Failure of Merry Gentry?

[cobalt-cin.livejournal.com]

Hi Guys!

I have been a Lurker for quite a while and have read along nodding with alot of the points you have all brought up on here. I was just wondering though the focus seems to be more on the AB series and granted this has fallen a long, long way since Obsidian Butterfly. I stopped reading the series after NIC but have followed the rest of the series in the brillaint blogs posted on here. Thank you, all of you who have saved me the time of actually reading them myself. It is rather like watching a rollercoaster to hell as the series sinks even further.

My question for you is did anybody ever read the Merry Gentry like i did and prefer it? When I read the first Merry book I thought it was great. I had read the first three AB books by the time i read the first Merry book. I preferred it to the AB series. I thought it was a better premise and being more into mythology, Old World Fairy Tales and the Fae I found it really interesting. I initially liked the fact she was loud and proud about her sexual activities and likes and it got me up to the third book believe it or not. I liked the world that was set up and characters surrounding Merry, including her men all had sinister, suspect motivies. I find it rather sad the series has been ruined in Hamilton's hands. Does anyone else see that this series had the bones of a really awesome series that failed? What do you think Hamilton could have done to make it a better series, aside from not assasinating characters like Doyle and Sholto or turning it into a sexual free for all, or what could another author have done with this? Yasmine Galenorn and a few YA authors I've read over the years feature Fae and do a far better job, making them into the scary, unnerving and unpredictible Fae I expect to see.

Comments

[rameena.livejournal.com]

I love love love the edges of LKH's world in Merry Gentry. A lot of the ideas are pretty cool. I was excited when the first book came out at the idea of an alternate reality version of world history, with the fae being an active part and signing treaties and such, but she tends to just throw out little details and then abandon them. What kills me is that plot and story development are all window dressing for what is just erotica. I hate that every single man that Merry encounters is not just sexually attracted to her, even though LKH keeps trying to make a ridiculous point that technically she's not the fae ideal of beauty, but they also fall in love with her and are willing to throw away centuries of caution for just a chance with her. bleh.
but yeah, I agree with you. I'm down with sex, just not to the exclusion of everything else. I think she could/should have done so much more with her books.

[mad-troll.livejournal.com]

I agree with all you wrote, except for the "erotica" detail [plot and story development are all window dressing for what is just erotica].
No erotica, nope - it's just plain pr0n.

[killiara.livejournal.com]

There's nothing wrong with written porn... unless you do a half-assed job of it.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

There is a problem when they're not labeled correctly.

Some states have very specific laws over handling porn and who and how you can sell it. Potentially LKH could lead some poor bookseller into a lawsuit.

[killiara.livejournal.com]

You know it'll only be prosecuted if it's a cute little independant bookstore.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Yes, and they're the ones least likely to know what they're getting into. Oh, look, this appears to be a mainstream book. Let me sell it to that 14 year old who is asking for LKH books. Days later, it's the revenge of MOM, or the school who made the girl read out loud from her latest book.