Narcissus in Chains

[ariskari.livejournal.com]

Otherwise known as "what the hell did I just read?"

I'm late in coming to the Anita Blake series, only actually picking them up at all because I'm involved in a couple of RPs set in the world and I wanted to get to grips with the world building. I'd read Guilty Pleasures and Obsidian Butterfly at the recommendation of a friend but hadn't planned to read any of the others since I'd heard such bad things about what happened with the series after OB. However, when I started the RP I figured I'd give them a go and managed to get hold of free copies.

The first nine or so were fairly decent. Not the best writing I've ever seen and there are way too many pissing contests going on for my tastes. Most of them I could forgive since the vampires involved didn't get where they were without packing a punch and they want everyone to know they earned their spot. And most of the others involved Anita Proving Something, which I had been led to expect to occur frequently. And while the plots sometimes weren't particularly tight and seemed on the brink of getting away from her, they did always come together in the end. On the whole they were thoroughly a thoroughly enjoyable series and the end of OB looked as though it should have launched into an equally enjoyable set of books.

Thankfully since I'd lurked around here a fair bit and had someone who'd picked up NiC after OB without any clue of the difference in quality happy to rant their disappointment at me, I was well prepared for what I was about to find. In places I was actually pleasantly surprised. The writing hadn't deteriorated as far as I'd fear it might. It could definitely have done with some tighter editing and someone to point out that 'spill' is not a catch all term for something moving/existing. Not only are there other words out there but there are many better words that describe the way you'd draw a gun, just for one example.

But the plot...oh my word the plot. It took me quite a while to figure out what it was about the plot that bothered me but I did eventually get there around 90% into the book when the plot seemed to take off. The vast majority of the book seemed to just be the characters all pissing about, jumping from one thing to another that, while important to the characters, had bugger all to do with the preternatural community leaders going missing, apparently without any trace. Anita worrying about whether she might now be a wereleopard and the consequences this would have for her role as Lupa would have made a perfectly pleasant under current to the bigger picture of what was going on, but it shouldn't have taken the focus off it entirely.

And the big bad of the book being the famous bounty hunter who'd changed his mind about hunting down shifters would have made more of an impact if he'd had more than a page and a half of screen time before the big reveal. If I hadn't vaguely remembered the name when he appeared from reading something on here I'd have completely missed it and wondered why it was such a big deal when Anita finally confronted him.

However, I think what annoyed me most about the book was the epilogue. The book raised some things that would seriously affect Anita and how her life would go from this point on. Such as whether she was now a wereleopard and what it would mean for her and Richard if she did become the Bolverk. They could have been played with quite a bit, strung along for another book or two, especially the Bolverk situation. But no, instead we just got "Nope, not a leopard" and "Yup, totally Bolverk now". All the unresolved tension about whether she was going to turn furry or not just neatly resolved with a hand wave, and the Bolverk question turned into a complete non issue. It was asked about once, ignored for the rest of the book, and then picked up again in the epilogue without even the faintest bit of agonising or the potential for opposition from the wolves. And then a comment about how Narcissus was pregnant. Just...because? I honestly couldn't see a reason for that being important in the slightest.

All in all, I had expected a relatively bad book when compared to the others, but having been forewarned I'd expected a vaguely entertaining train wreck. Instead I get something that has me staring at the pages in disbelief wondering what the hell is going on and when the supposedly proactive heroine is going to actually do something.


Kay...rant over. I think.

Comments

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

I started reading this series about ten years ago. I'm not sure when I found this comm, but it has been a while now. I've also hosted RPs that featured the Anita world and have had to make some in depth looks at the worldbuilding questions (and wtf-ery) found in Anitaverse.

What I've noticed is that there seems to be a consensus here that OB is the last 'good' book in the series. Troos love to say that 'haters' of the series are offended by the sex, or by Anita's 'edgy' personal life, by things outside of the mainstream and the continuing emphasis on Anita 'growing' as a character.

However, the truth is pretty much just what you've noticed. People are enjoying a relatively good story (with some problems, sure) but all of a sudden the story is no longer the empaphasis... and what the new emphasis of the books IS becomes entirely muddied. I got to the end of NIC and had NO CLUE wtf that book was supposed to be about. Yeah, characters showed up, saw things, somebody died. I don't know. Didn't care. If I remember right, NIC is one of the first books where you have a whirlwind wrap up of the 'mystery' element of the books in the last chapter or two. Plus a crazy epilogue that leaves you wondering if it's some kind of a bad joke.

No the problem with the series wasn't that the writing went off a cliff abruptly, the lack of continuity, nor the continuous sexscapades of Anita. It's not even her MarySue-ness, lots of heroines suffer from that. It's the fact this series became entirely bloated and nonsensical. You'll here it over and over in this comm because it's true. The problem is: There is no plot. So, after I slogged through that big of brick of a book I had the same feelings you did: 'what the hell WAS that?' I paid for this book, really?? And it was the last one I purchased, I used the library after that.

[magdalen77.livejournal.com]

Fortunately OB was the last book I bought. I loathed NiC because of the introduction of the virtually worthless Micah and the ardeur, but the goofy plot line didn't particularly upset. Cerulean Sin was the book that made and still makes me ask what the plot was. And Incubus Dreams was when I gave up on Anita ever getting better.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Oh, you have not yet begun the crazy. Cerulean Sins is the only book I've ever thrown across the room.

ETA: It's also where I stopped because I just couldn't suspend my disbelief any more, as odd as that may sound.

[ariskari.livejournal.com]

You mean Cerulean Sins is even worse? Since I've got them all up to (I think) Hit List I plan on at least attempting to read the rest but...maybe I'll take a longer break before diving back in. Hopefully I won't start throwing things XD My kindle likely won't handle it as well as a book.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Yes, they keep getting worse. I've heard that the parade of awful continues up through Harlequin (and don't read the "novelettes" Just for the sake of not wanting your brain to pour out your ears. Skin Trade/Blood Noir are supposed to be a tiny bit better, but I can't really say and I'm suspicious that after how far things had fallen when I left that people just got so desensitized to the awful that any improvement was embraced wholeheartedly.

[magdalen77.livejournal.com]

IMHO the worst book was Danse Macabre. The Harlequin and Blood Noir were slightly better. Skin Trade was so tedious that it took me two weeks to read. I could only stand a few pages at a time. Flirt and Bullet were again tedious and pointless, but ST must have immunized me slightly. I haven't been able to start either Hit List or Kiss the Dead. I don't know if I'll ever read another AB book.

[duamuteffe.livejournal.com]

Hey, small world, me too! At what point did you chuck it?

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

I can't remember precisely any more, it's been years (I read it within a year of it coming out).

I believe it was the introduction of the ardeur (or the further explication of it) and its effects on Anita. And the thought that went through my mind was "LKH just made that up to force Anita to do things she would never do. ... Hey, wait LKH made up the whole damn thing ... " ::insert sound of glass breaking and tinkling to my feet. Book meets wall::

I did pick it up and finish it because I already had the book, but the whole experience was destroyed, the A:VH world was dead, and there was nothing I could do to save Anita who seemed to be trying to claw her way out of the book to avoid LKH. But as the com knows, imaginary characters are imaginary. Nothing I could do to save someone who wasn't real. And I couldn't watch what was essentially the author raping the character in all future books.

[plastraa.livejournal.com]

I started reading this series from the start (I am old), fresh out of high school away from home living in new york. I ran across Guilty Pleasures in a small bookstore and since vampires were a guilty pleasure of mine I got it and then waited for every single book in the series (impatiently). I reread the books and even fondly chuckled at the Anita-verse-isms, continuity issues, the bad editing was sort of adorable to me at the time. I spent over a decade of my life investing myself in the world, and then nothing no pay off, just devolving to no plots, action, or danger/tension. I still love the IDEA of the world she created so it's that and the time I spent on it all that still makes me irritated enough to be a part of a group about books I stopped reading years ago, I also think there is a small part of me that keeps thinking LKH will come to her senses and start writing plots and stuff. I know that's ridiculous and yet...:-(

I think OB was the last book where anything really happened. In those days I remember feeling that there was a chance Anita and Co. could possibly be harmed, which is what the later books lack (amongst other things). Then NiC and Micah...who? Wha...why? Why? He wanders in ostensibly 'rapes' her and he is her One True Love forever? I didn't really get that, and I still don't. And of course the ardeur/are-door/arduer or however we are spelling it today...and from there on out she never needed to actually do anything again except remove her trousers.

I was (like you), confused and bewildered with what was going on and why I should care, and then how neatly it was wrapped up as a throw away line at the end. She did those epilogues before but the action was more or less sewn up and then the MINOR plot points resolved off screen and recapped...not this time, it's like she got bored with writing the story. And actually I got bored reading it, so we were in agreement. I attempted to read the next couple books as I thought maybe it's a glitch, but nope. Good luck if you read on, it just goes further down the rabbit hole.

[ariskari.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the scene with Micah *shudders*

Mine's an e-book version so I don't know if I've got the one that's been altered to make it less like flat out rape but...it was still seriously creepy. And the rest of the stuff with him was just...it was another thing that confused me in the epilogue. There was this dramatic reveal about how he was one of Orlando King's minions and Anita was really hurt by his having been lying to her ever since he came to town. And then they're dating in the epilogue. No resolution to his betrayal, even if it was based around his trying to keep as many of his pard alive as possible. Just "Betrayal all forgotten, dates now!"

[plastraa.livejournal.com]

You know you can only see a tiny percentage of the iceberg above water? That's what NiC is, tiny little bit. The really large amount of creepy and yet somehow incredibly boring is to come. I would say enjoy, but who am I kidding? :-\

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

The Micah Rapes Anita scene was rewritten after the first edition. Wikipedia used to have a copy of the excised text, but I think it may have been deleted. Short version: Anita keeps telling Micah no, even as he penetrates her.

[ariskari.livejournal.com]

Ick...I must have the edited version then, but her refusal was still quite clear! Nothing remotely ambiguous about the no.

[zombiegoat.livejournal.com]

Narcissus In Chains is the point where the series began to slide into the awful abyss it currently resides in... and given how good everything was up until that point and just how face-palming it got during and after NiC, that is really saying something.

The fact is, all snarking aside, we're all here because at some point, we all really liked this series. There was a time when saying that Laurell's stuff was "good" was selling her short, because she was one of the best urban fantasy writers to come down the pike in a long time. Unfortunately, in many book series there is a point where the shark gets jumped if it goes on long enough, and NiC is rather unanimously agreed to be that point. The abrupt changes in plotting, characterization and conciseness is really head-scratching if you had followed the series faithfully.

Also, Laurell has said over and over again that the ardeur storyline is leading somewhere and isn't just a cheap mechanical plot device to allow her to go all porntastic when stuck for what to write about next or feels like working blue. To be honest, I don't believe that. The ardeur has been a part of the AB series for over half of its life now, and shows no sign of slowing down. We're coming up on nearly a dozen full-length efforts that have had it figure prominently, and it's not like the terrible stereotypes of what is going on in the pages these days are the result of inaccurate reporting.

I always tell people to read the first eight books... when you get to the end of Obsidian Butterfly, close the book and walk away. Trust me, you don't want to know what happens next.

[jamoche]

It was a pretty dramatic drop. People were eagerly anticipating NiC and recommending her to Buffy fans on Usenet. I trusted them so I picked up Obsidian Butterfly because it was paperback and "buy in hardcover" has to be earned.

Literally days later everyone who had bought NiC were all over Usenet warning people not to make the same mistake.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I'm with world_dancer on this one - you haven't gotten to the crazy yet. NiC is probably the top of the rollercoaster and you can kinda see what's ahead but it doesn't quite prepare you for it? And then you get to look forward to everything happening in slow motion and with instant replays because the writing becomes so stilted, repetitive, and sometimes copy/pasted directly from other books or even the same one you're currently reading. Aw, I don't think I've mangled this metaphor enough or mixed it with something that's not like a rollercoaster at all.

[plastraa.livejournal.com]

It is very much a roller coaster, I've said that before I think (possibly can't remember...heh), with all of us in our little seats all strapped in for safety, a few up and downs, a bit of the hair blowing back as we go down a particularly steep bit of track, but no real danger, it's all pretty generic and you go around the same predetermined plot again and again.

It's fun a couple times but then the nausea sets in. And boy does it ever! Lots of cats hacking furballs moments to come, ariskari you have a 'lot' to look forward to, and by a lot I mean a lot of drink inducing writing!

[jya-bd-cp-ttgb.livejournal.com]

Has anyone come up with a drinking game for the verse yet? *is curious*

[plastraa.livejournal.com]

I think we're all drinking when we read this, but it's not so much a game as a defense mechanism. ;)

ALTHOUGH a drinking game would be awesome...just the phrase 'tight and wet' alone could intoxicate the whole eastern seaboard it's used so many times!

[jya-bd-cp-ttgb.livejournal.com]

Even at a sip a time, the seaboard would be the boozeboard. *snickers* A shot for everytime she whines about her love life, and finish the glass for double penetrations.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

No, but I did make a bingo card for blogs (http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b201/scarimonious/abvh/lkhblogbingo.png) a while ago. Book Bingo would be GIGANTIC and you'd still be able to get a line within the first chapter or so.

[shxyy.livejournal.com]

And Incubus Dreams was when I gave up on Anita ever getting better.