Birthday wishes and an open letter to Laurell K. Hamilton

[rivkat]

Happy birthday, MustangSally! May the geckos be with you.

Also, no spoilers for Cerulean Sins, just a rant. Review to follow shortly.

Dear Ms. Hamilton,

I hear you're a New York Times-bestselling author. I think that's nifty. I've always liked Anita, though she is despite all protestations a bit of a clotheshorse. But please, for the love of God --

Use a spellchecker. Taking someone to the hopsital? I'm embarrassed for you. And that's by no means the only typo. I thought the preview chapters I read online were unedited, and that's apparently true, except that they never did get edited. Also, punctuation is your friend. Okay, the comma apparently isn't, but most of the other little fellas are. I know there are pot-kettle issues here given what MS and I have perpetrated, but that just gives me the experience to tell you: the readers notice.

Yours sincerely,
RivkaT

A clotheshorse and a sociopath: sounds like a pretty good match for Lex, actually. But Anita already has more hot men than she knows what to do with.

Comments

[annavtree.livejournal.com]

Can I just add to your open letter?

LKH, could you please, once, for the love of all that is holy, have a man in this series who is not in love with Anita? Your Mary Sue issues are showing.


In spite of that, I thought it was a fun book.

sounds like a pretty good match for Lex, actually.

Is that the sound of a crossover that I hear? (g)

[(Anonymous)]

have a man in this series who is not in love with Anita? Your Mary Sue issues are showing.

Well, there is Bernardo. Of course, that's just 'cause he wants to jump Edward.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Spell-check, alas, will not help her confusion about "its" vs. "it's."

I do blame the publisher most, however. Those are the kinds of things the copy editor is being paid to catch.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely it's the editor's shame more than hers. It's just that spellcheck would have been a nice start. Even Stephen King, who hasn't had a content editor in years, at least publishes without typos (or at least without so many that it becomes a problem with enjoying the book).

[chase820.livejournal.com]

See, I can deal with the spelling and punctuation issues. What I can't deal with is the recycled plot issues. I mean, this was almost a complete retread of Narcissus in Chains. Very unhappy I spent $25 on a book I already owned.

I think Laurell's out of ideas for her heroine. If you ask me, it's time for Anita to work out her issues with Richard and form the cozy little menage a trois that they and Jean Claude are apparently meant to be, and tie the whole series off. The other 147 characters in love with Anita will just have to sort themselves out.

And why is it that the hottest character, Edward, never got his shot with Anita? She had more chemistry with him during their occasional death-threat exchanges, than she ever had during all her schmoopy interactions with JC and Richard.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Oh, but it would be so bad for Edward to have a sexuality. (Even his "relationship" in Arizona isn't really sexual, especially given how explicit Hamilton is when she does talk about sex; the fact that we don't see/overhear/whatever anything sexual between Edward and whatsername is evidence that we're not supposed to see it as sex so much as weird, familial love.) That was one of the problems I had with the ending of Hannibal -- Lecter was so much creepier before he had a history and a sexuality, when he was just a terror without a cause, a bad thing doing bad because he could. I can totally see why Anita ought to be drawn to Edward, but I'd consider it bad for the character for there to be any reciprocation.

As for the rest -- well, I will post a longer review later. I agree that she seems to be out of ideas, though I wish the sociopathy issue had a better resolution and I'd read one more, no matter how much sex and clothing there is, to see that done.

Re:

[chase820.livejournal.com]

Yes, if LH actually sets out to tie up all of Anita's emotional and relationship issues in the next installment, that would certainly give her enough fodder for one more book. But only one more.

Hmmm--Anita having a bit of an unrequited crush on Edward would have been sort of cool. It would have been nice to know that there's one character in the universe who finds her resistable.

Totally with you on Hannibal. Finding out that all of Hannibal's quirks came from his traumatic childhood and an unresolved incestuous attraction to his sister really, really deflated the character for me. Also undid his very interesting remark in Silence, something to the effect that his monstrous acts can't be psychoanalyzed or quantified into something understandable--he simply is, in all his evil glory. A much neater take on him than "soldiers ate my sister and I'm pissed at the world". I won't even get started on the hatchet job Harris did on Clarice.

Overall, Hannibal is one of the few instances where I actually like the ending of the movie better than the book.

[siobhan-w.livejournal.com]

Use a spellchecker

But why change now? Spelling and punctuation have never been a big hang-up for her and that's never stopped her in the past. *g*

Also, have you seen...?

[geekturnedvamp.livejournal.com]

There are TV ads for Cerulean Sins, and the first time I saw one it was on the SciFi Channel and I had a moment of horror because at first I thought they were making an Anita Blake TV movie or miniseries--which, you know, is something I would so not put past them--followed by an involuntary moment of casting speculation, before it became clear it was just a commercial for the book. (Although if they did ever make a movie, it would have to be based on the earlier books in the series, right? Because I'm trying not to imagine filmed versions of the later ones, something made more difficult by the fact that I've obviously seen way too much scary latenight Cinemax softcore already...).

Re: Also, have you seen...?

[chase820.livejournal.com]

The basic premise of the books--a young, female vampire executioner and necromancer with serious sociopathic tendencies and a complicated love life making her way in a world where the paranormal is known and accepted--would make a v. cool t.v. series.

Of course, Joss Whedon would probably sue. *sigh*

I was disappointed in Cerulean Sins

[raveninthewind.livejournal.com]

But not surprised. The Anita Blake series has been going downhill for years now. Besides the crap editing, the tired/thin plot, and the airing (yet-again) of LKH's various kinks/fetishes, there is a bigger problem.
And I say this as a devoted fan of the series in the early days...
Her work has become overpriced, hardbound fanfic—and it's mediocre fanfic.
It's shiny and pretty at times, but it's unsatisfying now as nonalcoholic beer. She needs to wind up the series soon; the sequelitis is terminal.
LKH's books always had some weaknesses in writing and plotting, but the basic premise was so fun and her character Anita was so likeable that readers could overlook the general Mary Sue-ish quality. It's pretty darn near impossible to suspend disbelief now.

Re: I was disappointed in Cerulean Sins

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. The trouble is, I really want to see Anita address the fact, oft mentioned but never much examined, that she's made herself into a sociopath, abandoning even the rigid sexual morality that was her one area without compromise. One of the opening scenes of Cerulean Sins, where she nearly goads a hit man into drawing on her just to see who's better, was very promising, but that thread, and the hit man, just wafted away from the plot. I will still be reading, because I hate to give up (I did in fact at least fast forward through every episode of the X-Files' final season), but I now think any insights about what it is to fight monsters will have to come from my own interpretations, not hers. Oh, Edward, how the mighty have fallen!