12 September, 2004
Guilty Pleasures, Laurell K. Hamilton (272 pp, MMPB, 1995)
I'm tempted to say this is the trashiest book I ever read, except that I also read the sequel, which was slightly worse. (The previous Trashiest Book Ever was Anne Rice's The Mummy, just for reference.)
Anyway, you know how The Deed of Paksennarion is basically a D&D adventure? Well, this series appears to be a Vampire/Werewolf/whatever game. Or, to put it in terms that a non-gamer will get, it's one part action-adventure, one part gothy Anne Rice vampire romance, and really doesn't make any sort of effort to transcend either genre.
The idea is that Ms. Anita Blake is a zombie-raiser by night and a vampire-slayer by day. Since vampires are a recently-accepted section of society, she only slays those who have been convicted of killing humans. She needs a court order. Unfortunately for her, she gets blackmailed by the local head vamp into investigating a series of extra-judicial vampire slayings which has hit St. Louis. Over the course of this job, she hooks up with Jean-Paul, a super-sexy master vampire who owns and operates St. Louis' only vampire strip club. That should give you an idea of what level the book operates on. (Disclaimer: Anita thinks Jean-Paul is super-sexy. To me, he comes across as extremely sleazy and due for a good staking.)
While I'm harshing on this book a lot, I actually enjoyed reading it. Great
literature it ain't, but it made for good airplane reading. (I read the
first half of the book on the flight from Philly to Chicago, and the second
half on the return flight.) I predict, however, that the series is going
in directions which will eventually annoy me a lot. (That is, an
over-super-powered protagonist and cheezy vampire stuff.)
The Laughing Corpse, Laurell K. Hamilton (304 pp, MMPB, 1994)
In this one, Anita Blake is on the hunt for a killer zombie, and using all her wiles to keep away from a wealthy businessman who wants her to perform a human sacrifice for him. There's an Evil Voodoo Priestess(TM). Oh, and her vampire buddy from the previous book is getting on her case, pressuring her to become his "human servant." Yeah, he's a real prince, that Jean-Paul.
Anyway, this is written at a similar level to the first one, which is to say, low. Hamilton seems to have an unfortunate tendency to repeat herself. She uses similar phrasing to describe similar scenes in both books. It's the sort of thing that probably wouldn't be noticeable if I hadn't read one book right after the other.
The prediction on cheezy vampire stuff seems to be bearing out (too much "I'm too sexy for this book" hoo-hah from sleazy Jean-Paul), as is the super-power prediction (in book 1, she got super-healing from her vampire buddy, in book 2 she discovers her powers of control over undead are way more powerful than previously imagined). I think I'll not read the next book right away. Also, I am glad I did not spend money on these books!