Bookflog: Hit List, the condensed version

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I spent two weeks or so breaking my brain with this book, trying to pick at the Gordian Knot of repetitive prose to get to whatever the hell happened. The thing about the book is, when it’s not on an endless loop of asking, “what does that mean?” then we’re treated to Anita’s special brand of sexism, continuity errors, and the story meandering like a wayward zombie in desperate search of brains. It’s really hard to find the funny, but by cutting out most of the crap I found that what’s left is highlights how a) not very much happens, and b) what does happen is ridiculous.

Chapter 1: Edward and Anita stand in a field and talk about how the Harlequin are killing weretigers. Why? They’re not sure, but Edward thinks it might be to lure Anita away from the safety of St Louis. Unfortunately, they cannot share this information with the police just in case they accidentally invoke the wrath of the Harlequin by uttering their name aloud and without permission. Yeah, I don’t get that either.

Chapter 2: Back at US Marshal HQ, there’s this guy named Raborn who has no first name and is written as a hot-headed asshole that irrationally hates Anita, even when he brings up valid issues with what’s going on. He’s asking Anita about the existence of weretigers in Seattle. Which there are, but she won’t tell him that for some reason.

For the record, there is no mention of anything synonymous with Seattle, so this book may as well exist in an amorphous Generic Americavilletown, but is really filmed in Canada.

The chapter ends with some jibe about whether or not Anita is human and her feelings are so hurt that she runs off to cry.

Chapter 3: Anita is in a random gross alley, crying. I don’t know where the alley is! But the point is that she’s upset at this implication over not being human! Never mind that later she’ll count herself as totally not human, it’s all about whatever’s convenient for the moment.

In that spirit, Edward magically appears to console her. We learn that Theodore Forrester is his birth-name. He also has a plan to use Anita as bait to lure out the Harlequin so Team Hero can kill the Bad Guys and stop innocent weretigers from being murdered. He also suggests that Anita sends for some bodyguards (and our heroine does not have to justify this because THE LAW is suddenly on their side allowing these things to happen), and there’s talk of a side-mission to get warrants from other marshals so they can all be consolidated into one hunt. What with the perpetrators of the three previous murders being the same group, and somehow nobody’s put that together.

Chapter 4: Anita is at the motel with her shiny, fresh-out-of-the-academy marshal roomie, Laila Karlton, who is a sassy black woman. They bond over “girl” things, such as being “curvy the way God intended grown-up women to look” but are totally tomboys in the family and leave the “girl” stuff to their sisters. Somewhere in there, Anita tries to get Karlton to sign over her warrant and is actually pretty manipulative about it by going under the guise of, “but you’re so new to this monster hunting deal. I’ve got more experience, I’m potentially saving your life.”

It’s at this point that I start to twitch every time someone asks, “but what does that/you/it mean?” because I just know I’m going to have another loop-de-loop of the bleeding obvious explained in excruciating detail.

Here’s a working example:

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-four, why?"

I smiled, and it still didn't feel happy. "When I was your age I believed they were monsters, too."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty."

"You're only six years older than me, Blake."

"Cop years are like dog years, Karlton, multiply by seven."

"What?" she asked.

"I may only be six years older than you chronologically, but in dog years I'm forty-two years older."

She frowned at me. "What the hell is that even supposed to mean?"

"It means, how many vampires have you executed?"

"Four," she said, and it was a little defensive.

"Hunted them down and killed them, or morgue stakings where they're chained to a gurney and unconscious while you do it?"

"Morgue, why?"

"Talk to me after you've killed some of them awake, while they're begging for their lives."

Now imagine 277 pages of this and you’ve got Hit List in all its glory.

This is also the start of many a “monsters are people too!” platitude that our heroine tries to convince everyone about, and it’d make more sense if it wasn’t so arbitrary. And naturally, Anita takes it upon herself to carry this weighty responsibility of deciding when it applies. Anyone else who tries to do this is just wrong.

Karlton and Anita get changed and go to bed.

Chapter 5: Our heroine has a funky dream that’s really a foreshadowing of the Harlequin showing up. She wakes just in time for one Harlequin to graciously ask her to step outside to be kidnapped. Anita refuses, Karlton is taken hostage as a way to persuade Anita to cooperate. Our heroine still refuses and shoots at the Harlequin, who mauls Karlton and leaves her for dead.

Chapter 6: Everyone stands around outside while the hotel room is processed as a crime scene. Anita is in a tight, lacy camisole and tiny matching shorts (because she cannot pack her own clothes and left that to Nathaniel, even though he got practical daywear right), and then Raborn shows up to antagonise her for it. While he was just angry in his introduction, now he’s all out in the “Anita is a slut and will fuck everything with a penis! She’s a horrible person because of that!” wagon and it comes out of nowhere. This begins the bi-polar trend of him being cranky yet reasonable vs extreme hate-boner for the heroine.

When people aren’t yelling about Anita’s sexual proclivities, everyone talks about werewolves a lot, even though it’s not exactly clear if a werewolf was responsible. To add to the stupidity of some really lazy worldbuilding, “wolfman” is now the common term for all therianthropes in half-man, half-animal form. Yeah, even if you’re a wereunicorn.

Since there was an attempt to kidnap Anita, Edward insists that she has to stay with him. It’s up to the other guy he was sharing a room with if he wants to stay or go, but in the end he decides to leave. Edward uses one of the beds to fortify the room and this serves as a flimsy vehicle to get him and Anita to spend the night together in the same bed. It’s all very awkward because sleeping is hard.

Chapter 7: The morning after is even more awkward. Edward talks to Donna on the phone, briefly passes it over for Anita to chat, and then it’s time to get dressed. There’s an extremely pointless conversation about who should get changed in the bathroom.

Chapter 8: Our heroes are still on the side-quest to get the warrants from other marshals. Karlton’s warrant does not go to Anita, it goes to some other guy called Newman and this is the start of some bad jokes as he’s also a n00b to this hunting thing. He’s the new man. Get it? *crickets*

Anyway, Newman inherited his warrant from an older crime scene and this means he’s now in charge. Everyone agrees this is a dumb rule, but Raborn tells Anita to try to persuade Newman to hand over his warrant anyway. And then Edward takes Anita to go get some breakfast.

Chapter 9: Anita still hasn’t figured out how to feed herself healthy food in order to maintain her ungodly amount of superpowers, despite this being something that she’s had to do for at least eight books now. Edward suggests that if she needs to feed the ardeur that she should just go pick someone up at a bar. She’s horrified by this.

There’s also a discussion about that should anything happen to Edward, Anita should accompany Peter on his very first monster hunt when he turns 18. She doesn’t approve of Edward training Peter to take over the family assassin business, but agrees to go on the camping/hunting trip anyway.

Chapter 10: Anita and Edward find Newman. He’s not about to give over his warrant and really wants to get out there and catch some bad guys. Apparently all the US Marshals just mill around in this one non-descript area, waiting for Anita to go up to talk to them. And, like, it was too difficult to talk to him before going off to breakfast.

Newman’s plan is to use dogs to track the bad guys, but this is a bad idea as regular dogs are scared of shapeshifters. Edward and Anita try to play the “but we’re more experienced at hunting monsters!” card, but Newman does not give in.

Anita decides that since she’s got so much time to kill right now, she ought to go have some sex.

Chapter 11: Before Anita can leave, Raborn turns up to antagonise her, as his character is obligated to do that whenever she’s within a ten foot radius of him. She says she’s going off to investigate something so she can’t go join the other marshals run into a forest with a bunch of scared hounds.

Edward drives her to Red Tiger Central. Along the way, Anita calls to see if Alex, Prince of the Red Tigers, is available for sex only to be told that he’s with his mother and the queen just doesn’t like her. Neither does the random dude on the phone that Anita talks to, so she winds up making threats to call all unmated red tigers in the city to her if she doesn’t get her way. Damn, she really wants to get laid.

Chapter 12: Anita arrives at Red Tiger Central! She tries to walk right in, because she’s Anita Fucking Blake and full of some big damned swagger. However, the red tigers just don’t give a shit about that. It’s unintentionally hilarious to see them assert the power dynamic over her via protocol instead of just letting her steamroll in to fuck their prince.

On the other hand, this also serves to introduce us to Ethan, who is a mixed-heritage tiger (red, white, and blue!), small and lean and exactly Anita’s type of pretty. He even has grey eyes “the colour of kitten fur.” He’s there purely as Anitabait, just in case she has an attack of ardeur and needs to screw someone right there on the street. It’s so she doesn’t bother the rest of the clan or binds to someone that actually matters, like she did with their prince. The clan are kinda pissed about that.

Anyway, there’s instant attraction and Anita feels like she’s going to eat or fuck Ethan right there and nobody cares if she does. She discovers that Ethan is also part gold tiger, he’s SO LONELY, and then there’s swooning into his lean, muscular arms to release the Kraken ardeur.

Chapter 13: The other guard that was out the front of Red Tiger Central runs off to tell the queen that Anita’s totally having sex in the lobby. Anita and Ethan cram into a machinery room and there’s frantic disrobing and disarming.

Edward mysteriously disappears during all this. I don’t know where he went, I just pretend he went off to kill a bunch of guys.

Chapter 14: Alex, Prince of the Red Tigers, has been heralded to turn up since the end of chapter 12, and when he finally does, it’s to beat the snot out of Ethan. Anita is completely “...” over it before she digs into her superpower grab-bag to be like, “right, I can eat your anger!” So she does, and then everyone’s standing around like “What is this I don’t even?” except Ethan, who is now stapled to a pipe.

Another guard named George shows up to help Ethan not be stapled to a pipe, and just as everyone files out of this tiny machine room, Alex suddenly goes batshit again and starts to wail on Ethan, who proceeds to kick the living crap out of his own tiger prince. George sorta stands there until Alex is knocked out and then he does what so many people wished they could do: he punches Anita.

Chapter 15: There’s shooting and Anita picks herself up to be like “...” at everything again. Alex is unconscious on the floor while Ethan and George duke it out. Everyone mysteriously knows what each other is doing: George uses Ethan as a meat shield to Anita, who picks up a gun and angsts over how she can’t just shoot though the pretty boy that mashes her buttons, Ethan figures this out and lets George stab him so that she can get the shot.

And then suddenly everyone is dead or unconscious. I don’t even know what the fuck happened here: one moment there’s just a couple of players, then the hallway is full of random people, and then they’re all on the ground like “ow, my pancreas!” or “#__#” (because they’re dead) except for Anita and Ethan, and Alex is still lying on the floor.

Everyone stands around and is “...” at the scene before the endless talking over what happened begins.

Edward is still mysteriously absent.

Chapter 16: There’s more standing around in Red Tiger Central. And then Edward possibly manages to be in two places at once? Or he’s on the phone? I don’t know, but he’s suddenly there and reports in that Newman’s plan to use dogs to track the bad guys failed as predicted.

Anita thinks George was a Harlequin plant, either there because they knew she had to feed sometime and since she’s bound to Alex, she was bound to show up at Red Tiger Central at some point, or because he may have figured out that Ethan is also a special gold tiger as well as the rest of the rainbow. Team Bad Guy are the most considerate villains ever in that they’ll just show up and sometimes even tell our heroine what’s going on rather than her having to do any investigative work or even think for herself.

Chapter 17: Oh man, because we haven’t had enough of it yet, there’s more standing around and talking. Anita decides to leave Ethan at Red Tiger Central so he’ll be safe – even though it was one of their own that turned out to be a spy and, like, surely nobody else possibly could be evil? – before she and Edward head off to the woods, where the US Marshals are still hunting bad guys. There’s a hot shit psychic that’s now leading the way and our heroes are somewhat apprehensive about being around her in case she figures out that they’re only pretending to be cops. We never get to meet her, so it’s not like it even matters.

Chapter 18: Anita and Edward are driving toward the marshals, who thoughtfully call to say they’re going in before the sun sets. Uh, because it’s suddenly late afternoon even though Anita’s only just gotten over breakfast.

And despite previous chapters being dedicated to OMG WEREWOLVES, people are stupidly asking “but why would wereanimals be hiding in a forest with vampires?” It’s like they’ve never seen this happen before. Y’know, in a world where all these things have been out in the open since always. Despite Anita’s objections to how much a failure this hunt will be, the marshals go in anyway and don’t even bother to call SWAT or equivalent for backup.

Edward frantically drives to the location only to hit a roadblock. The pair then sit in the car and talk loudly about what this could possibly mean: is it a trap for them? Or to prevent the other marshals from leaving the Woods of Death? Since this is all about Anita, you get three guesses which option is correct and the first two don’t count. It’s ridiculous because earlier, Anita monologue to us that the Harlequin are so powerful that they can hear heartbeats inside a room, so surely if there’s any lurking, they’d be able to listen in on this conversation in a car. She eventually decides to drive away in the hopes of luring the Harlequin away from the other marshals, only to be foiled by a tree blocking the road. Uh-oh! Something is actually going to happen!

There’s a bit of a red herring with the marshals finding a vampire in the woods, and Anita doesn’t even need to be there to know that it’s a ruse: she can diagnose this over the phone. After trying to drive away and being trapped, Anita’s new plan is to head back toward to the marshals to have as many people with guns around her in case the bad guys attack. Y’know, the people they were driving away from in order to save from random slaughter.

Chapter 19: Edward and Anita get out of the car and are moving, back-to-back, through the woods toward the marshals. They’re attacked by two Harlequins. Two marshals hear the shooting and show up to help!

Chapter 20: Now that there’s backup, Team Hero head out of the Woods of Death and back to the car.

Chapter 21: New plan! Move the tree out of the way and drive to safety! There’s three strong dudes and – for once – Anita uses her superhuman strength to help out. In the process, she cuts her arm on a stray branch. Everyone piles into the car and drives away, only to hit yet another roadblock – this time it’s a wall of trees. Luckily, Edward has a rocket launcher. This part is actually pretty cool where he waits for the Harlequin to get close enough before he blows the roadblock and sets one of the bad guys on fire. There’s more frantic driving, the Harlequin attack the moving car, and somewhere Newman magically called for backup and they show up which heralds both the end of the attack and the chapter.

Chapter 22: We’re just past half-way through the book and Team Hero are still on the side-quest to get the warrants signed over to them. Fortunately, the marshal that got stapled to the car with a Harlequin sword yells that they can have that shit while he’s being wheeled away to an ambulance. Edward goes with him and promises that they’ll get the bad guys.

Anita kinda stands about dumbly as she bleeds everywhere and finally gets around to telling people that she’s got an infectious blood-borne disease. Raborn shows up to fulfil his obligatory yelling at her. Newman still wants to go hunting monsters even with a bleeding scalp wound and Anita fully expects him to pass out from blood loss (spoiler: he does!) while EMTs fuss over her magically faster-than-normal healing. They’re in a world where this thing isn’t exactly freakishly abnormal, but they’re going to stand around and be totally amazed by it anyway.

She decides to ignore the medical advice for now and not go to hospital. This chapter is shocking in that there’s a blonde character that does not put up with Anita’s shit and is not evil.

Chapter 23: Newman passes out from having a bleeding face! The other marshals are still searching the woods for bad guys. As suddenly as we went from morning to evening and it only got dark an hour ago in book time, it’s now just before dawn.

Raborn is still pissed off at Anita, this time because she won’t go to hospital to make sure that she hasn’t got irreparable nerve damage in her injured arm. We spent most of the chapter with her complaining about how it’s twitching and aching due to her accelerated healing, but whatever. She’s too tough for this hospital crap. It takes Edward to talk her around.

Chapter 24: At the hospital, Anita gets her arm sliced open again and sewn back up straight this time. Everyone is still amazed by her super fast healing abilities! Edward takes her medication and makes her gives it to her, she passes out and wakes up in a hotel room just in time for him to feed her more drugs.

The next time she wakes up, she’s naked in bed with Ethan-the-lonely-multicoloured-weretiger. He hands her a note from Edward that basically says, “HAPPY EATS! :D” but then Anita angsts a whole lot about the ardeur and having sex with strangers, even ones that mash all her sexy buttons.

The point is, she’s going to have sex with Ethan. Foreplay is an awful lot of dialogue of, “do you like this?” “only if you like this!” and bleeding hearts over how it’s been two years since Ethan’s  had sex with a woman, but then it gets hilarious because his genitals are described as “dangling bits.” The lulz are short-lived as we return to Ethan wanting to belong to someone, is so lonely, and that two year dry spell (all the other ladies are stupid for not wanting a piece of his mixed-blood ass and Anita is so much better than that), and I feel like I’m going to die of old age before they do anything. But then finally, it’s a short scene where Ethan goes down on Anita and then they do it missionary style. We have obligatory “tight and wet and warm!” and then there’s orgasms and Ethan shapeshifts into his half-tiger form and does not pull out. Yep, sex with Anita causes Ethan to level up to his special gold tiger form. There’s snuggling, despite Anita being covered in weregoo.

Chapter 25: Anita discovers indoor plumbing and finally takes a shower. Ethan is still in half-tiger form. Bernardo shows up and woops, Anita answers the door in a towel that totally slips. Then there’s a comparison between his dick and Ethan’s tiger penis. I wish I was making that up.

Chapter 26: Ethan gets draped with a bedspread and crammed into the back of Bernardo’s car to smuggle a giant weretiger out of the hotel. Anita takes him back to Red Tiger Central so he’ll be safe. Let’s just forget about that one time there was a Harlequin spy that managed to get close to the red tiger heir apparent, okay?

It’s finally revealed why Bernardo’s even there, and it’s because Olaf has arrived. Also, Edward has solved Anita’s lack of bodyguard problems, because calling Jean-Claude and saying, “hey, send some guys to Seattle,” is so difficult to figure out. Anita needs to eat, so hey let’s get some fast food! While waiting for the order, Anita and Bernardo talk about Cynric – where it turns out he prefers to be called “Sin” by way of nickname – and this is interrupted briefly by the teenaged girl at the window hitting on Bernardo.

Chapter 27: Hey, we get to Olaf! There’s some posturing between him and Anita, she needs him to believe that he’s got a snowball’s chance of getting into her pants so he doesn’t decide to kill her. He gives her a hug and finally makes a move, she breaks his wrist and now he has to go to hospital.

It takes Edward to break everything up because DAD IS VERY DISAPPOINTED IN ALL OF YOU and herds everyone off to do their fucking jobs.

Chapter 28: Instead of going off to hunt some monsters, Anita and Edward are called into Marshal HQ to re: Anita’s bodyguards. Anita’s never been called in to “explain” herself before and thinks this is a “colossal waste of time and resources” what with bad guys still out there to be hunted.

Raborn returns to yell a lot but he gets chewed out by his female boss, and we’re reminded of the convenient change to THE LAW from all the way back in chapter three that lets Anita have bodyguards as official marshal backup because they have relevant skills.

The  bodyguards that have shown up are: Bobby Lee, Lisandro, Socrates, Ares, Domino and Nicky. The only ones worth remembering are Lisandro, Domino and Nicky, as they’re the only ones that have anything to do further with the story.

Raborn rolls by with more “you’re all fucking her, amirite?” but then his boss sends him on an errand that requires him to drive out of state. Anita speculates that Raborn’s problem with her is that he’s a raging misogynist.

Chapter 29: Considering that Anita was so concerned that they were wasting time and daylight with this whole meeting with the boss thing, she decides that going to the hospital to visit Laila Karlton about her newly “so you’re a werewolf now,” condition is a worthy cause. It’s not like there’s bad guys out there that could kill a bunch of people or escape, pfffft.

Edward, however, goes off with some of the bodyguards to use them to track the bad guys. Unfortunately, he’s not the titular character so we’re stuck with Anita.

Chapter 30: We meet Laila’s family, Socrates gets to share his story about being a weresomething with them to show that life goes on and we launch into another round of “monsters are people too!” (except when they aren’t). My favourite sentence in this whole damned book crops up:

I let him see the anger in my eyes, because I was angry with him.

Yep, this is what helped make the book a NYT #1 bestseller. Anita tells Laila to get over feeling sorry for herself after being mauled by a werewolf and is now facing a lifetime of further discrimination so she can suit up and go hunt some bad guys.

Chapter 31: The new plan is for Anita to go back to the hotel to get Laila some clothes. On the way out of hospital, she runs into Olaf. And for some reason, this hospital emergency ward is full of sexy nurses that swarm over the bodyguards, Bernardo and Olaf, rather than tending to, say, sick and injured people. No wonder the healthcare system is in shambles. As soon as Anita’s done swatting sexy ladies away from her mens, she notices that Olaf has disappeared. Uh-oh!

Chapter 32: This is the chapter that broke my brain. It’s a chapter of NEVERENDING FUCKERY that has nothing to do with anything.

Olaf is outside hitting on a tiny nurse that is totally his type, Anita does a bad job of trying to warn her that um, you’re flirting with a serial killer. Instead of arguing by the doorway, everyone moves into the parking lot, where we learn that Nicky and Olaf know about each other. How and why? Look, we’re going to argue about this, and then Nicky and Bernardo will argue about not getting into an argument, and who’s on first, what’s on second, I don’t know’s on third.

Olaf says that he’s not going to let Anita do to him what she did to Nicky, which is essentially de-fanged him as a mercenary because he’s got no free will and follows Anita around eager for her approval.

Edward conveniently calls so he can yell at everyone to do their fucking jobs, but Nicky moves to grope Anita. In the parking lot. Outside the hospital. I’m guessing Nicky gets aroused, but it’s described as “the front of his body [began] to swell.” So it could also be an allergic reaction. Anita and Nicky make out, Olaf flies into a jealous rage and has to be physically restrained.

Chapter 33: Our heroes split up to go back to the hotel! Bernardo takes Olaf! Lisandro, Nicky and Anita go in the other car, and Lisandro makes Anita sit up front so there's no sex in the back seat.

This chapter is only just over a page, and most of it is Anita's internal monologue about how she needs to touch the people she's bound to and how she's not sure if it's the bonds or being homesick that makes her feel this way.

Chapter 34: Anita arrives at the hotel and doesn’t remember the desk clerk’s name. Who cares, right? She has some delicious coffee that turns out to be drugged. Before she falls down, Olaf kills the clerk.

Chapter 35: Anita’s been kidnapped! She wakes up hog tied in a (maybe) basement, and the shapeshifter from the hotel attack is there to bitch about how she shoulda gone with him in the first place. Mysterious Harlequin Werewolf turns out to be SO LONELY too, and Anita understands his pain and inner beauty or something. Mysterious Harlequin Werewolf is totally going to be the name of my garage band.

Because Anita has an internal zoo, she can give him a taste of a pack, and he’s like “Noooo you can’t be a werewolf, MOAD can’t control them! She’s supposed to possess your sexy body!” And then he melodramatically swooshes his cape and flounces. No, seriously, he really does that.

Chapter 36: Instead of trying to escape, Anita sorta flops across the floor. Then another Harlequin shows up with Lisandro to tell her to drop her psychic shields to allow MOAD to possess her, or Lisandro will be tortured and killed. After shooting Lisandro in the leg, the conversation veers into whether Anita thinks he’s pretty and if he’s one of her lovers. Lisandro gets stapled to a table, Anita lets loose her inner-leopard and this Harlequin guy freaks out, cape-swooshes and flounces.

There’s a couple of Harlequin guards left in the room and neither of them make a move to stop Anita as she finally makes a move to escape. She falls off the table, only to get caught by one of the guards and she’s more upset that nobody wants to talk to her or touch her.

Chapter 37: Mysterious Harlequin Werewolf returns! He explains that the guards have had their tongues cut out, so they’re not going to be very chatty. He also says, “hey if MOAD possesses this chick, we’re just going to be nothing but animals for all eternity. I don’t want that. Do you want that? I think it’d suck :(” and this is a compelling enough argument to make the guards switch sides. So, Anita gets untied and now it’s time to escape the (maybe) basement.

Chapter 38: The Harlequin also have Bernardo and Ethan hostage, Anita can’t leave without them, so there’s creeping through the halls to find the room they’re supposed to be in empty. The other Harlequin guy is one step ahead of them! He cuts off Ethan’s finger and throws it down the stairs to show that he means business.

Luckily, there’s two other rooms chock-full of vampires that are still dead for the day. Anita and the Harlequins on her side practice coordinated decapitation, because if they kill the Masters of the were-Harlequins outside, then they’ll all die at once and the boys will be saved, huzzah!

Chapter 39: There’s some yelling back and forth between Anita and the bad guys, and lo, the plan to kill everyone works. But it’s just in time for it to be vampire o’clock and MOAD shows up.

Chapter 40: Mysterious Harlequin Werewolf becomes evil again since his Master is now awake, there’s a fight between Team Hero and Team Bad Guy. MOAD possesses a vampire an is like “So we meet again, Anita Blake. Let down your psychic shields or I kill your dudes!” And Anita’s like “yeah, sure, okay!” but it'll be on her terms:

“If you can’t possess me, I don’t want you saying it’s because I didn’t drop my shields enough. You said it yourself: Vampire powers work better if you touch skin to skin. Take off the gloves at least, because when you aren’t vampire enough to roll my ass, I don’t want you bitching.”

Because Anita is better than even the most powerful vampire of all time. And you. Always better than you.

So, Anita starts to peel back her defenses and MOAD begins to possess her, Anita activates the power she got from Itzapapalotl to drain the life from the vampire that MOAD is already possessing so she’s got nowhere to retreat. She also absorbs MOAD’s power into the Anita Blake Network of Dudes. The rest of Team Hero show up and between Ethan and Domino, Anita’s got a whole “rainbow of tigers” to draw upon.

And then it gets ridiculous in that MOAD has been dead for so long that she doesn’t understand life or love, and thus is defeated by Anita thinking about how she loves her dudes.

I shit you not! The most powerful vampire of all time is defeated by the ~*~power of love~*~

MOAD realizes too late that she can’t win and that she can’t retreat into another host. She dies with a sinister warning of “you eat me, you become me!”

Chapter 41: Obligatory epilogue! In the haste to kidnap Anita, the Harlequin forgot to check if Olaf and Nicky were dead, it turns out that Olaf is infected with werelion. He’s disappeared, but still leaves a note to Anita to say that he’s going to stay away from her until he gets a grip on his lion (so that she doesn’t do to him what she did to Nicky) BUT HE STILL WANTS HER OKAY.

Ethan is added to Anita’s menagerie, she wants to send Cynric home but nobody else has a problem with a 17-year-old staying. Home life is awesome! There’s even lady tigers to help out with the sheer volume of dudes and “some of the newest men [were] being more hetero-flexible.” The book tries to leave off on a semi-witty note about Anita saying she’s really not romantic.

*Because I got fed up with it, I did a count of the amount of times "but what does it/you/that mean?" and came up with 38 times in 41 chapters. It's asked 19 times in the first ten chapters, for crying out loud. It's also worth noting that Edward killed one of the Harlequin with the rocket launcher, while Anita had multiple encounters with the bad guys and only ever winged them. So much for all that talk on how badass and awesome she is.

This book is nearly 100k words long, I just told you what happened in about 5k. Where's your 90% gold now, Laurell?

Comments

[coffeehouse.livejournal.com]

I want to know how she gets 41 CHAPTERS out of this.

[coffeehouse.livejournal.com]

Oh, and thank you for flogging. Makes another one I don't need to read. Thank you.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I want to know how she got a whole BOOK out of this :\ The frustrating part is, there's a pretty neat idea at the centre of it -- with Edward using Anita as bait to lure out the Harlequin. That's what I want to be reading!

I have no idea where people are getting this is the best ever Anita book, a return to form, and deserves to be NYT #1. :\

But NP! This is a much neater and nicer version than the unfiltered rants I spammed my f-list with. XD

[blackfiregeisha.livejournal.com]

I was in a really shitty mood when I started reading this, but now I am laughing my ass off. Thanks, haha.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

lol awesome! This book really is ridic once you peel away all the layers of angry-making crap.

[ever-obsessed.livejournal.com]

Luckily, Edward has a rocket launcher.
~*~FABULOUS~*~

The most powerful vampire of all time is defeated by the ~*~power of love~*~
IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

The part with Edward and the rocket launcher is pretty cool, even if Anita tries to ruin it by explaining no it's not a rocket launcher it's a LAW (light anti-tank weapon) and henceforth it will be referred to as such. Meanwhile, Edward pops up through the car's sunroof and BLOWS SHIT UP.

lolol that vid is awesome!

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Your icon is hypnotic @__@

lol I bought myself some cake and booze by way of reward for finishing this book. Beer makes things better.

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

I read this and I still can't believe how ludicrous it all is.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

At least this book has given us Mysterious Harlequin Werewolf! This is probably not what LKH wanted me to bring away from the book, but there you go.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Right? If kittens were colour swatches I would want ALL THE SAMPLES.

And then google yielded me this:



I like any excuse to look at adorable kitty pictures.

There's so much "giving [emotion] eyes" in this book, it's like she keeps them in a breathmint tin and rummages around to find the appropriate googly pair for the moment. Except for when Olaf shows up, then he's described as having EYES LIKE CAVES.

Cue more photoshop fun:



And this is why one should think through their use of similies and metaphors.

[aenrhien.livejournal.com]

I read the whole book twice, and I only remember two things distinctly; the rocket launcher and Edward in his underwear. That says terrible things about the book.


Now to read this again and laugh some more.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Edward is the only thing worth remembering in this book. Your brain has good priorities. :D

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

"You can't just have your characters announce how they feel... that makes me feel angry!" -Robot Devil, Futurama

LKH still doesn't like thin women. No surprise there.

Also, what is this book about? Anything?

Rainbow of tigers... what? Having sex with half-tigers... what?

Just... what? What? What? Now I have a headache.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Ahaha Futurama became my unofficial saviour during this book. "I am literally angry with rage!" is the next most relevant quote after the Robot Devil one.

Near as I can tell, the moral of this story is that Anita > you in all things. What skeleton of plot is there just winds up being a vehicle for Anita to snarl over how everyone is so jealous of her sexiness and badassery. Which is a pity because it's a good skeleton! Or it would be in the hands of another writer. :\

[cousinmary.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I can't even. Thank you for writing this up, I always pick it up at the supermarket and read a random passage outloud to whoever's with me and I never get far. The dialog in chapter 4 is... yeah, I have no word other than some subvocal whimpering. How is this really a book?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I have no idea how this went to print. If you really want to kill your brain, go for chapter 32. It's 18 pages of PURE FUCKERY where nothing has anything to do with anything and you can probably hit most of LKH's cliches, from the jealous other woman to calm static inside Anita's head, random groping, and how Anita's such a "guy" and is so much better than everyone. No context is necessary!

[knowthyself.livejournal.com]

I--that--wait, what?

This doesn't even make sense!!

[dwg.livejournal.com]

heh, that was my mantra all the way through reading, though sometimes I alternated with "HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK?" *twitch* So much lazy worldbuilding and none of it fits in with previous series canon.

[pearkiwi.livejournal.com]

I was just wondering when someone was going to recap this, so thanks for taking one for the team.

“curvy the way God intended grown-up women to look”

What?! Anita is 5'3", and was 106 lbs before JC making her eat all that food so he could taste it made her gain another 6 lbs (and also causing her to bitch about gaining six pounds.) She also has giant getting in the way of everything boobs, and she's supposed to be muscled too.

You can go to mybodygallery.com and do a search for 5'3" and 110 pounds (as there is no option for 112 pounds) to see what women with different body shapes look like at that size. I wouldn't call any of them curvy, (unless, maybe you add Anita sized boobs), certainly not curvy enough for an actual curvy woman to bitch about women who look like boys or whatever with her.

I suppose it's possible in between gaining a harem large enough she has to call in reinforcements, and having sex with various harem members, she's a higher weight than 112...but I kinda doubt it, considering that's it's been 93 books and she still doesn't remember to eat, or learned how to control that pesky ardeur. You'd think after so many harem members, she'd reach her limit of men and get on that.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was bristling about that. Also, it's insulting. Also, I'm like, which god? Also... yeah, no.

I'm 4'10" and on a good day I'm 114, and I like it, because I was once 80 pounds due to anorexia. My shape is slender-hourglass, and my boobs are certainly not as immense as Anita's, because if they were I would fall over. I know several other very short women who weigh 90 lbs because that's just how they're built. I wouldn't call them curvy.
Intention? Seriously? What the fuck, LKH?

[othellia.livejournal.com]

what is this i don't even

Really though. How on earth does this end up equaling 100k? The Harlequin kills weretigers to lure Anita out to Seattle; Anita has sex with one, is captured by the Harlequin and then defeats the MOAD with the power of love. That's not a novel, that's... I'm not even really sure what that is.

[nialla]

That's not a novel, that's... I'm not even really sure what that is.

Crack!fic? Nah, that's insulting to crack!fic.

[yashakizu.livejournal.com]

I let him see the anger in my eyes, because I was angry with him.

These are the kinds of sentences that I teach my high school students to NOT write. Pain pain pain!

This write up had me laughing all morning! Thanks for doing it. :)

[dwg.livejournal.com]

These are the kind of sentences that make me boggle, by book 20 in a series I am holding LKH to a higher standard. That it's such a technical mess with very, very basic errors -- the angry thing is just the start. She's got enough experience to know and be better.

[cheeky-duckie.livejournal.com]

Anita, who picks up a gun and angsts over how she can’t just shoot though the pretty boy that mashes her buttons

The mental imagery that comes along with "mashes her buttons" has actually caused my brain to go numb in horror.

Thanks for sharing so the rest of use don't have to! :D

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Two eyes enter, only one can leave?

[lady-fellshot.livejournal.com]

Edward suggests that if she needs to feed the ardeur that she should just go pick someone up at a bar. She’s horrified by this.

Of course she is. First, she won't get any super sparkly powers out of it. Second, LKH prefers exoticism. Third, it would mark her as something other than speshuul. >_<

[dwg.livejournal.com]

All of this, but Anita cites her reasons as altruistic in that she doesn't want to get some random person addicted to the ardeur and then she'll HAVE to take the new junkie home with her and keep them in an unhealthy environment that enables their newfound addiction. Anita is all heart like that.

[naeko.livejournal.com]

:( While I am unhappy that LKH writs shit like this, I'm more unhappy that people think this is any good.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Worse that this is being held up as "the best ever" and a "return to form." HOW. I never had this much trouble/rage getting through the first ten books. :(

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading that even though I can't manage to get past the Ethan/Alex fight even in summary.

Soooo bad. Well, at least now I know that Anita is still not over herself.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

No, she's really not. She doe acknowledge that some people are better than her at some things -- like, Edward is a better sniper and defensive driver -- but the rest of the time she's better than you and she will tell you how jealous you are. A lot. And often.

I do find it funny that after all the posturing and chest-beating, it's still Edward that has the better result at the end of the day.

[fadeinthewash.livejournal.com]

You are truly a god among bookworms for forcing your way through this...thing.

I'm pretty sure we've had Raborn as a character before. Allegedly misogynistic, unprofessionally bubbling with poorly-expressed rage, inappropriately knowledgeable of and commenting on Anita's sex life, instantly antagonistic towards Anita... shyeah... that's like LKH's stock New Law Enforcement Guy.

I keep getting the feeling that it would be very easy to satirize this book without really changing anything. You know, like when people make fun of Sarah Palin just by quoting her. Not the good kind of satire, though, since the source is so over-the-top ridiculous and stupid I think a parody would come off kinda South Park-trying-too-hard-ish. Or a cheesey porno...but I repeat myself.

Seriously though. Contrived circumstance to get Anita in bed with Edward, could probably turn her rooming with Laila into a lesbian seduction scene, the sexy nurses inappropriately flirting with passers-by while on duty, random making out in a parking lot... You'd probably have to cut the Ethan-half-tiger sex scene, though, honestly, lest the hypothetical porno suddenly get waaaaaay too uncomfortably niche. Or if non-porn, then Edward would be the competent Straight Guy while Anita would be the Goofy Sidekick who'd give Art Frahm (http://www.thepinupfiles.com/frahm.html)'s models a run for their money.

And wtf is this: "Cop years are like dog years, Karlton, multiply by seven." "What?" she asked. NO ONE IS THAT IGNORANT ABOUT 'DOG YEARS' AFTER THE AGE OF 5.

In conclusion, omg Anita actually has hit the big three-oh?! When did that happen?! Last I can remember her age she was late 20s still and the pace of the books had dropped to a slow crawl, seemingly to prolong Anita's 20-something age. I think that's the biggest thing I got out of the story. Well, that and Edward still doesn't completely suck (yes!).

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Re: Dog years, this is the thing that's really sticking with me. Are there really people out there that do not know what this is? It scares me that there might be someone out there that has no clue about deeply-ingrained cultural colloquialisms.

As for Anita being nearly thirty, the universe leapt forward a year in time between Flirt and Bullet. Likewise, technology's taken a sudden leapfrog to "now" without any explanation. But the Circus of the Damned now has internet! Timelines, how do they work?!

[kyoko-minamino.livejournal.com]

I flipped through this monstrosity in Walmart two days ago and I applaud you for actually getting plot details out of it. All I got was, "blah blah angst blah blah pretty tigers blah blah Anita's a slut and you're jealous blah blah Edward does one or two cool things blah blah giant penises blah blah lesbian vampire."

Therefore, you deserve a hot bubble bath and a cookie for making sense of that tripe someone decided to call a novel one day. A BIG cookie. Possibly the cookie that they made in Bruce Almighty.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks! I have chocolate cake and a six-pack of beer, but I am definitely adding a hot bubble bath to my reward.

[acidamoeba.livejournal.com]

In responce to the dog years, I like to think the conversation is meant to go along the lines of:

Laila: What? How the fiddely-foo is that even relevant?

But Anita cuts in before Laila can finish- because Anita has the burning desire to explain everything in minute detail.

There is a lot more WTFery to pick at, but that's the bit that stands out to me.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Even if Laila did manage to spit out the question, Anita would probably just keep rolling on with explaining how she's so much better etc. I mean, the valid points Raborn brings up are completely ignored in favour of "omg you and everyone are just jealous of me and my skills!" and it's not until later that Anita's like "maybe you're a misogynist, even though you clearly haven't got any problems with our female boss or that other female marshal." Which. What. I'm pretty sure that's not how misogyny works.

I'm not entirely sure how LKH can write her protagonist as so entirely clueless while the supporting cast are somewhat savvy/self-aware of the problems inherent in such a pigheaded heroine. O__o