September 7, 2007 at 1:45 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
96. Strange Candy by Laurell K. Hamilton (Fantasy, Short Story Collection) 257 p.
Ugh. I really need to stop trusting Laurell K. Hamilton to deliver even a decent read. Actually, these short stories don’t suffer from the problems that plague the Meredith Gentry and later Anita Blake novels, but LKH’s greatest skill has always been her world-building, and short stories don’t give her much room to work in. Instead of taking generic fantasy settings and stock characters and turning them on their ears, she seems stuck using them the way they’ve been used hundreds of times before.
I don’t want to go too far into what I didn’t enjoy about this collection, since I do enough LKH-bashing already, and I’d rather save my whining for the latest Anita Blake or Merry Gentry. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t too impressed with any of the stories, but there were three (or possibly four) that I did enjoy. Unsurprisingly, they were the ones that took place outside the usual sword-and-sorcery paradigm.
Of the four I enjoyed, A Scarcity of Lake Monsters was the one I liked least, and I liked it more for its ideas than its execution. Selling Houses was my favourite story of the collection. Set in the Anita Blake universe, it features a realtor who is willing to sell houses to some unusual clients. I also liked House of Wizards, where a young, magicless woman marries a wizard and learns how to deal with his magic-wielding family. Geese had some nicely atmospheric moments, and an unusual kind of love story. For once, I think Hamilton should have stuck with exploring that story, rather than focusing on a rather pointless action plot. Actually, the B-plot from Geese could make a rather interesting book, although maybe if it were written by LKH.
On the whole, even the stories I liked weren’t all that good. I definitely don’t recommend this to anyone but Laurell K. Hamilton completists and very fast readers.
(Side note, for Anita Blake fans: three of the stories—Those Who Seek Forgiveness, Selling House, and The Girl Who Was Infatuated with Death are all set in her universe; the first and last are actually Anita stories. The last one is the same story that appears in Bite, an anthology which also contains stories by Charlaine Harris, MaryJanice Davidson, and a couple of other authors of contemporary supernatural fantasy.)
Books read: 96/100 (96%)
Pages read: 28,762/30,000 (96%)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton
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
