Examiner.com interview with LKH

[dwg.livejournal.com]

There's an interview with LKH by the Examiner: "Laurell K Hmailton discusses 'Hit List', Anita Blake and New Orleans - where it's announced she's the Special Guest Author at Anne Rice's Vampires Ball this year (Oct 29 - if anyone is going, please give us a report!)

Here's the interview part:

Dionne Charlet:  Mrs. Hamilton, if we may, let's discuss your 20th Anita Blake novel, Hit List.  Long before there was Sookie Stackhouse, your strong female necromancing vampire hunter Anita has been winning the hearts of readers through the power of your singular writing style and talent for intricate plot delivery.  From her origins to Hit List, how has Anita evolved in your mind's eye?

Laurell K. Hamilton:  “Anita began life as most of us do - life was black and white, right and wrong.  She was utterly convinced that vampires were monsters and it wasn't the same as killing a human being.  Monsters were less than human so they could be killed without compromising her sense of morality.  She was also equally convinced that you didn't date, or have sex, with the monsters. Honestly, she began the series not seeing sex outside marriage as a viable option, but she's had to accept that the absolute of monogamous marriage doesn't work for her, and that embracing her less conventional love life has finally made her happy.  As the series has gone on Anita has had her doubts about everything from her sex life, to killing the monsters. In Hit List, she sees very little, if any, difference between taking the life of a vampire and that of a living person.  She's accepted that both are equally "alive", and that she's ending their life.  She is still a legal vampire executioner, but now she accepts that her job is the taking of life, and she is not entirely at peace with it.  Her broader sense of what life is, and isn't, has made it harder for her to take life, but easier for her to love people, so not what I envisioned for her as a character, or myself as a writer.”

Charlet:  Would you like to share any plans for Anita's future with your readers?

Hamilton:  The first question I answered, about Anita's evolution, shows how little I know about future plans for her future.  I would have bet good money that she would never date Jean-Claude, let alone be living with him. I might have bet that she would be happily married to Richard Zeeman, our local Ulfric, wolf king and junior high science teacher, but that so hasn't worked as I planned.  I didn't know the character of Micah Callahan even existed in the form that he insisted on being written, and had no idea how important he would be to Anita. Nathaniel Graison was the one that Anita and I fought the longest against loving, and now he totally has her heart.  I never foresaw that Anita would have a U. S. Marshal's badge and be a ‘real’ law officer.  I never planned on Edward, assassin to the monsters, would be a major guest star in the series, and one of Anita's closest friends.  I guess, what I'm saying is that when I've been this surprised by my own characters and world, all bets are off, I have little idea of what will happen to Anita next.  I've been wrong too often to hazard a guess anymore.”

Charlet:  During Halloween weekend, the Theatre of the Vampires Ball has welcomed you as Guest Author.  Would you like to offer any special words of welcome to the event, extended to Examiner.com readers?

Hamilton:  “I've done the ball once before, so thank you for welcoming me back again.  It was the first visit to New Orleans for my husband, Jonathon, and myself.  We are so glad to have discovered your very singular city.  It has a personality and energy, that I love.  This will be our third visit, and every time we come it is a voyage of discovery.  In exploring New Orleans I always find that I don't just learn more of the city, but of myself.  I never come away from here without a feeling that I've learned a lesson that couldn't have been learned anywhere else.  If you're open to it, New Orleans will teach you about yourself, but if you want to hide from who you really are, the city will help you do that, too. New Orleans, N'awlins, is called the Big Easy for a reason - she'll be easy for you, open her body wide and drowned you in the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations of the streets and people, or she'll help you be more alive, more aware, than you've ever been.  It's your choice, N'awlins will show you either what you're ready to see, or what you need to see - or you can put on blinders and see nothing.  Either way, she's always a grand ol' lady, and she'll treat you right if you let her, of course, if you won't take good treatment, the city has other options.  I don't think I've ever been in any city that cared so little whether you had the best time of your life, or the worst, each one is a possibility.  Choose wisely, and remember this close to Halloween, you might want to weigh your choices more cautiously.  What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in New Orleans, goes home with you.”

I'm calling shenanigans on the first question right now - especially since there's a lovely example in Hit List that highlights exactly how much bullshit that statement is: Anita directs the Harlequin to decapitate a bunch of vampires just lying about and it's ONLY PRACTICE as part of this convoluted plan where if they kill the Master Vampires that the other Harlequin are somehow bound to, then they'll die at the same time and all the killing has to be in synch so that none of the hostages die. Team Hero kill nine vampires and then Anita throws one of the heads at the foot of the stairs to goad the bad guys a bit more to buy some time.

Sure, there's a running theme of "monsters are people too!" in the book, but it's...completely arbitrary. They're people until they're not and only Anita gets to decide that, otherwise arguments are met with righteous indignation. Nobody cares about the bad guys or the families of henchmen!

I do want to frame that middle paragraph where LKH admits she has no idea what she's doing.