Seduced by Moonlight--chapter 31

So now we go into LKH's hastily planned ending, in which she finally begins, you know, actually writing story.

Sort of.

Andais, Merry and the assorted men (that sounds like it should be a candy box) go into the hallway and find the pool of water that Merry restarted through symbolic sex. And she pouts because this means she wasn't powerful enough, or good enough, or whatever, to bring the magic back to life. Because it's not good enough to be magic, you have to be the ultimate magic.

Andais reveals that one of Merry's new guards got between Merry and Andais in the last chapter...which I thought was a guard's job, but we're in the lair of bloody psycopaths, so we can't expect much.

I would like for Andais to pout without the slut shaming, though:

The gentle look left her face as she turned to me. “You must truly be a wondrous piece of ass. One quick fuck and he risks his life for yours.”

She didn’t look pleased. “As I said, you must fuck like a courtesan. Bloody fertility goddesses, always think they’re so wonderful.”

One: Merry is not a fertility goddess. Two: WHO CARES?!?

Merry works out that, because Andais promised anyone Merry slept with was hers, Andais is now forsworn for hacking on them all and Merry can do some very major shit to her if she wants to. Merry doesn't want to because Merry doesn't really want anything, so she promises Andais there won't be any reprisals for the forswearing part if she doesn't slaughter her own guards for not protecting her from Merry. The fact that Merry isn't gonna be punished for attacking her own queen is rather flabbergasting to me. It isn't even brought up. 

 Instead, Andais and the guards play dressup for a few pages. Then she pulls out her big heavy sword, lets Merry know that she knows her son did this, and then does absolutely nothing about it. Instead, they're going to kill the (female) guard who drugged her wine. Men are precious. Women are disposable.

I hate this book.

She looked at me, and something passed through her tri-grey eyes with their rings of black that left each grey darker and richer because of it, as if she had used eyeliner on her own irises.

Probably that eye-burning mascara from Chronicles of Riddick. Which...would fit these people pretty damn well.

Merry talks the Queen into killing whomever her assassin might be--sworn under oath, actually--and then suggests the Queen call the Sluagh to protect her from her own court. Which is a really good move. Almost like LKH suddenly remembered she promised political intrigue and is yet to deliver.

She then tells the Queen to bring the Goblins in, and explains her deal. Every goblin-sidhe cross she brings into power, she gets another month out of the Goblins. Andais's response is...predictable.

“Will you fuck them all?” It was said with no offense, as if it was the only way she knew how to ask the question.

Now we go over--and over, and over--who Merry's champions are. Doyle and Frost. There's an almost-interesting moment between Merry, the Queen and Kitto.

The Queen asks how she can be so sure of Kurag's cooperation, and Merry points out that she's covered in blood and the Goblin King will probably lick her clean.

And that is the end of the chapter.

Harlequin--chapter 16

Yes. I cheated and put this off. Because it's every bit as horrible as you think it's going to be.

It's a sex scene between Anita and Richard. Or rather, half of it is sex. The other half is just stupid.

It opens with Anita licking water off Richard's penis, and I have to say this is the biggest bathtub I've ever heard of.

I licked and drank the water until his body lengthened and hardened.

So Richard's entire body turns into a seven foot cucumber? Gotcha. (LAUREL. SAY. PENIS.)

He put two fingers inside me, and he actually closed his eyes, concentrating, searching, until he found that spot, no bigger than a fifty-cent piece, that spot just inside and to the front of the opening.

Oh for FUCK'S SAKE. One: It's a vagina. Not an opening. And it's the G-Spot, not "That spot". You are a FIFTY YEAR OLD SEXUALLY ACTIVE WOMAN. USE YOUR FUCKING WORDS. (Hey, that's a double entendre...) Two: If the G-spot is as big as a fifty-cent piece inside the vagina it shouldn't be hard to find.

“You’re wet,” he said, in a voice that was a little strangled with need.

SHE WAS IN THE BATHTUB NUMBNUTS. OF COURSE SHE'S WET.

And then they have a scramble for a condom because it's not like they were totally planning sex for the last half hour or anything. However, Laurell gets an e-cookie for remembering that promoting safe sex is important. Now if she could just find her way to "Safe, Sane and Consentual" we'd be in great shape.

Condoms lived in the bathrooms and bedrooms of any place I was alone with the men.

The whole "Inanimate object lived" thing works when you're being cutesy. Now is not the time. Here it just sounds like the condom is mouth-breathing in the corner every time Jean Claude or Asher take a dump.

Richard begs Anita to feed on him.

I am going to pretend VERY HARD that Richard has managed to turn a major trigger issue into a turn-on, because the alternative is too fucking creepy for me to go. Seriously, this whole "Rape victim has sex with their abuser" is creeping me the fuck out. It's consensual this time, but it's still REALLY creepy.

The end of him found the end of me, so that each stroke hit as far into my body as it could, and still he came in and in, so hard, so fast, he was almost a blur in the mirrors.

So basically Richard is jackhammering her cervix so fast she can't track his movements. Oh, and she repeats that "blur in the mirrors" part once more when Richard starts going faster.

I fed on Richard’s energy, fed on the part of him that was wolf, and human. I fed on all of him, took in every last delicious inch of his power, as I took in every last delicious inch of his body. When he let himself go like this, he gave so much energy.

Please GOD tell me they remembered to protect the St. Louis pack. PLEASE tell me that Richard, at least, had the presence of mind to shield that connection off. Otherwise Anita just raped 800+ people in the city of St. Louis.

And of course, after the sex Anita is badly damaged from Richard's ramming speed. Oh, she's experianced this with Micah, so it's alright, but unlike all of the Micah/Anita sex scenes this one happens on screen instead of off. Because we want to see EXACTLY how much Richard has hurt Anita through consensual sex.

“It isn’t hurt the way you say it, Richard. I’m not hurt, I hurt; it’s not the same thing.”

The FUCK?

So Richard goes all "I hurt you and enjoyed it" and Anita is all "Yeah, but I didn't mind so it's okay" and this repeats while we get exceptional descriptions of Anita's severe post-sex cramps.

“I didn’t know if you could take this, Anita. I didn’t know if I would break you. The thought that I might fuck you until I pushed my way into parts of your body that should never be touched, excited me.

So Richard was trying to literally impale Anita on his dick. Gotcha.

Anita, of course, has a steller reply.

“I’m not sure it’s sick at all. You didn’t do it. You just thought about it.

He didn't just think about it, Anita. HE ACTUALLY TRIED TO DO IT. He didn't rip you apart with his teeth but he did just admit to trying to hurt you. And for the record, there are certain fantasies that aren't safe. Rape fantasies with yourself as the rapist, for example. It's a gray area, but you become the parts of yourself that you feed. There's a REASON certain kinds of porn are banned, and why the rape e-books got yanked from Amazon and Kobo last year. Saying "You only think about it so that's okay" is UTTER FECKING NONSENSE.

Richard realizes that Anita's cramping is getting more severe, so he gets up to get a doctor. Anita protests that she's fine, she just needs a little more recovery time.

I don't think you're supposed to have heavy bleeding and cramps after good sex.

Richard then realizes that Anita is really experianced because of Micah and he throws a little hissy fit that Anita's feild has been plowed by everyone except him, and he doesn't get any firsts.

And then they start talking about Rania, and how Anita could summon Rania to make her cramps better.

Rania is probably my series kryponite. I dislike what Richard's evolved into (a pretty effective plot bullet) but I HATE Rania. She worked as a villian. She is HORRIBLE as a protagonist tool and--

Raina’s ability to heal was something I had retained. It had been one of the reasons that Richard had made her munin, instead of leaving her body to rot.

I do NOT remember it being like that. I remember that Rania became Munin because that's what happened. I do NOT remember Richard deciding to keep a SEXUAL SADIST MURDERER on as magic. And given that Rania was also his rapist and he hated her 100% of the time, I can't imagine him electing to do that EVER.

...you know, I think Richard probably needs to take a good, long look at his choice in women because I'm detecting a pattern here.

Richard explains that Rania was his first, so she broke him in on causing rough, awful pain and that's why he likes to fuck Anita until she bleeds.

The chapter kind of winds down with Richard and Anita talking about what Rania did to him and then him wandering off to take a shower.  End of chapter.

Eternal Prey--Chapter two

Business updates first, boys and girls: I'm about halfway done with my edits for Part 2 of Dragon Breath. And when that's done we'll send it off to the editor. Which means that the Indiegogo thing is really important. Please, if you have not donated, and you want to support the book, PLEASE go support it. 

 If you have already donated, you are awesome and I love you.

Oh GAWD Guys how could I have forgotten about this book. Oh my God.

Yeah, it's kind of hard to top the baptism by fire-crazy that is the first chapter, and the second is not nearly as nuts. Oh, don't worry. It gets crazier. Like I said: EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS BOOK IS WONDERFUL.

So, where were we?
Right. Fin has just told the Eleven--who are ten men because one of them has died--plus Lia about their baddie from a few hours ago being Zero and not Seven.

These names are never not going to be fun.

Utah points out that Zero attacked him because he wanted to draw out Fin, and not because he wanted to kill Zero. Okay. Zero says call next time, and Utah says no. Zero says that the Eleven are not expendable--DUDE, they come with a freaking save point. Yes they fucking are--and it is Lia of all people who says that Zero is right, he really needs the Eleven.

While I am glad that Lia has a spine, HOW WOULD SHE KNOW THIS? Far as I know her FULL EXPERIANCE with these dudes are being rescued from a museum and watching Zero blow up Utah's car. But of course everyone agrees with Lia's sudden revelation of wisdom. Apparently she's the modern day Julian of Norwich.

Utah checks out Lia's legs. Which he can't think about, because eventually Lia will become a vampire and then he'll have to kill her.

This repeats itself frequently in every chapter.

Fin asks if there are any leads on Seven. He asks if there's any weird activity. He's answered by a guy named Q.

I'd be imagining John De Lancie in this role if there weren't a much better role for him later on in the book.

Fin says that Zero and Seven are recruiting from the paranormal population for Reasons. He singles out Lia because she leads vampires. Lia points out that the leader of the Portland vampires--she's from Philly--is pissed because he's losing people.

His name is Adam. I do not know why this fills me with joy, but it does.

 They decide to bring in Jude, another vampire who has helped them before. Lia says that Adam will be pissed because "What's his is his". Okay. Whatever.

Utah points out that Adam needs a new enforcer for the vampires because he killed the last one, and offers himself as the new guy. I am absolutely positive this will end badly.

Lia drives Utah back to his apartment. They have a long conversation about why not just kill the Immortals--because they are immortal, duh. They can't be killed--and about how it feels to be a dinosaur in modern day Earth. Apparently it's hard:

“You have to understand pack. It might seem a long time to you, but it’s only been a few months since Rap, Tor, and I hunted together. Fin saved all three of our souls and brought us here so we could once again walk the earth, hunting as one. Pack. Now one of us is gone. Without pack, something big and empty sits right here.” He fisted his hand against his chest. “I might look human, Lia, but my soul is animal. And my beast screams for revenge.”

Every time I try to wrap my mind around this concept I feel things go Sproing. And that is completely alright.

Also, apparently Utah and Tor are twins. And Rap is not. And they have no idea how Fin arranged this. Okay.

Lia reveals that her mother was awful terrible awful and that Lia wants to be different once she's a vampire. WHY SHE ISN'T ONE ALREADY is never properly explained. Lia is going to be, like, the vampire Renaissance or something. And none of this matters because apparently she and Utah live in the same building.

This is not mentioned once until Lia decides to go to the fifth floor. And guess who else lives on the fifth floor. Aww, it's a small world. Also, Utah has trouble with keys. Barbs are exchanged again, because we need to establish that they hate each other so the fucking will be part of character evolution and not, you know, just plain fucking.

Utah wakes her up in the middle of the...day, because it is now four PM and she had no problem sleeping.

I spent two years working night shifts. YOU HAVE TROUBLE SLEEPING. Lia thinks she'll need blackout curtains when she's a vamp. Uh, Lia? YOU NEED THEM RIGHT NOW.

She invites him to sit on her couch while she gets coffee. The obligatory romance-novel ass-checking begins. Utah is gorgeous. We already know how he feels about Lia's legs. NEXT!

Jude is coming to pick them up. Adam has accepted Utah's deal, and Lia can't take her car because Zero turned it into a metal pancake.

They go downstairs and spend a few minutes upping the sexual tension.

Utah made her nervous, but not in an I’m-scared-of-you way. He made her aware. Of all six-feet-plus of him filling the small space. Of his hair with its shining strands tempting her to touch, to smooth, to feel. Of those predator’s eyes softened by ridiculously long lashes. Of his mouth . .  . She did a mental head shake.

They get into the car and discover that Adam, who we haven't met yet, has pounded the everloving shit out of Jude, a character we ALSO haven't met yet. Utah gets pissy, but we've already established that Utah is a big plate of flaming asshole, so we shouldn't be too surprised. The conversation implies that Jude thinks Adam has gone power-mad and is about to Take Steps. Goody.

Utah says that when he's done working for Adam, he'll kill him for beating up Jude. Because Utah is a flaming asshole, that's why.

So they drive to an abandoned art gallery-style building, nod at imposing vampires and head down to the basement, where they meet Adam.

Hey, we haven't addressed gender issues in this book yet. Well...look, I said it had issues, right? Here they are:

Personally, he thought Lia was a lot sexier. He almost grinned. She’d hate that. All she wanted from him was respect for her fighting skills and almighty toughness. But the urge to grin died an inglorious death. She’d soon be vampire, and he never wanted to find a vampire tempting. All he wanted to do was kill them. Except for Jude. He was okay. He’d proven himself.

Like I said: Utah is a flaming plate of asshole. We also have the same "Tough Girls have to be Tougher Than Guys" bullshit we slogged through with Anita Blake. It's not as relentless, but oh my fucking GOD is it there.

We just also have a heavy helping of Bella Swan's "Change me into a vampire" stupidity to go along with it.

What does Adam look like?

Finally, they reached the light source. A vampire sat in a folding chair in the middle of the tunnel. Must be Adam. He was about Utah’s height, with black hair and weird-looking gold eyes.

...Yeah. We've gone from LKH's pages and pages and pages about clothes and colors to "He had black hair and weird eyes. NEXT!" Yeah. That's it. 

Adam and Utah start posturing.  Adam mentions that there will be a "new partner" that Utah will be working with. Everyone is all like "WHA?" and Lia asks "So why are we down in the tunnels" and Adam says "Because we need to summon your new partner!"

And I am totally going to make you wait until tomorrow because, like I said, the crazy? It gets better.

The Wolf Gift--chapter four

So editing on the fourth Starbleached installment is going well. Due to this being summer and work going OMFG THE BRITISH TOURISTS ARE COMING THE BRITISH TOURISTS ARE COMING I think I'm doing rather well getting things done. This summer is basically going to be Work Till I Drop on all fronts, and I really hope I can pull it all off.

So. On to the Wolf Gift.

So I actually think that RF had a good point the other day. Maybe Rice is building Ruben up for a great disasterous fall from grace. Maybe this story will be about an obnoxious little shit redeeming himself from being an obnoxious little shit. I still have that hope, but...well...

“They will not tell me what happened!” he roared at his mother, who at once demanded that the police come and give him the answers he was entitled to have.

It's shrinking. Fast.

Yeah, the police have Ruben handcuffed to the gurney.  Marchant's death is handled offscreen with an infodump via Ruben's girlfriend. Yes. The girlfriend he cheated on is the person his family goes to for info on what, exactly, happened in the World's Perfect Mansion.

Ruben needs to officially die in a fire.

But he could still get better. Wikus van de Merwe was an unlikable piece of shit throughout most of District 9 and that made his heel-face turn fucking awesome. Let's hold out hope, my friends. Let us hold out hope.

So when he finally wakes up for good, a cop asks him if he had sex with Marchant. He says yes, and submits to a DNA test because he knew his semen would come up in autopsy. He didn't remember making a 911 call but said call was made via his phone, and somebody muttered "murder, murder" into the phone, so he must have made a 911 call. And I hope you like that summery, because that's about the same delivery, sans Rice's graceful, pretentious prose.

And of course his beautiful girlfriend Celeste is right there by his side, and she hasn't brought up his infidelity yet.

I want ring side seating when that conversation goes down.

So. Now we're going to get the unavoidable "Ruben Is Suspected Of Killing Marchant" subplot, wherein he is innocent and must prove his innocence, and cannot because somebody is pulling strings behind the scene, and so a'la Richard Kimball must go on a long escapade involving werewolf safehouses and--

Twenty-four hours later, when he was moved to a private room, Celeste brought the news that the killers had been Marchent’s younger brothers. She was powerfully energized by the perfectly outrageous story.

Are. You. Shitting. Me.

GOD DAMN IT ANNE! This was a subplot that would at least justify the superhero plot I can see coming from three miles away AND YOU ARE THROWING IT AWAY BECAUSE YOU CANNOT STAND THE TENSION OF RUBEN BEING IN TROUBLE.

Look. I hate that subplot. I hate it with passion and fire and loathing beyond belief. I hate it in every movie I see it in. Mostly because I cannot stand that kind of tension at all. But from a writer's pov? BRING IT. THE FUCK. ON. Yes. It's cliche. Un-cliche it somehow. You're a writer. You can do it.

But no. We toss the only source of tension that exists in this book so far. We've gone from flatlined real-estate plot to SUDDEN! RANDOM! ATTACK! to "oh, her brothers did it, you're off the hook. Natch."

Also? Nobody gives a shit about the random animal that killed Marchant's brothers and bit Ruben on the face. Because it's just a random man-eating mountain lion/other LARGE predator that just randomly walked into a human residence and ate two people. 

Yes. They were bad people. It still ate them. 

Ruben wonders why the beast left him alive... And then Ruben's mom, the world class doctor, says this.

“If it was rabid, it was behaving erratically,”

Uh...yeah. I'm sorry. If I were a doctor and my child had been bitten by a kitten in an area known for rabies, my child would be getting the prophylaxis treatments long before this conversation even began. Because, as Ms. Rice is so kind to point out:

Rabies was almost uniformly fatal once the symptoms presented. There was no choice but to treat for rabies at once.

Except you waited a couple days to start giving him the treatment. Gee, Ruben's Mom, that was real careful of you.

Ruben now has survivors guilt for outliving Marchant. This is a perfectly reasonable reaction, and I can't critize it.

...UNLESS this is "OH, HOW I LOVED MARCHANT" in which case Ms. Rice needs to tone the melodrama down a little bit.

And then...uh...

More medication. More painkillers. More antibiotics. Reuben lost track of the days.

That's probably the laziest. transistion of time. EVER. I mean...couldn't we at least have had some kind of scene and/or chapter break? That reads like thirty seconds pass, not days. We either need more text, or we need a handful of short, choppy scene breaks.

Or, you know, we skip to the part where Ruben gets out of the hosptial and things actually start happening to him again.

And of course Ruben hears his mom talking about how much her son is -GASP!- changing behind their back. Because in a werewolf book we need to go through that whole "period between bite and first full moon" in a handful of quickly summerized paragraphs. That's absolutely the best way to handle it. Too bad we wasted the first two chapters on Ruben's relationship with a dead woman, because all those words would be really useful here.

And OF COURSE he's the hottest patient on the ward, and OF COURSE we need to know this.

This is how ALL The plot-related threads have been handled so far in this chapter:

Speculation about the mysterious animal continued. Couldn’t Reuben remember anything else, asked his editor Billie Kale, the feminine genius behind the San Francisco Observer. She stood beside his bed.

 “Honestly, no,” Reuben said, pushing hard against the drugs to look and sound alert.

Couldn't you give another character a couple lines of dialogue?

Oh, right. "Honestly, no."

Well, the reporters DID break the news about Ruben's infidelity to Celeste. And now they're going to fight about it, rig--oh, who the fuck am I kidding. It's handwaved away too:

“It’s not that bad,” she said. “Well, just forget that part.” She comforted him, as if he was the one who’d been wronged.

Ruben is obviously the only person in this book with feels. Let us accept this and move on.

Oh, but it gets worse. OH MY GOD. IT GETS WORSE. See, one week after the killing Ruben finds out that Marchant willed the house to him. 

She’d done this about an hour before she died, speaking with her San Francisco lawyers about it by phone, and faxing several signed documents to them, one of which had been witnessed by Felice, confirming her verbal instructions that the house should go to Reuben Golding, and that she would bear the full cost of gift taxes on the transfer, which would leave Reuben in possession free and clear. She’d arranged for twelve months’ prepaid taxes and insurance.

Here is the timeline for the story so far:

-Marchant meets Ruben
-Marchant gives Ruben the World's Longest Tour of the World's Perfect Mansion.
-Ruben elects to buy the house.
-NOT KNOWING THAT SHE IS ABOUT TO DIE IN (I SHIT YOU NOT) SEVEN MINUTES Marchant calls her lawyer and alters her will to leave the house she wants to sell to a kid who wants to buy it.
-SEVEN MINUTES LATER MARCHANT DIES.

Thank GOD she did that, because otherwise the World's Perfect Mansion would be all tied up in probate court and Ruben would have to live in some lesser dwelling unfit for his godly manly manwolfy-ness.

And no. The cops don't suspect a thing, because "Everyone knows" you can't bite yourself on the face with a werewolf. EVERYTHING SOLVED!

And then Ruben starts halucinating in the hospital. Okay, everybody knows his hearing just got dialed up to werewolf, but still...this is so...uh, not riviting.

And then Celeste emphasizes again that she doesn't care about him sleeping with a strange woman less than an hour before she died. Oh, but she does this wearing the ruby bracelet he gave her. Okay. That explains it.

Oh, and, uh...Ms. Rice? You know how you went on and on and ON AND ON about how you don't need an editor?

That woods was his now.

I'm leaving that there. You know. For now.

So Mom is freaking about about Ruben being better and how the hosptial keeps losing his test results. I guess because there isn't a check mark for "Werewolf." You know, Jacob's transition in New Moon wasn't this fucking bland or clueless, and that was from the girl's perspective.

Seriously. Nobody reading this book believes that Ruben has rabies. Rice is famous for writing vampires, this book was waved around as a return to form, and it's got a wolf on the cover. There is only one possible solution. 

 And then Ruben goes home to write, and we get Anne Rice's idea of what writing should be like. In which you apparently write for five hours and then e-mail your boss the first draft. So in other words, from her POV it's completely accurate. Oh, but he wants his boss to "cut where she needs to". Because editors totally do that.

Yeah. Writer-readers? If your editor cuts shit out of your book, as opposed to redlining it and letting you do it? Find another editor. 

 And then Ruben makes an offer on the contents of the house, so that he can keep all the nicnacks and fancy papers. And his lawyer tries to talk him out of it. But he won't be talked out of it. And then this happens:

Not like me to talk like that, is it, he thought. But he hadn’t been rude, really, just eager to advance the plot.

EVEN THE MAIN CHARACTER THINKS THIS BOOK IS FREAKING SLOW.

And then--I guess because Marchant's lawyers were all like "Okay sure" instead of "We don't know what you're talking about" Ruben sneaks out of his house, runs along the beach, walks into a random bar, orders a coke, and attempts to pick a fight with the ugliest guy there. Who shrugs and leaves in a "What's your problem, meth-head" kind of way.

Ruben follows

...Yeah. Anne? Stan Lee called. He'd like Spiderman's origin story back now, thanks.

So he beats the snot out of the thug, for some reason, and then goes back home. Mom is freaking out because he was gone, he's freaking out a little tiny bit (VERY little) because he beat the snot out of Random Dude and OH YEAH HIS HANDS ARE NOW TOO BIG.

He has a conversation with his brother the Catholic Priest (OH GOD I FORGOT ANNE RICE HAS RELIGION NOW) (I don't mind religious books. I love religious books. I hate religious books where the religion got shoehorned in and left there by mistake) and drops heavy hints that he's developed the ability to sense evil just by looking at bad people.

...right. And in the real world, we call that a psychotic break.

This chapter is never going to fucking end.

So Ruben has flashbacks to the murder--this is, again, perfectly normal, understandable, and borderline good writing--and then we fastforward to when Ruben's lawyer and Marchant's people decide to sell Ruben all the house's contents. That was quick.

His family discusses how much he's changed .His family discusses how he should sell the house. Pretensious conversations about evil happen. Again--heavy hints that Ruben can now sense evil by looking at it.

The chapter finally ends with Ruben freaking out his girlfriend by being confident, and with his nurse giving him his last rabies shot.

Well...maybe he'll be actively cool as a werewolf?

CERULIAN SINS--Chapter 2-3

Well, fuck. Vertigo came back this evening. Not a good sign. Google fu still turns up a consistant result of YOU ARE NOT EATING RIGHT IDIOT EAT MORE MAGNESIUM THINGS which is basically all the things in sushi+edamame. So hopefully I can avoid the "are straight lines supposed to be this hard?" stage of vertigo. Right now we're still at the "gee I feel like the floor is moving, maybe" stage.

What I don't want is for this to be a lifetime stress reaction thing. Because I get a lot of stress and yeah, I don't eat right. At least not when it's American food. I crave food from other countries more than I do stuff from the states. Probably because it hasn't been processed through six different kinds of machine before they put it in the microwave packet.

(...did you know they make nukable edamame? They do. That was the happiest part of last week)

Right. Book review. Yeah, don't get me started talking about food. I love food.


Chapter two opens with a cematery where one is not allowed to plant flowers.

Okay. That would be the deal breaker for me. Actually the deal breaker is "Cemetery" because I want to be cremated and turned into something you can drop onto a distressed coral reef, because reefs are the awesomest thing on the planet and I'd kind of like my final memorial to be the entire Gulf of Mexico.

Anita rants about how unfeeling this is, and I kind of like it too. The whole point of a cemetery is not to make the dead person feel good. It is to make the still living feel better. (...while in scuba gear and watching out for anemones.) We then find out that the reason why we are here has nothing whatsoever to do with the preceeding chapter. Anita has to raise a dead person because his insurance wants to make sure that he died in an accident and didn't suicide.

...And this is why I actually wanted to read this series in the first place.

But...uh, the fail kicks in real fast.

There were three groups of cars in the cemetery. Two of the groups were at least fifty feet apart because both Mrs. Bennington and Fidelis’s head lawyer, Arthur Conroy, had restraining orders against each other.

HOW NASTY DID THIS FIGHT GET? Seriously, there is this implied aura of crazy there that I just don't understand. You don't get restraining orders because of nasty things said in court. Restraining orders are obtained once you are shot at and/or discover the person pissing enthusiastically on your geraniums.

Anyhoo, we meet Insurance Lawyers and get a rant about how nasty insurance companies are. I am sensing a lot of OOC hate for insurance people. Anita then interacts with Insurance Lawyer bodyguards, because we need to establish muscle/cannon fodder and indicate who Anita will be having pissing contests with today.

And you know, I went over that "implied aura of crazy" paragraph three times to remove any implication that LKH had the woman as the source of the crazy, because I wanted to give her credit. Apparently, this is entirely undeserved:

• 
  

I heard raised voices, one of them a woman. Shit.

Yep. The wife of the dead due punched the lawyer, who "bitch slapped" (LKH's words. Not mine) her back, and it took baliffs to seperate them. Anita wanted her to be kept home because the woman couldn't be kept under control.

And then LKH mananges to piss me off on every single level.

I called her Mrs. Bennington at her insistence. When I’d referred to her as Ms. Bennington, she’d nearly bitten my head off. She was not one of your liberated women. She liked being a wife and mother. I was glad for her, it meant more freedom for the rest of us.

Fuck you. Seriously. Fuck you. You can't be a wife and mother AND be a liberated woman? You can't like a neat house without being June fucking Cleaver? And chaining a woman to matrimony allows more freedom for the rest of you? WHAT. THE ACTUAL. FUCK. ARE YOU THINKING. I read this less as "not a liberated woman" and more as "Woman whose fucking husband HAS DIED UNEXPECTEDLY AND HORRIBLY."

So Anita goes over and is nice to the cops while Mrs. Bennington accuses Anita of being on the insurance company's payroll and that she will force the dead man to lie. Except that the dead can't lie because Plot.

 Mrs. B goes over to scream at Anita. A cop blocks her. She assaults the cop. The cop makes several threats. This is all played as being unreasonable on her part. You don't believe me?

“Striking a police officer is considered a crime, Mrs. Bennington,” he said in that deep voice.

 Even by moonlight you could see the astonishment on her face, as if somehow she hadn’t quite realized any of the rules applied to her. The realization seemed to take a lot of the wind out of her. She settled back and let her cadre of dark-suited lawyers lead her a little away from the nice police officer. 

I was the only one close enough to hear him say, “If she’d been my wife, I’d have shot myself too.”

 I laughed, I couldn’t help it.

 Again: Played as if all the bad behavior was Mrs. Bennington's. Folks, Captive of Gor was more fucking respectful of women. Seriously. What did Femininity do to LKH?

Oh

Anita and the cop go over into a corner to continue shitting all over a woman whose husband has died. This includes calling her "that crazy bitch" and implying that she deserves to be left in the cold for being awful. Because somebody whose husband dies horribly and who is then subjected to a long and ugly legal battle reacting a little emotionally is far worse than implying that her husband killed himself because of her.

 In the end they conclude that Mrs. B will go ballistic if her hubby says he committed suicide and that it's a damn shame nobody will be allowed to shoot her when it happens.

Everybody in this book is officially terrible.

And then Anita and the cop start flirting. And the chapter ends.

Okay, fuck it. We're getting the damned Zombie out of the ground before I go to bed.

Anita gets her things out. For once she is actively practical about how she keeps her stuff around. It's in a duffel bag. Also, we have not been subjected to a clothes description yet. I hope I'm not speaking too soon. We also get a description of what Zombie Raising requires. There is a rosemary based ointment that Anita doesn't use anymore because she's raised without it. Anita only really needs steel, salt and blood to raise corpses.

And...oh, fuck. Yeah, she's cutting herself to get the blood. She used to use chickens but her Wiccan teacher didn't like that part. Uh...yeah. Let's just say that with my background, the combo of magic and self-harm squicks me out a bit. (part of why I branched out spiritually was to get the SI stuff under control.) It's not a trigger for me, but it's more like an uuhhhh...really? 

 Anyway, Anita has damaged herself so much that she's decided to go back to chickens. The cuts hurt and that slows her down while she's shooting.

Uh. Um...yeah. I...uh, do not think that slicing up your left arm every night would work that way. Nobody ever caught me limping is what I'm saying.

Anyhoo, Anita finds an unbandaged part of her body, makes it require eventual bandage application, and then walks the circle letting her hand drip blood on the ground. Magic things happen.  The zombie comes up and it is established that because Anita isn't killing things to make the Zombie come up, he's all dead and drippy looking. Anita lets him drink from her bleeding finger so that he will talk.

His wife is over in a corner having hysterics. Because, you know, us flighty females do that.

Mr. B quickly tells the assembled lawyers, legal people and whatnot that yes, he shot himself, but it was an awful accident because he's not dumb enough to commit suicide. The lawyers are pissed. Mr and Mrs. B share a last touching goodbye, in which Mr. B calls her "my little hell cat." Anita uncasts her magic circle, the lawyers argue, and then Asher shows up and apparently this is the signal for all the cops to lose their minds and bring out the guns.

End of chapter.

Caress of Twilight chapter 41

I want a moment of silence, folks. A moment to commemorate what might have been.

Merry and company have rushed to rescue Maeve Reed. The police are apparently everywhere because an emergency exists, only they can't figure out what the fuck is going on (HINT: MAGIC) and we get the most beautiful, exciting piece of information to come our way this entire book:

A woman in full police battle armor with SWAT written across it was standing behind a barrier of cars in a pentagram and circle that she’d drawn in chalk on the road. L.A. had been one of the first police departments to attach witches or magicians to all special units.

There is a witch. Attached to SWAT. For serious.

WERE THE FUCK WAS THIS BOOK? WHY ARE WE NOT READING THIS BOOK? I want this book. I want a book about SWAT witches RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Dead serious. Somebody with more police procedural knowledge than me: START WRITING RIGHT NOW AND SELF PUBLISH IF YOU HAVE TO. I WANT THIS BOOK.

Immediately we find out:

-Merry can sense the witch's spell, in that it makes the air hard to breathe
-Doyle hates cars
-Lucy rode with them
-Doyle really hates cars
-Doyle likes to connect with the earth and this looks like he is praying
-DOYLE REALLY HATES CARS.

We have a swat witch standing over to the left doing magic things and we are focusing on an elf that gets carsick.

WHY?

 And thank you GOD, Laurel has finally figured out how to summerize her fucking side-trips:

The other guards, including Sage, poured out of the van. At Doyle’s urging we had gone back to the apartment for some more blades. Lucy had been against it, until he pointed out that until the Nameless’s glamour was broken, bullets wouldn’t hurt it. He assured her that they had things at the apartment that would break its glamour if anything could.

 Lucy had decided it was worth a side trip. She had radioed ahead that without some magical aid, the police might not be able to see the thing, let alone shoot it.

If it were any earlier in the book, this would be an entire chapter. I mean, can you just see it? Doyle insists they go back to the apartment. Lucy says they can't go back to the apartment. Doyle says they must. Lucy says they can't. Merry somehow manages to turn this into a pissing contest involving feminism. Nicca can't find that package from Magical Blade of the Month Club. Galen starts making out with Merry because it helps her focus, and they find the missing swords in the couch cushions while he's preforming an in-depth exploratory mission of Uranis. The Magical Mirror-phone is ringing with invitations to the Grand Galloping Gala, which Merry can't attend because the invite came from Rarity and not Princess Mi'amore Cadenza. Kitto is over in the corner playing with his not-toys in his not-a-dog-bed.

--I'm now absolutely convinced this scene existed verbatum, but LKH's publishers said "Not even with Micah's dick."

And then there is more on the spell. Apparently the witch tried "something simple" and it didn't work, so she went to work on the chalk drawing and the air is full of vaguely defined magic of some sort that makes it hard to breathe. Is she suffocating the nameless or something? Fuck me, Silver Ravenwolf has better descriptions than this. DEFINE THE MAGIC, MERRY. DEFINE THE MAGIC.

The spell rolled out and hit its target. The air wavered like heat rolling off summer asphalt. Except this heat wavered up and up, towering over twenty feet into the air.

That's literally as much description as we get. The best human magic can do is that ripply shit you get at three PM in July.

Why are humans not dead?

And of course, the police start shooting at the thing because police never worry about hitting the unarmed civilians inside the house. And the bullets go right through, and Merry idally wonders where the rounds are going.

Hey, am I the only person who has watched Hot Fuzz? Anybody else remember the massive mountain of paperwork they had to do right before Crazywatch guy came in and set the deep water mine off? The SWAT team has a pet witch on payroll. DO NOT TELL ME THIS POLICE DEPARTMENT DOES NOT HAVE PAPERWORK TO MATCH. They probably have a maurading god form, a miffed demigod form, a magical accident form, a "this person clearly irritated God/Goddess" form. Every person here took one look at shimmery mindfuck here and thought "Let's see, I've got thirteen bullets. That's thirteen 'I shot at Cthuluhu' forms...Lovecraft forbid I actually hit anything with those, because that's the "act of God" form, the 'irritated deity' form, the 'insanity meter down twenty percent form," and so on and so on.

Doyle says they have to kill the nameless. But they can't kill the nameless because it is the nameless and they have to break its power. How do you break its power? By "wounding" it.

I am quite seriously imagining every single character in this scene as Angie McDowell's character from Hudson Hawk. "You must pay the rent" "But I can't pay the rent." The fact that I am movie and book hopping right now tells me my brain wants to be doing anything but this book right now. Le sigh.

Anyway, the only way to strip its magic is to wound it, and the only way to wound it is to get close with the Magical Blade of the month and draw blood.

From something that is a construct of all the powers the Faerie don't want.

HOW DOES THIS THING HAVE CORPOREAL FORM?

It's Korrok, isn't it? The Faerie summoned this dimension's version of Korrok. AND IT DOES FART.

...does this mean we can have David Wong and John instead of Merry and Co? And Molly? Seriously. Molly>Merry any day of the month. It is a dog that can drive a car. John will kill THIS version of Korrok with a magic enchilada after doing battle with a few dozen gorilla riding crabs and then spend the rest of the book explaining how we're all just figments of his cock's imagination.

(...fine, fine. /John Dies at the End references. Seriously, have you at least watched the movie yet?)

Anyway, the guys are literally comparing swords to figure out whose is the most magical and thus who is most capable of hurting the Nameless.


Yeah. If we're going to have pointless phallic imagry can we go back to the John Dies mashup? It was more entertaining.

And then more random Gaelic as we describe Doyle's swords. One of them apparently does to the brain what an opened ark of the covenant does to Nazi faces. The other one...

Okay, I would have breezed right on past this shit, but enough people highlighted it for it to be noted in the Kindle. Humanity thinks this is special: 

The daggers on his wrists were twins, formed together at one making. These legendary blades were thought to hit any target once thrown. Their nicknames at court had been Snick and Snack.

Please tell me this has mythological significance and it isn't just LKH trying to be cute.

And then we take a break from all of this for a moment in absurdity:

I had put a belt around the middle of the sundress and threaded a side holster through it to hold my own gun. It ruined the line of the dress, but if things went really wrong, I’d rather survive looking a little silly than die looking perfect.

Let me get this straight. You went back to your apartment to grab weapons and you didn't bother to get out of a dress first? BLUE JEANS. WHITE SHIRT. Come on, Merry. Yeah, you wouldn't look hot and sexy, but you wouldn't look silly and you wouldn't have to fuck with a skirt while you are being attacked by magical godzilla here. 

Well, at least it isn't Anita's "We have leg slits up to my belly button" dress from that date with Jean Claude.

(...yes. I did totally quote a Lana Del Ray song. Thanks for asking!)

We then get a litany of weaponry, armament and clothing that even informs us that Kitto has a sword.

Which is strapped to his Wile E. Coyote T-shirt.

We took time out from the action to make this very clear. The not-a-twelve-year-old Merry has been fucking is wearing a looney-tunes T-shirt.

HAVE I MENTIONED THAT I HATE THIS BOOK YET?

And then LKH actually stuns me.

See, Doyle runs off because he thinks he can kill the Nameless, and Frost runs off because Bromance, and Merry demands a kiss but if he touches her lips he will be "forever by her side" or some shit like that, and then:

Rhys swept me up into his arms while I was still too surprised to react. He kissed me, thoroughly and completely, and ended up wearing most of my red lipstick on his lips. He sat me back on my feet a little breathless. 

“You can’t steal my courage with a kiss, Merry. You don’t love me enough for that.” He ran after the other two before I could think of anything to say.

It's not perfection, but it's the closest we're going to get to good writing in this book. Seriously, it shows you so much about both their characters and their relationship. It's a little cheesy, but in a different book with better plotting and higher stakes (say, fewer boyfriends?) it'd be Bree and not cheddar, you know?

...yes, I am a romantic idiot. Why do you ask?

AND then Nicca points out that nobody has bothered to get Maeve Reed out of the house. 

YEP. This is treated as if it were an option the entire time. Lucy runs off to find a helicopter to get Maeve out fast, while Merry and Galen go blithely into battle. You know, because body guards will do that.

End of chapter.

Caress of twilight chapter 40

Plot pisses me off in any of Laurel K Hamilton's writing. 

Not because it is bad, mind you. No. It is because it is good. It is very good. I can see how all the points will connect, my dear loyal blog readers. I can see how a good writer would have woven things together had they been given this plot before the eleventh hour. And instead we get a facilitating plot contracted into less than ten chapters because the author can't be bothered to either outline or revise her fucking books.

Chapter 40 opens with everybody being amazed that Taranis is that crazy.

I am willing to cut LKH a lot of slack, but obvious plot thread is obvious. It is perfectly acceptable to have your MC roll with it and move on. Acting like it's a total surprise when your readership already gets it? Yeah, your MC just looks like an idiot.

(Note to writers: if being dense is a character flaw it is perfectly acceptable to do this. It shows the reader that density is a real thing)

What's really interesting is that Martyr of the Month Lucy Tate is apparently more on the up and up re:Fae than Merry is, because she immediately figures that Taranis wants Maeve Reed dead.

Also? This is the first time we find out that if a Fae fades, they are effectively doomed to wander the earth as a hungry life sucking ghost.

We are ignoring this plot to focus on Merry's fertility. Frankly, I think we're getting short shift.

And then we find out that Bucca kept his mouth shut until Merry brought her men around, and that having the men around was the only thing that motivated him to talk. Whatever the plot is, it revolves around Merry.

And then Bucca starts explaining how to talk the ghosts down, and...yeah, it's time to out myself.

It wasn’t a matter of magic words, more of magical intent and just knowing how to think it through.

In case my heavy-handed hints weren't enough, I consider myself to be a Christian Witch. It's nothing major, and the only reason I bring this up? Folks? THAT IS BULLSHIT. I read a lot on the subject FREQUENTLY. It does not work that way. Gods have rules, folks. Intent has a lot to do with it, but following those rules have even more to do with it, and I really doubt that Princess Merry is following any deity's rules other than her own.

(...yes. I am willing to answer questions)

ANYHOO. Bucca also reveals that Taranis is controlling the Nameless. Again: When your infodump is making more sense than your MC? It's time to rewrite the entire fucking plot.

Now. A normal protagonist would go "Deadly magic monster? In MY neighborhood? FUCK THAT SHIT" and go marauding with torches until the danger were ended. In this case we have to justify Merry saving one individual life, so Rhys says that the Nameless will go Godzilla over all of LA if they don't manage to stop it BEFORE it kills Maeve.

What is Merry's solution to Maruding killer magic monster?

“We’re going to go keep Maeve Reed alive. Maybe convince her that Europe would be good this time of year. Maybe just keep her moving ahead of it until we can figure out something else.”

WORST. HEROINE. EVER.

And then Merry has to borrow Lucy Tate's cell phone, and SOMEHOW Lucy Tate has Maeve Reed's personal phone number on hand in a notebook.

I want you to consume that for a minute. A RANDOM COP has a movie star's personal phone number IN HER POSESSION without any prior contact whatsoever. What the fuck, boys and girls?

Oh, but it gets so. much. better.

See, the Nameless attacked right when Merry calls Maeve Reed. 

  “Something’s here, something so psychically big I can’t even begin to sense all of it. It’s trying to get through the wards, and I think it’s going to do it.”

That's Julian talking. The chapter ends with Merry racing out to Maeve Reed's house to go save lives.

Yeah. If this isn't pulled out of someone's ass in the eleventh hour I'm a pumpkin.

Caress of Twilight--chapter 32

So. The next release is Starbleached pt 3, and as you can see by the countdown of dramatic awesome...I have confidence. Just started the first re-read and preliminary edit, and I can tell you this...FUCK is this one gonna be fun. If you like Starbleached, that is. :D As I've mentioned earlier, this is going to be Bryan's book, and I kind of heart Bryan more than I do any other character in the series because he is so much fun to work with. He's kind of like Eeyore crossed with a gatling gun.

Also...Smashwords is having a sale. Blue Ghosts is free, Gray Fox and Planet Bob are both half off. If you are interested in any of those books, I suggest you go buy them now. Sale ends on the 9th. 

I've spent the last several days researching Lightning Source as a printer. They are indeed the best option, but holy fuck are they going to be expensive. Not, boys and girls, because they charge money for services, but because they're not fucking around. I'm going to have to create my own company (...should be easy to make my make-believe "Christwriter Studios" thing into a reality-on-paper) so that I am technically a "real" publisher and not a self-publisher, purchase my own ISBN numbers (125 DOLLARS A POP. Unless I buy ten at a time, in which case the price goes down to 250 for the lot) make absolutely fucking sure the book is perfect, which will probably involve hiring a real proofreader and typesetter (...and editor, probably) and then pay their set-up fees, which are about eighty bucks when you figure storage fees into the equation.

And the reason why I need to make sure I have everything perfect? Reloading the file is a forty dollar service charge.

This is why vetting and doing your research BEFORE you sign any paper is important. It's worth the investment, but it's going to take a lot of work to get there. Six months, minimum, depending on how much of this I am willing to outsource.

And also? This is why, if you want a print book? Going the trade route is always going to be your best option. Let somebody else handle this shit.

...I have to read the book now, don't I?

Fuck.

So after melodramtically promising to protect a traumatized man from his abuser--without acknowledging that she is almost as bad as Andais--Merry Gentry gets another call on her mirror-phone.

I hate phones. I hate being interrupted. I hate having people call me, I think texting was invented by a junior demon attempting to impress his superiors. I spent most of my teenage years playing secretary for my father's business, and the stand-out moment was when one of his employees wives attempted suicide. 

I was seventeen.

That's why I hate phones.

So I kind of can commisurate with Merry here, given that a constantly ringing phone is roughly up there with menstral cramps in my book, but for fuck's sake, can't you find a way to disconnect the damn thing?

And it's Merry's mom.

It's kind of new. Merry's dad is damn near worshiped in this book. Merry's mom, on the other hand...hasn't really been mentioned. And hey, didn't Anita's mom get short shift over on the other series too? This might be the first time we've had an on-screen biological mom in LKH's career. Should be fun.

Merry decides she needs company for dealing with her mom.

I understand this completely. There are certain family members where the rule is, never be in the room with them alone. One of them is responsible for 75% of my cutting episodes. Yes. It's my choice to cut. It was their choice to be a

 Yeah. Anyhoo, Merry decides to talk to her mom with Galen and Doyle for company. They all arrange themselves on her bed.

*sigh*

If your mirror gets this much traffic, Merry? Do yourself a favor and get the fucking thing out of your bedroom. Seriously. You should not be having very important conversations on sheets that have seen more traffic than Grand Central Station.

And for once the evil chick of the hour is not a blond. In fact, I am about to give LKH praise, folks.

I know. Your hearts will begin beating again soon.

See, Merry's mom is part brownie. And so her oh-so-special Sidhe hair is a perfectly mundane shade of brown, her eyes are also a perfectly mundane shade of brown, and while she's really pretty, her skin isn't the sparkly magic specialness of the Sidhe. She's still sidhe, but she looks really, really human by their reckoning, and she hates every minute of it. She's covered herself in sidhe things to compensate for having normal-looking hair, eyes and skin.

This is how you introduce a character. I know exactly how Merry's mom feels about herself, about Merry, about the courts, and about life in general. I know she's going to be awful, I know she's going to be self-absorbed, and I am actively looking forward to watching Merry and her mom interact because I already have a pretty firm grasp on Mom's personality.

Unfortunately the physical description continues on for about two pages more than it needs to, and my enthusiasm for this confrontation dies with every extra paragraph. Yes, folks. Apparently one paragraph of "Show don't tell" per novel is all we're going to get from Ms. Hamilton.

Which is a shame. She's goddamned good at it when she can be arsed to try.

I’d never realized until this moment— as she sat there in her Seelie finery, and I stood in casual street clothes— that I was prettier than my mother.

This is how you torpedo a main character's ..well, character. Merry is ass deep in intrigue right now. She should not have the brains to one up her mother, let alone the vanity. When you are occupied by sixteen life threatening plots, you are not checking to see how big your mom's ass is, is all I'm saying.

Barbed words are exchanged, finally, and LKH is very careful to walk us through every nuance, because apparently she assumes her audience is twelve, and thus not capable of understanding the subtlties of dialogue. I would say that if her audience really was twelve they've got no business reading her books, but Kitto, and I think I was actually ten the first time I read one of her (early) books...and if you've read the Gap series at thirteen, which I did, you can't really police what anybody else is reading, either.

(...Jesus fucking Christ. The Gap series.)

And then Mommie Dearest brings up the Seelie Court Yuletide ball. Because Taranis does not want to be denied.

I think the honestly depressing thing about LKH's novels is how much bleeding potential there is. I know Taranis. I think I've worked for him a couple times. He's the kind of person who doesn't give a flying fuck about you until you tell him to get screwed, and then suddenly he has to have you. It's not because he actually needs you. It's because you told him no. It would be so easy to make any story arc involving him awesome, because he is legitimately dangerous. But LKH just never does anything with it. We've spent most of this book in this apartment talking about having sex.

Also. Dialogue:

She shifted in the small chair, as if I’d surprised her again. “Well, daughter, we should not let it be so long between talks.” 

“Of course not,” I said, and kept my face pleasant and unreadable. 

“I have heard that you are invited to this year’s Yule ball.” 

“Yes.” 

“I look forward to seeing you there, and renewing our acquaintance.”

 “I am surprised that you have not also heard that I had to decline the invitation.”

 “I had heard and find it hard to credit.”

David Eddings is one of my favorite writers. I do not admit this with pride. David Eddings has told one story exceptionally well...about nine times now. Seriously. The Belgariad is the Mallorean is the Eleniad is the Tamuli is Belgarath the Sorcerer is Polgara the Sorceress is The Redemption of Althalus is the Elder Gods series and if he decides to do yet another fantasy story?. IT WILL BE THE SAME FUCKING STORY. He uses the same formula, he uses the same timing, and Polgara is Serephrena is Aphrael (there's a twofer in that series) is Emmy is that Goddess chick from the Elder Gods whose name I can never remember because she had, like, ten.

And yet I love every book he's written. Because I know the characters. Even his newer books are like slipping on the worlds most comfortable pair of shoes. And the best part is how much of his dialogue he leaves to your imagination. There are scenes where he builds up to arguments between people (usually man and Love Interests, though I do like it when Pol and Belgarath fight the best) reaches the point where things spill over into screaming, and instead of writing fifteen pages of dialogue he writes "And things went rapidly downhill from there."

Is it lazy? Yep. Am I going to imagine a conversation fifteen times better than what he could come up with? Yep. (note to writers: this is when lazy contradicts itself.)

IS IT BETTER THAN MERRY'S CONVERSATION WITH HER MOTHER? HELL. FUCK. YES.

  I would rather read sixteen books of Garion/Sparhawk clones (...and I have) than I would endure Merry talking to her mother. If I want conversation this stiff I ask my dad and stepmom political questions (Yeah. My card-carrying member of the John Birch Society Dad married a woman so liberal she donates to PETA and the Hillary Clinton election fund. She takes her nephew's toy guns away and he accuses her of infringing on the kid's second amendment rights. I bring popcorn and watch. It's kind of great)

I also don't get why LKH has to rehash every political nuance every time her characters start talking. I love politics in books. If I were to build my own pantheon, the high gods would be Julian May, David Weber and C.S. Lewis. (Stephen R. Donaldson would rule the underworld. Because he wrote the Gap series) It takes effort to make me hate politics in books. I hate the politics in the Merry Gentry books. You're the heir. I get it. You're Unseelie. I get it. You have to get pregnant and everybody hates you. I GET IT. DO something about it.

I looked at her, so carefully beautiful, so stubbornly biased. “Are you saying it would be better to be the least of all the royals at the Seelie Court, instead of ruler of the Unseelie Court?” 

“Are you implying that it is better to rule in hell than be in heaven?”

....first off, the word is SERVE. Not "be". SERVE. I'd spot you the paraphrase if you hadn't used up all my goodwill having your main character fuck a not-twelve-year-old.

Second: If you are going to spend pages convincing us that the pagan way is SO MUCH BETTER and that Christians and Mundanes are idiots, you do not get to quote Christian literature whenever you feel like it.

And then we come to my biggest issue with the Merry Gentry books:

“I have spent my time in the shining court, and I know that my blood is just as red on shining gold-laced marble as it is on black.”

IDK how bad this is in the Anita Blake books, but with Merry Gentry, LKH came up with these special little phrases. This is one of them. That thing about "Where is my Darkness, bring me my Darkness" is another, there's two or three other ones I can't fucking remember right now. THESE PHRASES ARE IN EVERY. SINGLE. BOOK. It's like LKH has a spreadsheet of Merry Gentry words and she C and Ps the phrases in wherever she feels like it.

THIS GETS OLD.And it's not like she rephrases them. THEY ARE THE SAME FROM BOOK TO BOOK TO BOOK.

Merry then accuses her mother of being willing to let Taranis beat her to death, and then asks why it's so important she go to the ball. Because the king is asking for it. Merry basically says "fuck no" and hangs up, and the chapter ends with the mirror literally ringing off the hook while Merry walks out of the room.

Now. If you will excuse me, I have just discovered that all the Julian May books I've lost over the years are now e-books, and I'm going to go take advantage of this. Have a good night, folks. :D

Caress of Twilight--Chapter 5

So the only sensible thing Merry does is take Rhys's gun away. He uses his coat to cover the desk. Merry persists in not understanding that Rhys was freaking traumatized by goblins and rambles on about this being Rhys's second chance. She calls this an irrational phobia with a basis in reality and decides that Rhys has to do it for his own good, and if she backs down she'll look weak.

And then the first unforgivable thing of this book happens. Merry negotiates with Kitto for what they do next, and Kitto decides on foreplay. This is not the unforgivable thing. The unforgivable thing is that Merry then goes out of her way to point out that Rhys could have negotiated too. 

Yes. Let's point out to a fucking rape victim that he could have barganed his way out of rape, or at least out of losing an eye.

Ah, but it's HIS fault because he was too bigoted to learn about another culture. If he'd been more educated the goblins would not have disfigured him.  RIGHT. Because rapists always listen when you tell them not to do things.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Male rape exists. And victim blaming in a rape is no more attractive when the victim is male than when they are female.

And then Merry kisses him and tells him he's still pretty, and this makes everything okay. Because it's not the rape and torture that is the problem. It's the fact that Rhys is missing an eye. And when she kisses him Kitto's arm is trapped between them, but it's alright because Rhys doesn't actively scream. 

She kisses all his scars. He flinches and panics and almost starts crying, but she keeps going because this is good for him.

And then, in the middle of the makeout session, Rhys realizes that Kitto is still, like, right there, and he panics again, and then he's all like "Well, get this shit finished" and Kitto is all like "Nope, I'm good." There's ramble about how Kitto doesn't want Merry to lose her guard, and Kitto goes on about how weak he is and how great Rhys is for being in the running to be the King one day, and how he is, yep, a natural born victem. Merry thinks about how awful it is to be born weak, and the chapter ends.