Archive for July, 2007
July 29, 2007 at 11:41 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
73. The Harlequin by Laurell K. Hamilton (Urban Fantasy) 422 p.
About a month after the events of Danse Macabre, Anita and Jean-Claude are still dealing with the problem presented by the Church of Eternal Life, but they’re not the only ones concerned with the lack of blood oaths between Malcolm and his followers. On a date with Nathaniel to celebrate their first anniversary, Anita receives a strange gift, one with greater and more frightening implications than she knows.
In some ways The Harlequin exceeded my expectations (not that they were very high, after the travesty that was Danse Macabre.) A lot of characters who’d been sidelined and seemingly forgotten in the last books were present, which was a change for the better, but it wasn’t enough to correct some of the series’s worst faults.
I know I bitch all the time about Laurell K. Hamilton’s poor command of language and her obsession with sex, but I think her biggest mistake has actually been to introduce way too many new characters. Although I like most of them, Anita’s struggle to maintain relationships with so many men means none of those relationships are ever properly explored. It makes it really hard to care about any of them. I personally also find it difficult to identify with a heroine who thinks about men and sex all the time—it doesn’t matter how good a canonical reason there is for it.
Although I didn’t do any objective comparisons, The Harlequin seemed to have less actual sex in it than many of the more recent books, but there were still way too many boring conversations about sex, and the descriptions of the sex that did happen were overly detailed and somewhat tedious, as usual. The number of men attracted to and/or in love with Anita continues to rise, which is frustrating. It’s not that it makes Anita Mary Sue-ish (although it does), it’s that reading about it isn’t the least bit interesting. I don’t care how tertiary male characters feel about Anita unless it has an impact on the plot. Most of the time, not even then.
A lot of the characters I liked from previous books are back, giving The Harlequin a sense of continuity that has been lacking for a while. Which is good. Except…bringing too many old characters back at the same time, along with all the new characters, means no one really gets enough focus. Still, I was glad to see Edward back again, even if there wasn’t nearly enough of him.
There were two really strange continuity errors. At one point, Anita mentions Willie McCoy’s vampire girlfriend, but says her name is Candy, which it most assuredly was not the last time she appeared. And she specifically says that Sylvie doesn’t do women—but IIRC, Sylvie was actually a lesbian in the earlier books, with a lover and everything.
I still feel like Anita’s growing powers, and the new threat in the form of Marmee Noir, are a mistake. I’m not interested in watching Anita and company fight against an unbeatable foe, and watching Anita’s powers grow is very boring, as well as helping to make her a Mary Sue. And the number of fights that get picked during emergencies is ridiculous; I’m surprised Jean-Claude hasn’t slaughtered the lot of them in sheer frustration by now.
So it looks like Laurell K. Hamilton may have managed to stop the series’s downward slide, although she hasn’t turned things around yet. This book didn’t really introduce any new characters, which was a relief and may be a hopeful sign for the future of the series.
Books read: 73/100 (73%)
Pages read: 21,880/25,000 (88%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton
July 29, 2007 at 4:46 am · Filed under Books Etc
I was going to hold out on buying the new Anita Blake novel and Lois McMaster Bujold’s new book, but tonight I caved and used one of my birthday gift certificates to get them. And of course I couldn’t resist starting The Harlequin tonight.
If you’ve read my blog for a while, you may have picked up on some animosity toward Laurell K. Hamilton, particularly relating to her (ab)use of the English and French languages. And the truly over-the-top sexual content of her books. Since I’m actually enjoying The Harlequin so far, I want to write something nice about it while I still can.
First of all, 100 pages in and no sex yet, which is awesome. There have already been references to a lot of events and characters from past books. Nathaniel and Anita’s relationship is back on the front burner, after being almost completely sidelined in Danse Macabre. But most exciting of all? It looks like Edward is back. I love Edward. The first Anita Blake I read, the one that got me hooked on the series, was Obsidian Butterfly, and this is his first appearance since then.
So yeah, even if the rest of The Harlequin turns out to be no better than Danse Macabre, at least this first part has showed real promise, and convinced me that Laurell K. Hamilton still has it in her to write good books.
Tags: Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton
July 28, 2007 at 12:48 am · Filed under Books Etc
A book I ordered from Chapters arrived today:
- Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits » Laila Lalami
I also stopped at the Annex BMV while I was downtown and picked up four more books:
- Midnight at the Dragon Café » Judy Fong Bates
- A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali » Gil Courtemanche
- A Recipe for Bees » Gail Anderson-Dargatz (because my aunt says it’s really good.)
- English Lessons and Other Stories » Shauna Singh Baldwin (to replace my old copy of this fabulous short story collection, which is falling apart.)
By some coincidence, all four are from the Can lit section. Even though I also browsed the literature, mystery, and SFF sections, I didn’t find anything else I wanted. I considered a couple of Tanya Huff mass market paperbacks, but the covers were just too hideous.
I do love the Annex BMV, though. It isn’t better than the downtown BMV, but it may be its equal. And it’s certainly bigger.
July 26, 2007 at 5:41 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Canadian Literature, Mystery and Suspense, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
72. Blood Lines by Tanya Huff (Urban Fantasy) 268 p.
When the curator of the Egyptology department at the Royal Ontario Museum stumbles across an incredible find, he unwittingly releases an ancient evil. Vicki, Henry, Mike Celluci, and even Tony become caught up in the mummy’s plans for world domination.
In terms of plot, I think this is probably the best of the series so far. It’s tight, the pace is relentless, and the villain’s actions have more serious consequences for the heroes than ever before. Some of the violence in it was actually a little disturbing, but Huff succeeds in creating a truly frightening antogonist for Vicki to face. Evil mummies have never been so scary.
The story was more serious, much darker and with a lot less humour than the previous novels. My only complaint is that, once again, I would have liked to see more of Tony, although that’s not really a fault in Huff’s writing—if I didn’t already know Tony from his later spinoff series, I wouldn’t miss his presence.
This was the first time I actually liked reading the villain’s POV, and in fact, in this book I think that it was necessary. There would have been too many loose ends for the reader without it.
Books read: 72/100 (72%)
Pages read: 21,458/25,000 (86%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Tanya Huff, Vicki Nelson
July 25, 2007 at 1:10 pm · Filed under Miscellanea
July 25, 2007 at 3:08 am · Filed under Book Reviews, Canadian Literature, Mystery and Suspense, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
71. Blood Trail by Tanya Huff (Urban Fantasy) 282 p.
Henry calls Vicki in when some old friends of his, a family of sheep-farming werewolves in London, Ontario, find themselves stalked by a gunman—one who seems to know their secret. With two of their relatives already dead, they’re counting on Vicki to find the killer before any more of them are slaughtered.
I’m still less than enthused with the inclusion of the villain’s POV. It takes away most of the mystery and a lot of the suspense without, in my opinion, adding much to the story. Also, while Huff does a good job of fleshing out the protagonists, she often shows only those of the villains’ thoughts that are related to their villainy, making them seem a bit like cardboard cutouts. She is clearly capable of writing nuanced and even sympathetic antagonists, but she rarely chooses to exercise this skill. She does succeed brilliantly at showing the mundaneness and sheer pettiness of human evil.
The sheep-farming werewolves are too cute and fun for words. I was glad to see Tony in the beginning of the book, and only wish he’d been present throughout. I like Vicki and Henry a lot, but Tony will probably always be my favourite. Although Vicki’s been growing on me; I’ve heard her compared to Anita Blake, and I can see why, but Vicki is more interesting, not to mention less insanely unreasonable. Although one of the things she ate to win a contest in this book was pretty hilarious.
Books read: 71/100 (71%)
Pages read: 21,190/25,000 (85%)
Days passed: 205/365 (56%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Tanya Huff, Vicki Nelson
July 25, 2007 at 2:18 am · Filed under Book Reviews, Canadian Literature, Mystery and Suspense, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
70. Blood Price by Tanya Huff (Urban Fantasy) 272 p.
Vicki Nelson is a private investigator and former Toronto cop who left the force when her vision began to deteriorate. Henry Fitzroy is a vampire, romance novelist, and the bastard son of Henry VIII. They eventually team up to help stop a wave of serial killings in the city—killings that look remarkably like vampire attacks.
I enjoyed this book a lot, although more for the characters and the potential for the rest of the series than for the plot. It wasn’t bad (actually, it was pretty good), but Huff didn’t handle it with the same flair as she shows in the Tony Foster books. Since this was the first book in a new series, there was also a lot of exposition that I hope decreases in the later novels. I’m also not all that fond of multiple-POV’s, especially when one of the POV’s is that of the villain. Huff handles it well, but it’s just not a narrative style that I enjoy.
That said, I did have a lot of fun reading Blood Price. I adored the Toronto setting; it was so much fun recognizing the places and institutions that she mentions. Although she doesn’t mention them by name (calling them “the tabloid” and “the other city newspaper”), her descriptions of the Toronto Sun and Toronto Star are spot-on. I love that her heroine rides the TTC. I love that Tony appears in the first book (I wasn’t sure if he was in the series from the beginning or if he was introduced later, but the former turned out to be true) and I’m looking forward to watching his character develop into the Tony from Smoke and Shadows.
I love Huff’s creation of a villain who is both hissable and mundane. Mixing the supernatural with the supremely ordinary is one of her great strengths as an author of urban fantasies, and this book—in which the villain buys the paraphernalia to work evil at Canadian Tire and his local corner store—is no exception.
Books read: 70/100 (70%)
Pages read: 20,908/25,000 (84%)
Days passed: 205/365 (56%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Tanya Huff, Vicki Nelson
July 23, 2007 at 3:28 pm · Filed under Books Etc
Doppelganger blogged about what a real book collection looks like, so of course I can’t resist putting in my two cents. So here’s one corner of my home library:
The copy at Flickr has rollovers in case anyone wants to know what the books are (and because they’re fun.) I bought another two bookcases like those ones at Ikea earlier today, but I haven’t had a chance to set them up yet. I now have eight bookcases of varying sizes and styles, and probably somewhere around 800 books (I’ll know once I finish cataloguing them.)
Kim from Kimbooktu has started Your Home Library, where you can send in a picture of your own shelves and have it displayed to the world!
July 23, 2007 at 4:48 am · Filed under Book Reviews, Canadian Literature, Favourite Books, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
69. Smoke and Ashes by Tanya Huff (Urban Fantasy) 407 p.
Following the events of Smoke and Shadows and Smoke and Mirrors, Tony Foster has now been promoted from Production Assistant to Training Assistant Director, although his boss’s stinginess and reluctance to hire a new PA mean that his actual job remains much the same. Meanwhile, one of the stuntwomen turns out to be a Demongate, and if the demons who are out to kill her succeed, the world will be at the mercy of her demon master. Tony and his coworkers are the only things standing in their way.
I loved reading this book. I smiled (or laughed) pretty much the whole way through. It gave me that effervescent feeling that all really good genre fiction does, that sense of excitement and glee, like ginger ale bubbles rising up inside. The plot is excellent, but it’s Huff’s characters and dialogue that make the book so good. And I continue to adore her for writing such Canadian novels: a hero who eats Timbits and snarks about the CBC! I’ve been waiting my whole life for this and didn’t even know it. I am so incredibly excited to read the Vicki Nelson series (of which this series is a spinoff), since they’re set in my own city.
Books read: 69/100 (69%)
Pages read: 20,636/25,000 (83%)
Days passed: 203/365 (56%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Tanya Huff, Tony Foster
July 22, 2007 at 6:40 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Canadian Literature, Favourite Books, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
68. Smoke and Mirrors by Tanya Huff (Urban Fantasy) 404 p.
In this sequel to Smoke and Shadows, Tony Foster is still Production Assistant for CB, and the crew is shooting a haunted house episode of Darkest Night—in what turns out to be a real haunted house.
I liked Smoke and Mirrors even better than Smoke and Shadows. Although, like the first book, the beginning was a tad slow, the plot sped up quickly and sucked me in. Having Tony working on a cheesy vampire detective show, with most of the crew unaware of the supernatural nature of the events happening around them would have gotten old really fast in less talented hands. Instead, Huff makes it funny:
It was like the world’s cheesiest special effect. All it needed was that Czechoslovakian women’s choir that seemed to be wailing in harmony on every soundtrack recorded in the last twenty years.
She also uses pop culture references in a way that makes them seem natural and funny, rather than annoying or overdone. This book had more depth to it than the last one, poignancy as well as humour. The ghost stuff was both horrifying and sad. Even the two bratty children grew on me enough that I stopped thinking it was a mistake to include them, and started appreciating what they did for the plot.
I found it odd that so much time passed between the first and second books, though. Not in a bad way, but there were a few things from the first book that I expected to be followed up on, but by the time the second book starts everyone’s kind of moved past them. On one hand, I kind of wanted to see the resolution, but on the other hand, it makes it more realistic that Tony’s life doesn’t sync up perfectly with supernatural events.
All in all, a fantastic follow-up to Smoke and Shadows. The third (and final) book in the series is Smoke and Ashes, which I am very much looking forward to.
Books read: 68/100 (68%)
Pages read: 20,229/25,000 (81%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Tanya Huff, Tony Foster
Older entries »
