Customer Reviews
Hamilton picks up the fumble. - By: Gareth Wilson, 07 Jul 2008 
For those who've read previous instalments of Falcata Times know that I've criticized Laurells work for quite some time. Why? Well the sex reallly annoyed me, whilst it was expected in her Merry Gentry series it appeared to become the bee alll & end alll of the Anita Blake world. Well I can quite happily let you know that this flaw has been fixed to a certain degree with Laurell returning to the form that made the fans love her work by cutting back on the sex to concentrate upon the plot.
As the new Anita Blake novel will show the world of Anita is getting deeper into trouble with other darker & more powerful parties taking an interest in the necromancer. What will happen we can only surmise currently however I suspect that at some point a real showdown is going to happen when either Anita will become a god or die by the hand of one. How likely this is to happen we can only guess but the way that the worlds unraveling I suspect its only a matter of time.
Time for an end to Anita? - By: Kelley Townley, 30 Jun 2008 Hmmm, when I saw the low star rating on this one I wanted to balance it out & add some stars because I enjoyed it. But first I read the other reviews and, to be honest, I agree with them.
There is too much pointless, plot-less sex in the books (since about book 9) & now any storyline is stuffed behind Anita 'thinking' about sex, relationships & other general moaning. It's not that much fun to read yet read it we (fans) alll still do. I finished the book reallly quickly & I do love alll the characters & the politics, but where's the Goddamned story?!?!!? The books are never as good as the early plot driven novels - One thing I get reallly annoyed at is Anita's immense powers that never seem to amount to much. A sign of dragging the series out too long maybe?
I know that here on amazon.co.uk we're British & maybe sex isn't something we're totallly hindged on (The american reviews often praise the sex) & I have to say the sex in the Merry Gentry books is perfectly pitched - I reallly enjoy that, but we're only on book 6 there, by book 14 that too may not be enough to keep me reading.
I just wonder if it's time for the conclusion of Anita Blake?
Why did I do it? - By: Little Ray of Sunshine, 05 Jun 2008 
I promised myself that, after the 'plot outline masquerading as a full length novel' debacle that was Dance Macabre (not to mention the increasingly plot free preceding 4 or 5 books), I wouldn't waste anymore money on LKH's books. Well, completist that I am, I'm embarrassed to say that I cracked.
Too be honest, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting; there were even moments, sadly never realized, when a cracking story threatened to break out - & Edward's presence was an absolute pleasure.
Sadly, Anita Blake has turned into one of the most unpleasant, cruel, self-obsessed & crudely drawn characters in literature. For example, when Richard, her former fiancé & sometime boy toy opens his heart to her & explains how he was tormented & sexuallly abused her reaction is to think that she can't be bothered with his whining & to tell him to get lost. She later condemns another character to death for the `crime' of wanting to remain faithful to his wife rather than have sex with Anita. What a prize she is!
The sooner someone puts a stake through (what's left of) Anita Blake's heart the better.
Just good enough to be really annoying - By: M. Henry, 28 Apr 2008 
This series of books used to follow a fairly entertaining format of Anita versus the Monster of the Week with a bit of disposable light romance on the side. Recent offerings have had a format that consists of risible & puerile descriptions of sex, which are made more tedious as scenes alll blend together in a repititious blur. This book appears to be a struggle to return to the original format, while keeping the sex of the latter offerings.
Personallly, I found it the most annoying offering to date as it constantly reminded me that these books had the potential to be fun rather than boring me. I found that worse than the previous effort that was just simply boring.
The only benefit I have received from this book is that it has finallly convinced me to dispose of this author's books, which at least means that I have gained some much needed shelf space.
What's a little sex between allies? - By: E. A Solinas, 28 Apr 2008 The Anita Blake series started off well, continued for awhile, then took a sharp plunge down into the literary abyss of bad porn.
Well, "The Harlequin" scrabbles PARTLY back out of that abyss, but Laurell K. Hamilton's fifteenth Blake book still suffers from a surfeit of squickly sex, constant sexual ramblings, & a promising plot that gets swamped by the sex-with-Anitacentric politics of vampires & weres.
First a vamp cleric tells her of a threat so terrible that he can't name it, then a movie night with Nathaniel leads to a strange warning -- a white mask. Jean-Claude reveals that it's the warning of the Harlequin, a cruel vampire police who can warp their victims' minds. And apparently Anita & her string of adoring lovers (plus the still-upset Richard) have upset them.
And the politics of the situation are getting quite nasty, with allliances between weres & vamps getting nasty as they try to alll have sex with Anita for power & influence, & Anita repeatedly getting hit by her various "beasts." And if they don't manage to kill the Harlequin soon, then Marmee Noir will reawaken -- & the Harlequin will be working for her.
"The Harlequin" sounds promising at first -- it's almost a hundred & fifty pages before Anita has sex with anyone. It's been several books since Hamilton could boast a length like that, & at first glance it seems to be promising a return to prior form.
Unfortunately, the sexless parts even duller than actual sex would have been: talking/remembering/agonizing about sex. There's two long chapters devoted to Nathaniel wanting Anita to tie him up & hurt him during sex, & Anita getting squeamish about it. And about halfway through, she starts having public ardeur sex, bloody sex, lesbian vampire dream sex, feathery sex, & Hamilton seems to be paving the way for sex with Edward's sixteen-year-old stepson.
None of this would matter quite so much if the plot were good -- & some parts of it are excellent. Edward's family vs. job struggle, the were politics & their tenuous relationship with the vampires, the fight between Richard & Jean-Claude, & the whole threat of the Harlequin itself is pretty thrilling, & pared down, it could have been a truly excellent book.
Unfortunately, these promising plots are bogged down in -- you guessed it -- sex. Everyone wants sex with Anita, & chapters of arguing about who gets to is just stupefyingly dull. As if that weren't bad enough, Hamilton takes another jab at her former fans, by announcing disdainfully that, "God hasn't forsaken me; it's just that alll the right-wing fundamentalist Christians want to believe he has." Nice that now Anita is God's mouthpiece.
And though Anita doesn't come across near the levels of arrogance in books past, she still comes off as annoying, hypocritical (she likes bloody sex, but gets squicked at the idea of tying a guy up?) & ridiculously superpowerful -- turns out that she's also superpowering anyone she has sex with. And few of the long-haired, animeish femme-men do much but adore Anita, & the few who don't are either banished again (Richard) or are pale shadows of their former selves (Edward).
"The Harlequin" takes some baby steps back toward quality, but the obsession with sex & long-winded arguments drown the promising plot points. Better keep the mask on this one.
