Anite Blake novels (spoilers)

[rakkoon]

Hey,

I enjoyed reading the Anita Blake series of Laurell Hamilton up until Obsidian Butterfly I think, then the explicit eroticism took over and in Incubus Dreams only 30% was story and 70% was intercourse.
Has anybody read the rest of the series? I'm wondering if this trend will stay or if there is a return to more story telling

Rakkoon

[Phaedra]

Naw, 'fraid it pretty much stays soft porn. I think I counted a whole five pages before Anita had sex in the most recent one I read, Blood Noir.

It's a pity really, Hamilton could write a pretty good plot in the beginning. That said, I still keep buying the books...

[rakkoon]

Ah, thanks.
The sexual tension was what made the series great (that and power struggles). It just seems less exciting since now she actually HAS intercourse and half of the city population joins in. Ah well. Perhaps I'll buy one later since Trouble and Strife looked pretty interesting. Or I'll reread the old ones.

[Pronounceable]

Yes, it's a great shame she drowned in porn. First few were made of vampire awesome.

I tried reading more by skipping porn parts but that got old quick.

[comicshorse]

I read up to 'Obsidian Butterfly' ( which is still my favourite of the books) and had hope as this seemed to reverse the trend of Anita being all powerful and everybody wanting to have sex with her and her agreeing.
Then a friend lent me 'Inncubus Dreams' and I was disapointed again. Several hundred pages of Anita having sex with everything that moves. It was made worse if anything by an electrifying ending when a SWAT team assault a vampire nest. This is everything the books should be, tense, exciting and genuinely frightening. Proof the author can still write great fiction but simply prefers to write porn.
Haven't bothered reading another of the books since

[rakkoon]

Yep, that's the one that cured me of my Anita fever too.

[RabbitHoleLost]

Actually, the most recent was Skin Trade, released earlier this year.
Which is the only one I haven't read.

I have to say, I agree with you all, though The Harlequin had made me hope that, maybe, perhaps, Hamilton was returning the series back to its mystery-like roots.
I don't think I would have had such an issue with the insane amounts of smut, had Anita kept up, you know, her job. I don't think she's actually set foot inside her office in the past four books.
Or raised undead.
Or, you know, anything but sex.

Edit: Plus, my two favorite characters always get the shaft. Poor Damian and Requiem :smallfrown:

[Foeofthelance]

Actually, just got done with Skin Trade. While there was a lot of sexual tension involved, it was more on a creepy level than anything else. This one was much more murder mystery for the first 3/4s of the book, with the only sex scenes being a minor tidbit to feed the arduer and one off camera scene forced by the bad guys. It might have helped that the book was set in Vegas, and so the entire New Orleans cast got left behind, leaving it to Anita, Tedward, and Otto as the revolving characters. Fans of the first few books should be able to enjoy.

[rakkoon]

Hmm, sounds promising

[Cyrion]

I thought Harlequin was quite good after the previous few had really dragged. I haven't read the ones after Harlequin.

If you want something written with the same kind of attitude but less of the sex, you might enjoy Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series. Has a bad-ass heroine who can control the weather and gets into all kinds of trouble with demons and djinn.

[The Extinguisher]

I actually prefer the Meredith Gentry series myself. Because as much as it's still full of the same badly written porn, at least it's in character and makes sense.

[rakkoon]

Thanks Cyrion, I'll look into that

[GallóglachMaxim]

I stopped reading when the gratuitous sex and author-avatarishness got too over the top, but the people I know who kept reading the series say that she seems to have fixed it a little in the last couple.