Also, I want to do a shout out for my little brother. He's got me doing the artwork for the Sleeping Samurai's t shirts. They are having a get-together sometime next weekend in Houston, I think, and there is much to love if you are a swordwork kind of person. I think. IDK my knowledge of swords begins and ends with "Pointy end goes in the other guy." Anyhoo, I think what they are doing is tres cool and I'd like to share.
Ok. Shitty book time.
We get a long paragraph about how Jean Claude has Better Homes and Gardened his bedroom. There are gauzy hangings and gold and white tapestries, and I have to say you must have your head stuck firmly up your ass to drape your cave in gold and silver fabric. Also, JC has still not figured out how stupid thigh-high leather boots are, especially when paired with leather pants. I am sorry, Jean Claude, but you are still not Jareth the Goblin King.
His face was as always flawless, breathtaking. It was, as always, like some wet dream come to life, too beautiful to be real, too sensuous to be safe.Yeah, but I bet dildos are still cheaper.
And then we get a recap on the ardeur.
For those of you just tuning in, the ardeur is Anita Blake's sex vampirism. It now has a time clock. Anita must "feed" via sex every twelve hours, or she literally jumps the nearest penis. And she didn't bother feeding tonight because Plot. Seriously, if you work nights and you have multiple live-in lovers, wouldn't you make sure you ate before you went to the job?
(Serious question, given that I've spent the last month living in Bryan Landry's head. If you know you have to feed off the breakable-yet-important people in your life, a responsible person feeds off the breakables when they are safe and near some form of medical attention and/or food and comfort. It is part of choosing to live with yourself when you become a blood sucker. Unless you're a naturally bad person, in which case you need to stop being the protagonist of the books)
*sighs*
also, and I tried to avoid bringing this up, given that I have ten fucking days to edit and proofread Overseer's Own before it drops...but fuck me, LKH needs real editing.
Unfortunately, we had big bad vampires in the next room, and I didn’t think they’d wait while we had hot monkey sex. Call it a hunch, but I suspected Musette would be sympathetic.I am willing to bet book royalty money there is a word missing in that sentence. And I don't have much of that to spare. Also...I am tired of the phrase "as if". The current permutation is, "as if rain could have a flavor." Rain does have a flavor. It's that smell. Seriously, "as if" is one of those filter words that acutally means the writer is scared to commit to something. Seemed is another one. Revise accordingly,
We repeat yet again: Damian is Anita's vampire servant/slave. Which we covered last chapter. I'd say SKIM, but then we find out the true temper of Anita's character:
How did I know what would happen if I denied Damian? Because I hadn’t known he was my vampire servant for the first six months after it had happened. He had gone mad, and he had slaughtered innocents.
NO. If you are a good person, and somebody is killing innocent people? Your role in this becomes immateral. You make the bad person go away permanently, and then you deal with your own guilt. KILLING INNOCENTS IS NOT A GOOD THING AND IT SHOULD NOT BE TREATED AS A CASUAL ASIDE.
LKH is so fucked up, Yo.
Something happens involving Damian, but it's not too clear what it is. All I know is, it stuns both Anita and Jean Claude.
The chapter ends with Anita being led in on both Jean Claude and Damian's arms, and Anita complaining that she can't reach for her gun.
Fun Fact: This book was actually the first LKH/Anita book I ever read. Didn't like it and couldn't understand how it gotten published. Read next book in series, even worse, and next book after that. My mind would continuously be blown by how LKH would try as hard as possible to out-bad the last book with awful sex and that terrible, clunky dialogue.
ReplyDeleteThen I read the early Anita books and I just...the dramatic shift between early Anita and later Sex-Monster Anita is just amazing. I almost convinced that someone else wrote those early books. I can't understand how a writer could write something like those early books then completely switch gears within the space of two books (Obsidian Butterfly and this one...really, this is the one where everything changes).
I remember that Obsidian Butterfly was very different from the rest of the series, but the quality was still there. (read as: her editors still, you know, edited). I was just happy with the book because we didn't have the plot be dominated by Anita's stupidity re: Jean Claude and Richard, and watching Edward be a family guy was...weird fun. SCARY weird fun.
DeleteSo yeah, I'd say that was where the tone shift was, but Narcissus in Chains was definately where the quality got thrown out the window.
hey there, I'd like to nominate you for the Liebster Blog Award! It's basically a nifty way to increase traffic. See directions here on what to do if you accept =D
ReplyDeletehttp://a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com/18288.html
...Sure thing, that sounds like fun. :D I love stuff like that.
DeleteAwesome! I'll add you, and you can just get around to the questions whenever!
DeleteCongrats, you're the first!
I never did get the hang of how Jean-Claude's home was supposed to be sophisticated and tasteful. The descriptions sound like he has Liberace come around to decorate.
ReplyDeleteIt's taught me that if I want to say a place looks sophisticated and tasteful, I'll just write "sophisticated and tasteful" and let the reader picture their definition, rather than trusting mine will match theirs. Ditto for descriptions of clothing.
Delete