books that followed "Harry" were bad. Many of them were good.

The problem here is that the paranormal fiction that followed "Interview" sucks, in general. Some of it is decent, like Kelly Armstrong's "Otherword" Series. A few, like Kim Harrison's Rachel books, are pretty good. And a very few, like Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files", have me preordering the next book the second it has a name. The rest, LKH included, sucks. It's awful. It's Sunny's "Mona Lisa Rising" and anything that LKH has crapped out after the first 4 "Anita Blake" books. Even the first 4 weren't that good. Her writing declined even further when she realized that we would buy anything she wrote as long as it was about vampires. People bought them because they had the idea. The formula. We've been seeing garbage being published now that has us wondering how the author themselves could have been ballsy enough to submit it in the first place. In a different time, none of these books would be out. They would be collecting dust in a file cabinet in an apartment somewhere and forgotten about. They're getting published because they're what people want right now.

The books are easy to crank out. They can be nothing but poorly written sex scenes strung together with a paragraph of plot here and there, and as long as they feature a Strong Woman character being surrounded by hot (preferably bisexual) vampire/supernatural men who can't get enough of her bitchery, they sell. People don't care about the content. It's the idea. The idea that these hot guys would want someone like Anita Blake. People want to fantasize. The fantasy sells.

This formula works so well that we aren't going to see much else for quite awhile. I know in my heart that many of these writers, LKH included, can do better. Hell, they've shown us better. But, the formula works, and if it works, it won't be fixed. The only way to get rid of the formula is to stop buying the books. All of them. The genre is essentially ruined right now, and it will be until we tell the authors and their publishers that we want more for our money than 500 pages of the same boring vampire porn. Don't let LKH tell us that she "has the numbers to prove" that she's a good writer. Knock that hack right off the best-seller's list and hit them where it really hurts:the wallet.

[watersheerie.livejournal.com]

I've seen the whole 'were-wolves and touchy-feely puppy piles' in many paranormal books. But I think it really isn't a legacy of LKH so much as it is writers trying to meld the animal nature (touchy feely) with humans in weres. Animals do get close, and like being touched for comfort. It makes sense for people with animal tendancies to have a different view on personal body space, and to be more into body contact.

[nimnix.livejournal.com]

so... I wonder how it would affect someone who hates being touch or is antisocial to be turned into a "social" werewolf (or whatever). What would it do to their perception of themselves, their standing in the were community, their sanity? And where's THAT book?

[bookgroper]

And re: the pagers, keep in mind also that she started writing in what, 1993? When I started reading the books, back in 1997 or 98, Anita was several years older than me. Now? We're the same age. And doesn't that make me sad.

[librarista.livejournal.com]

I wish more than two of Millar's books were published in the US. I really thought he'd only written two until I started looking for information on a sequel to Lonely Werewolf Girl and saw raves about his other books.

[ctrl-issue.livejournal.com]

*gigglefit* Is it wrong that I want to write a first person POV story about a female vampire hunter? Yes, she hunts the occasional were-animal, and deals with demons on again-off again.

But the kicker?

Well, Miss Mary Sue Ellen Killroy has a day job as a cashier at the local Sack-N-Save, and the only reason she got involved with vampire killing is because her best friends went to the wrong bar. Oh, yeah. And she's a redneck. ~_^

"Why, aren't you the sweetest lil peach. I bet you bruise easy, too!" I say as I try to slip a few steps further back, away from the overly sexy vampire in front of me. "So, y'all from around here? Cause y'all got a funny accent."

"Non. We are not... from around here."

"... Y'all wouldn't happen to be French, would'ja. Because I hear all vampires are French."

"We are not FRENCH. We are CAJUN!"

Or something to that effect... Sorry, I'll stop rambling now.

[booster-blue.livejournal.com]

I find myself facing the same problems when attempting to read other urban fantasy. It take a real likable cast to get me to see beyond the "Oh wow. Another gorgeous vampire with a tortured soul. *facepalm*"

As has been said before, RPGs seem the way to go to get anything even remotely original (or closer to legend) in regards to the monsters.

[canadianevil.livejournal.com]

I'm working out a universe for a story for a character I have. She's a retired, alcoholic, misanthropic assassin with PTSD. She ends up in the body of a fairly typical urban fantasy/romance heroine- red hair, magical powers, and a love pentangle. It doesn't end well.

Currently I'm thinking the universe will have demons and angels, and vampires that are more monster than human, and are definitely not French. There probably would be cliches, but only so I could make fun of them.

[caiyene.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's like the DaVinci Code effect. If people see it works they covpy it somehow you change it to fit in their books.

Have you read J.R. Ward's books? There are several writers who copied her in some way or another. Like Lara Adrian's Breed books. It doesn't mean they're bad, it means they stick to what they like and what people know.

Where has the originality gone?

[skeezix74.livejournal.com]

Oh someone please, pretty please, tell me the Dante Valentine novels aren't Anita-like? I'll be seriously ticked because I just bought Working for the Devil for my e-book on a whim.

[ping-win.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but...enjoy Working for the Devil for all it's worth because the next books ain't worth much.

[siedhr.livejournal.com]

I think Jill Kismet is weaker than the Dante series. For one thing, i can still remember what Dante was about and I've read that some months ago. Jill a few weeks and nuthin', except for some gross SM action with a supernatural being.