Yo! Need a vampire hunter over here!

Amazon emailed me a couple of days ago to let me know I might like the new Laurell Hamilton book “Blood Noir”. I don’t have the message anymore, but I remember it going something like “You liked Anita Blake in the past, you might like this one. Why not pre-order?” In reality, it said something like “As someone who purchased from the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series…”.

Yeah - I did like Anita Blake in the past. The first few books in the series were excellent. Then we went through the courting phase where each book had the worst imaginable, most horrific bad guy that only flittered around the edges of the story till the last few pages, when Anita would stroll in and end the story in some ridiculous fashion, like killing an Aztec god with a pen. Also, the formulaic descriptions start to get annoying. Every character is described over and over by eye color and what they are wearing.

Then, well…the series went down hill fast. Anita stopped doing her job, and started shacking up with half of the male cast, and sleeping with the full male cast. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a prude, and I think sex can have a great impact on a story, but when that’s all there is, then it gets mundane and trite. Let’s face it…Hamilton is not Harold Robbins.

So, no, I probably wont be enjoying the new Anita Blake book. Sigh…what happened to the Anita of “Guilty Pleasures”. As Hamilton has said in several interviews, she’s writing for her audience. That’s great, and I wish her luck, but I do miss the hard hitting, monsters and gore of the early series.