Unauthorized Essays

[naeko.livejournal.com]

Ardeur: Unauthorized Essays on Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake
-SciFiGuy

Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series is a literary sensation, thanks to its strong female hero, well-fleshed (both literally and literarily) characters and unabashed attitude toward sex. The world Hamilton has created is powerfully compelling and stunningly complex—and it gets deeper and richer, and more perilous, with every book.

Straddling the series’ dominant themes of sex and power, Ardeur gives Anita fans a deeper look into the dynamics, both personal political, that have kept readers fascinated throughout the run of the series. Why is the ardeur the very best thing that could have happened to Anita, personally (aside from all the sex it requires her to have with hot men)? How is Anita’s alternate United States a logical legal extension of our own? And as the series continues, what other bargains might Anita have to make with herself and others in order to keep the people she loves safe from harm?

The site states that the book will be coming out 1 December, 2009. I'm sad to see that this is clearly written by a fan who will talk about how deep and meaningful the relationships in the Anitaverse are, instead of seeing the truth. The book could be interesting, pointing out the horrors that Anita commits in every book. It could point out how illogical Anita is, and how ridiculous her world is. I also wonder if something like that would have been able to be published; this says it's unauthorized, but I bet if we tried to put out a book of well-written essays about everything we see wrong with the way Hamilton writes her characters, we would be shut down.

I don't see myself buying this, but I may peruse it in the bookstore, if I see it.

ETA: The Amazon page for this already has a slew of unflattering tags associated with it: rape, poorly written, homophobia, mary sue, porn without plot, bad porn. I am amused!

Comments

[ever-obsessed.livejournal.com]

thanks to its strong female hero ... unabashed attitude toward sex
This is where I giggled. And honestly thought this was a fake review.

But it's not.

.... dear god.

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

I'm finding more and more that the word 'adeur' is better said with a gruff, cockney accent and a fistpump, turning it into a version of the word 'harder'.

For example-

Anita: Cor, luv a duck, I've gorra get me leg over nah, fanks to me 'arder!

It makes things much better.

[x-trickster-x.livejournal.com]

This... this is a belated April Fool, right? Because I honestly refuse to believe this is actually getting published. I can't see how a book of essays discussing the sex and politics in Anita Blake can be positive, to be honest and it looks like this book's going to be giving LKH's arse a good licking. I'd be tempted to pick it up just to see if they even begin to address that the ardeur is magical date rape.

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

The tagging thing is rather odd. I was the first to tag this book "porn without plot" months ago, and it was the only such tag. Now eleven other people have tagged it with the same phrase, and if you follow the link, it's been applied to about seven other LKH books.

(I don't say this to boast OMG I WUZ FIRST; I just thought it was kind of a neat example of how memes spread.)

[ohakubi.livejournal.com]

If you're good enough at bullshitting you can write a literary analysis about anything and have it sound plausible. The "______ and Philosophy" series is a good example, though that one thing I saw discussing Nietzschean themes in the Doom: Repercussions of Evil fanfic would probably be closer in spirit, if not necessarily in quality of source material.

[pith]

Maybe that should be a challenge: A bunch of us can write critical essays (if we can stomach reading the books again), and try to get the counter-version published.

But yeah... nowadays, any decently selling series has a bunch of "critical essay books" about it. Kinda sad.

[jazzymegster.livejournal.com]

Thank you for making me giggle. Mostly because of the comment, but also the icon!

I wish I'd thought of giving her a cockney accent when I was struggling with Skin Trade a while back.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I'd totes be behind writing a bunch of critical essays. Publication is optional, but at the very least, we could put them on the Lashouts site.

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

It is from BenBella books, they do a lot of books in this format.

[everstar3.livejournal.com]

You know, this book rather begs the question: is the ardeur the very best thing that could have happened to Anita? I mean, talk about agreeing with your own conclusion.

Also, "straddling the series' dominant themes of sex and power" made me snort. But I'm twelve.

[everstar3.livejournal.com]

See, Bastian, that's what you get for wondering if there's slash about you and Atreyu.

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

Someone should make an audio book spoken entirely in cockney, I feel:D

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

The adeur is where the rot set in for me. It was a lame excuse to have sex every five minutes.

[katekat]

i was going to send a message with the same exact thought - it would be an entertaining thing for the comm and hell, i know that ppl here are more articulate than that book will be.

[auditrice.livejournal.com]

The "_____ and Philosophy" series started out quite promising. The Simpsons is actually written by a bunch of ex-philosophy majors (Matt Groening shamelessly wasted his life on Philosophy!), so it made sense that someone wrote "The Simpsons and Philosophy." The essays were actually philosophical in nature, and it was very intriguing. Unfortunately, the rest of the series is utter crap.

[tooimpurenangel.livejournal.com]

LOL

[tooimpurenangel.livejournal.com]

That's an awesome idea. I would totally buy that book.

[poppi-puree.livejournal.com]

I know how you feel. I took me, I think, about 6 months to read Narcissus in Chains. I am not even kidding. I would pick it up, read a chapter and put it right back down.

FAN FICTION RUN AMOK!!!!!!!!!!

[cherose228.livejournal.com]

Hi, all:

WHY are any of us surprized that a troo has written a book? Is it self-published? Or did "Talia Gryphon" or Darla "help"?

-,'-,'-,'--@

[sarah-k-o-m.livejournal.com]

Gesundheit.

>_>

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

At least they spelled Ardeur correctly.