So mad I couldn't stay silent

[rivkat]

Three papers down, one left for the summer. This month I hope to be more fannish. For now,

Laurell K. Hamilton, Danse Macabre: Got this one for free, and I’m glad I didn’t pay. Even though Anita now uses the word "foreskin" (but still not penis, dick or cock) and permits her harem to engage in hot man on man action, I was unengaged by the sex scenes, which take up a large portion of the 483 pages and leave comparatively little time for violence and vampire politics. The reason I didn’t care was Anita. I liked her when she was a killer who used moral rules as a substitute for a functioning conscience, but she’s now just a collection of tics: anger, sexual desire, psychobabble that for some reason convinces everyone with whom she comes into contact to understand and discuss their deepest motivations.

Unless Edward returns -- in which case I must see what fresh hell happens to him -- I am done. There wasn’t even one fight! Guns were brandished, but not fired, and all knives were used offscreen! But it's really the treatment of Ronnie that did it for me. Not only is Anita The Best Anything Ever and All Men Must Bow, the corollary is that other women are horrendous jealous harpies and also sluts, since they didn't have Anita's good reasons for sleeping with hundreds of men.

Also, when the big narrative hook is whether Anita’s pregnant and she keeps bemoaning her inability to use condoms reliably during emergency and accidental sex, it might behoove her to consider non-barrier methods of contraception. I’ll fanwank that lycanthropy messes up hormonal contraception, but, Anita, meet the IUD. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?

But illogic and sluggish plot are forgivable if I can have fun with the characters. I can’t, not any more. In one of the narrative’s many catchphrases, we are repeatedly informed that in terms of fairytale analogies, Anita can't be Cinderella, she has to be Prince Charming. This is true, just as she has to be the husband and Nathaniel the wife, because she hates and fears women. The narrative’s need to erase other women as people works even on peripheral characters. At one point, Anita goes to see her ob/gyn, who brings in a number of ob/gyn interns – only one a woman, and she’s the only one out of all the group who can’t take her eyes off the gun Anita refuses to remove even with her jeans off. Um, okay, because that’s a plausible male/female ratio in obstetrics (see p. 800), and because male doctors are naturally comfortable with guns! Later, there’s a vampire ballet troupe, only unlike most ballet troupes, there are only 3 or 4 women. Anita specifically notes the unusual composition, but there is no reason for it other than to keep women away from her. I might not have noticed these little details, but Ronnie’s character evisceration got my blood up. I can get my hot man on man action from non-misogynists, thanks.

Comments

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I've heard of the first two, and I will keep an eye out, thanks!

[miirica.livejournal.com]

First, thank you for saving me the purchase price of the Anita Blake. I've been growing more and more sick of them.

Just browsing through (I like to read your book reviews and fiction) and thought I'd make the more or less random comment: Blood Price is part of a series of books. I'd meant to take them off my shelves this week anyway, but now I have, and have confirmed that Blood Price is the first.

The characters will look very familiar to LKH I believe (I did wonder at one point if the authors were one and the same), but I also believe these books are better written. The second book, _Blood Trail_, has one of the best pictures of lycanthrope pack life/culture I've ever read (which, I realize, means little to nothing to you).

At least Tanya Huff had the decency not to write 800 page behemoths over and over. Characters progress.

There it is, for what it's worth.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I liked Tanya Huff's two (?) Valor books of SF; I was less taken by the Quarters books of hers I read, which are high fantasy. At a minimum, she seems to have a decent range.