Guilty Pleasures

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1. 

   Marc Ruby™ @ 5:16 pm

   I have been a great fan of Laurell Hamilton. I greatly admire her writing ability and imagination. And her daring as well, she is willing to confront unusual sexual issues in a genre where sexuality is more often a matter of hints and gestures. Struck by the intensity of the sexual focus in her recent work I thought it would be entertaining to go back and reread some of Hamilton’s earlier books.

   “Guilty Pleasures” is the first of the Anita Blake series. What makes the series unique is the strong, tough-minded character of the heroine and narrator. Before “Guilty Pleasures” vampire stories rarely had female leads, let alone one with the hard-nosed style of Anita Blake. She is a professional animator (one who raises the dead) and a licensed vampire killer in an alternate earth where vampires have come out of the closet (coffin?) and are active participants in American life.

   Hamilton’s vampires are of the Anne Rice genre. They are beautiful, deadly and follow their own code of ethics. Many humans have become enthralled with them, but many are deeply suspicious. To Anita they are monsters who, when they go out of control, must be killed. But U.S. law protects vampires that behave themselves. Even so, when someone starts killing the vampires of St. Louis, authorities make little progress. Angered, two of the strongest vampires in the city, Jean-Claude and Nikolaos, convince Anita to hunt down the killer.

   Jean-Claude is one of the modern romantic vampires, easy to look at with fine manners and style. Nikolaos, on the other hand, is a thousand year old sadistic horror in the body of a thirteen year old girl. Her powers are unimaginable and dark hungers hide under her innocent looks. The vampiress takes an immediate dislike to Anita’s feisty style and our heroine spends as much time dodging Nikolaos’ efforts to injure and enslave her as she does seeking the killer. Jean-Claude comes under attack as well as he tries to help Anita.

   Hamilton’s way with characters is one of her great strengths. We meet several of Anita’s regular companions for the first time. Edward the hyper-violent bounty hunter, and Veronica, a private investigator and friend are outstanding, as are many of the bit players. Her vampires and their human servants are vivid personalities. This gives the novel a realistic feel that comes as a surprise in the vampire genre.

   The plot is fast paced, often moving from cliff-hanger to horrific confrontation with all the agility of the ball in a pinball game. There is a steady sexual undercurrent that veers towards sadistic and fetish oriented pleasures. It is a natural outgrowth of the vampire personality and is as chilling as it is erotic. In “Guilty Pleasures” it is an effective plot device that keeps the heat turned up. If you are a vampire story fan you will find Laurell Hamilton’s efforts deeply satisfying.

   
2. 

   J. Freedman @ 6:05 pm

   The Anita Blake series — I cannot express enough how MUCH you need it read them if you haven’t already. Let me tell you the reasons why.

   One, the main character, Anita is tough and modern, and she could beat the socks off of the biggest bodyguard out there at only 5′4 (with the help of some uzis, sawed off shotguns, and her precious firestar.)

   Two, the best contemporary science-fiction/fantasy books you’ll ever find. Guns, vampires, werewolves, and necromancers are just a walk in the park.

   Three, (and I feel MOST important), might I mention that taking one look at ANY of the male characters in this book is enough to make you stop, drool, and forget your own name? How about that delectable French fanged popsicle with the tight leather pants, Jean-Claude? (You can bite ME anytime, JC!)

   Ahem. In any case, I recommend these books to any sane SF/Fantasy book lover out there, because I’m afraid dissapointment is not an option. I am 99.9% sure you will fall in hopeless love with these books after reading them, so get a head start, eh?

   Guilty Pleasures is the first book in (so far) a series of nine. Read away, m’friends…

   
3. 

   Lawyeraau @ 7:54 pm

   This book was highly recommended by a fellow Amazon reviewer whose tastes mirror my own. Not only did she give it an excellent review, when we spoke she sang its praises. So, I went and bought the book. After all, I had read books by Anne Rice, as well as Donna Boyd, and enjoyed them. So, obviously books about vampires and/or lycanthropes are hardly a stretch for me.

   To my surprise, I was hooked once I began turning the pages of this book. It is a totally fun book to read, with its diminutive, feisty heroin, Anita Blake, a formidable vampire hunter who now focuses on being an animator, one who raises the dead. She lives in an alternate America where vampirism is legal, and vampires of the world are flocking to our shores. In good old St. Louis, Missouri, where our intrepid heroine lives, vampires live openly among humans and have developed a bizarre cult following. Of course, since killing vampires is against the law, Anita works closely with the police supernatural squad.

   Someone, however, is killing vampires, and although the police is investigating, the most powerful vampire in the city, Nicholaos, a thousand year old being who is ensconced in the body of a beautiful pubescent girl, has commissioned her to find the killer. The reluctant Anita, who finds herself at odds with evil Nicholaos, finds an unexpected ally and friend in the handsome Jean-Claude, a two centuries old vampire for whom she feels an unexpected attraction and affinity.

   Anita finds herself in a number of hair-raising situations as she seeks to discover the killer. Along the way she is plagued by vampires, wererats, ghouls, other animators, and fellow humans. The plot is fast-paced and intriguing. Its characters capture the reader’s imagination. While most of them are not particularly well-fleshed, as it is basically a plot driven book, the main character, Anita Blake, is quite interesting, as well as compelling, and resonates with the reader.

   The author manages to pull together a highly entertaining and enjoyable book. The style is part detective potboiler, part mystery, and part fantasy with supernatural portents. It carries the reader along from its first page to its last, never losing its momentum. In fact, it leaves the reader wanting more. Good thing that this is merely the first in a series of books about this intrepid vampire hunter, Anita Blake. I look forward to reading them all.

   
4. 

   Marie @ 8:08 pm

   I have started reading Hamilton’s books only recently and right now I am at the last book, Blue Moon. On the whole, this series is very good. It has a different twist in plot, it has action, good dialogue and more importantly a gustsy heroine, one you can like. As you read the series, yes, some books will be better than others. But the one consistant throughout the series is the growth of the main character, Anita Blake. The author shows the moral dilemmas that plague the heroine throughout the series and the decisions she makes, whether good or bad. Like I said, this series is really entertaining and worth at least an attempt. Definitely start reading them by order, beginning with Guilty Pleasures, which I think was one of her best ones out of the series. So, if you’re looking for something original, Hamilton’s Anita Blake books fits the bill. I will defintely keep reading her books and look forward to the next one.

   
5. 

   R. Kelly Wagner @ 8:33 pm

   The start of a great vampire series! Those who already know that they like vampire novels, anything at all that features a vampire, can skip this review, and likewise, those who hate the whole idea of vampires can skip it. But for those trying to decide whether or not to read more of this genre, or whether the one vampire novel you’ve already read was a fluke, it may help to have some ways to categorize these novels. Thus: BunRab’s Standard Vampire Classification Guide. First, most authors of vampire novels approach from one of the main genres of genre fiction; thus their background may be primarily in romance, or in science fiction/fantasy, or in murder mysteries, or in horror. Second, many vampire novels come in series; knowing whether this is one of a series, and where in the series it falls, may be helpful. Then we have some particular characteristics: – Is the vampire character (or characters) a “good guy” or a “bad guy”? Or are there some of each? – Are there continuing characters besides the vampire, through the series? – Are there other types of supernatural beings besides vampires? – Can the vampire stand daylight under some circumstances, or not stand daylight at all? – Does the vampire have a few other supernatural characteristics, many other supernatural characteristics, or none other than just being a vampire? (E.g., super strength, change into an animal, turn invisible) – Does the vampire have a regular job and place in society, or is being a vampire his or her entire raison d’etre? – Does the vampire literally drink blood, or is there some other (perhaps metaphorical) method of feeding? – Is sex a major plot element, a minor plot element, or nonexistent? – Is the entire vampire feeding act a metaphor for sex, part of a standard sex act, or unrelated to sex? – Is the story set in one historical period, more than one historical period, or entirely in the present day? – Does the story have elements of humor, or is it strictly serious? – Is the writing style good, or is the writing just there to manage to hold together the plot and characters?

   Laurell Hamilton’s series starts from the thriller, and is a continuing series, with new books appearing each year for the last several years. _Guilty Pleasures_ is the first book in the series. The “hero” or main character of the story is not a vampire, it’s Anita Blake, zombie reanimator and occasional vampire executioner. However, Jean-Claude, the vampire who in the course of the series becomes the Master vampire of the city, also eventually becomes Anita’s lover, and is, we might say, the assistant lead character. The continuing characters include the various vampires living in St. Louis, a few police detectives and officers whom we see regularly, and Anita’s neighbors. There are other supernatural characters, lots of them – zombies, ghouls, werewolves, wereleopards, wererats; for all I know, were-wombats may show up sometime. Jean-Claude and the other vampires have the usual super-strength and super-speed; in addition, they have the traditional “power to cloud men’s minds.” The master vampires occasionally turn out to have other, unexpected, powers. Many of the vampires work for or in nightclubs; the city of St. Louis in this universe seems to have a really kinky nightclub district! The vampires do drink blood, human, and by no means necessarily from consenting adults. The drinking of blood doesn’t have to be associated with sex, but sometimes is. There are a lot of sexual undertones, overtones, innuendo, and atmosphere in the books, and after the first couple in the series, the rest have a generous amount of explicit sex. And some of it is inter-species, sort of. This series is not for the prude! Hamilton’s characters have a nice sense of irony and sarcasm, and both Anita’s thoughts to herself and the dialog can be quite funny, but the stories and plots themselves are quite serious. No cutesy fantasy or playing it for puns here.

   In _Guilty Pleasures_ we first meet Anita, at her “day job” – make that mostly a night job – as a zombie animator: she deliberately raises corpses from the dead, usually in order for their relatives to ask them questions about where the missing will is. Hey, it’s a living. She is also on contract to the police – the “Spook Squad” which investigates crimes in which the supernatural beings are suspected to be the criminals or to have played a part. In this role, she meets Jean-Claude and other master vampires, as well as some of the relatively ordinary vampires. Incidentally, the titles of the books are taken from the names of various nightclubs that the vampires own/run; Jean-Claude owns “Guilty Pleasures.” We also meet Edward, who is more of a freelance killer of the supernatural; keep an eye on Edward, as he will play a large part in later books.