Danse Macabre
As promised, here's my review of Danse Macabre by Laurell K. Hamilton.
I'm an Anita Blake fan. Been so since I picked up Guilty Pleasures about 6 years ago and read through the first couple books during a 3-week-proposal-from-hell in St. Louis. Yes, you read me correctly. St. Louis. Where the books are set. In fact, I hadn't ever realized that I was in the same city until she started mentioning certain roads and highways and I'm like ... hmmm ... that sounds familiar. Anyway, I digress ...
As many critics have noted already her books have gone from action-packed, horror mysteries to more paranormal erotica. In the beginning, Anita was more focused on finding and killing the bad guys and keeping humans safe from the various zombies, witches, vampires, and wereanimals that passed through the city to wreak habit. Now she's trying to reign in her need to feed on sex. For those of you who haven't read her books, Hamilton has created a world where vampires and wereanimals exist beside humans and are trying to garner the same rights as human citizens of the country. If vampires are dead yet undead, do they still have the same rights as a living citizen of the U.S.? There's prejudice against those who turn "furry" where many won't hire them at schools or public institutions for fear of them infecting others. Interesting take in endowing the monsters with humanity.
Anitia is a certified zombie raiser and would be paid by people to raise family from the dead to ask about wills or where they hid money or maybe a judge would ask a victim to be raised as a crime witness. Very unique and cool idea.
There are not only werewolves but wereleopards, wererats, werehyenas, panweres (those who can turn into mutliple animals) and many more which are introduced as the books progressed. She does an excellent job of weaving folklore and fairytales into her stories and making all these creatures work so well together with their own political agendas and rules governing the vampires and wereanimal communities. Her writing is fast paced; her character descriptions very detailed and I've used these for inspiration in my own writing. However, Danse Macabre was a little slower. Maybe because there wasn't as much fighting scenes as there were sex. And don't get me wrong I don't mind the sex scenes, but I expected more to happen. In the beginning, we are introduced to the main conflict that Anita may be pregnant. If you read her other books, her two main squeezes were Richard (alpha werewolf) and Jean Claude (master vamp of St. Louis). Jean Claude has bound Richard and Anita to him with two marks which allows them to draw on each other's power, communicate psychically, and make themselves stronger individually. If they get the third mark then they would be bound together for eternity. It hasn't happened, yet. Richard is on again and off again with Anita because he's jealous of her relationship with Jean Claude and her two wereleopards, Micah and Nathaniel. Through the marks with Jean Claude she's cursed with the "ardeur." It essentially fills her with a sexual need that has to be fed or else her power drains affecting those around her. This leads to the second conflict in the book: she doesn't know who the father is, since she has had sex with multiple men in order to feed this sexual energy. The third conflict is of vampire politics. Jean Claude has a vampire ballet company performing in St. Louis. He invited all the master vamps to the city to see the performance. Of course, most of the master vamps are power hungry and egotistical and having lived so long they essentially act as if they're above reproach, doing whatever the hell they want and damn the consequence. They want to test the extent of the triumvirant Jean Claude has formed when he bound Anita and Richard to him with the marks. They are also concerned about the power Anita possesses being a necromancer. She has power over the dead—zombies and vampires—and her power has been heightened by the marks of Jean Claude. So she's seen as a threat within the vampire community. Not to mention that the Mother of All Darkness, the orginal vamp/wereanimal, keeps poking her fangs in Anita's life. Of course, most of the challenges from the master vamps involve sex. Since Anita's ardeur has risen, she's running out of men to feed upon, so the master vamps have all brought someone from whom to choose believing that will endear them to Jean Claude and Anita. (Think Princess Charming picking a lover instead of a bride.) Most of the story focused on Anita's lovers arguing over who the potential father is. The other half dealt with vampire politics and domination—both with psychic power and sexual actions. Some people have complained that her sex scenes aren't written well. I found them satisfying and left me wondering at the ability of someone to please multiple men at a time. Really gets the old imagination ticking, if you know what I mean. :) The ending was too abrupt. The ballet scene described at the end should have been the climax. It was such an interesting concept and the ballet itself with vampires floating in the air around the audience and the new vamps (especially one of the first made vamps) introduced made for an interesting scene that was cut way too short by Anita's need for sex. I would've much preferred for the ballet to happen earlier, the vampire sexual powerplay tempered, and the whole pregnancy relegated to the background. I liked it. I didn't love it as her other books. It didn't hold my attention and make me stay up reading well past my bedtime. I like the new characters. I like where she's going with the Mother of All Darkness (aka Mommie Dearest). I like her sarcastic humor. But I'd love more action. More tension. Sexual tension is good but when every other chapter is another build-up to a new sex scene it tends to lessen the anticipation. Just like riding a roller coaster that has the same hill over and over again. You stop getting surprised over what is up the next hill and even though the drop may be thrilling, you want to experience something new like a loop or a twist when you top it. I'll definitely read her next one because Hamilton to me is the mother of paranormal romance. But I just hope the next story will give us more character growth than growing her array of sexual partners.
3 1/2 stars out of 5
I'm an Anita Blake fan. Been so since I picked up Guilty Pleasures about 6 years ago and read through the first couple books during a 3-week-proposal-from-hell in St. Louis. Yes, you read me correctly. St. Louis. Where the books are set. In fact, I hadn't ever realized that I was in the same city until she started mentioning certain roads and highways and I'm like ... hmmm ... that sounds familiar. Anyway, I digress ...
As many critics have noted already her books have gone from action-packed, horror mysteries to more paranormal erotica. In the beginning, Anita was more focused on finding and killing the bad guys and keeping humans safe from the various zombies, witches, vampires, and wereanimals that passed through the city to wreak habit. Now she's trying to reign in her need to feed on sex. For those of you who haven't read her books, Hamilton has created a world where vampires and wereanimals exist beside humans and are trying to garner the same rights as human citizens of the country. If vampires are dead yet undead, do they still have the same rights as a living citizen of the U.S.? There's prejudice against those who turn "furry" where many won't hire them at schools or public institutions for fear of them infecting others. Interesting take in endowing the monsters with humanity.
Anitia is a certified zombie raiser and would be paid by people to raise family from the dead to ask about wills or where they hid money or maybe a judge would ask a victim to be raised as a crime witness. Very unique and cool idea.
There are not only werewolves but wereleopards, wererats, werehyenas, panweres (those who can turn into mutliple animals) and many more which are introduced as the books progressed. She does an excellent job of weaving folklore and fairytales into her stories and making all these creatures work so well together with their own political agendas and rules governing the vampires and wereanimal communities. Her writing is fast paced; her character descriptions very detailed and I've used these for inspiration in my own writing. However, Danse Macabre was a little slower. Maybe because there wasn't as much fighting scenes as there were sex. And don't get me wrong I don't mind the sex scenes, but I expected more to happen. In the beginning, we are introduced to the main conflict that Anita may be pregnant. If you read her other books, her two main squeezes were Richard (alpha werewolf) and Jean Claude (master vamp of St. Louis). Jean Claude has bound Richard and Anita to him with two marks which allows them to draw on each other's power, communicate psychically, and make themselves stronger individually. If they get the third mark then they would be bound together for eternity. It hasn't happened, yet. Richard is on again and off again with Anita because he's jealous of her relationship with Jean Claude and her two wereleopards, Micah and Nathaniel. Through the marks with Jean Claude she's cursed with the "ardeur." It essentially fills her with a sexual need that has to be fed or else her power drains affecting those around her. This leads to the second conflict in the book: she doesn't know who the father is, since she has had sex with multiple men in order to feed this sexual energy. The third conflict is of vampire politics. Jean Claude has a vampire ballet company performing in St. Louis. He invited all the master vamps to the city to see the performance. Of course, most of the master vamps are power hungry and egotistical and having lived so long they essentially act as if they're above reproach, doing whatever the hell they want and damn the consequence. They want to test the extent of the triumvirant Jean Claude has formed when he bound Anita and Richard to him with the marks. They are also concerned about the power Anita possesses being a necromancer. She has power over the dead—zombies and vampires—and her power has been heightened by the marks of Jean Claude. So she's seen as a threat within the vampire community. Not to mention that the Mother of All Darkness, the orginal vamp/wereanimal, keeps poking her fangs in Anita's life. Of course, most of the challenges from the master vamps involve sex. Since Anita's ardeur has risen, she's running out of men to feed upon, so the master vamps have all brought someone from whom to choose believing that will endear them to Jean Claude and Anita. (Think Princess Charming picking a lover instead of a bride.) Most of the story focused on Anita's lovers arguing over who the potential father is. The other half dealt with vampire politics and domination—both with psychic power and sexual actions. Some people have complained that her sex scenes aren't written well. I found them satisfying and left me wondering at the ability of someone to please multiple men at a time. Really gets the old imagination ticking, if you know what I mean. :) The ending was too abrupt. The ballet scene described at the end should have been the climax. It was such an interesting concept and the ballet itself with vampires floating in the air around the audience and the new vamps (especially one of the first made vamps) introduced made for an interesting scene that was cut way too short by Anita's need for sex. I would've much preferred for the ballet to happen earlier, the vampire sexual powerplay tempered, and the whole pregnancy relegated to the background. I liked it. I didn't love it as her other books. It didn't hold my attention and make me stay up reading well past my bedtime. I like the new characters. I like where she's going with the Mother of All Darkness (aka Mommie Dearest). I like her sarcastic humor. But I'd love more action. More tension. Sexual tension is good but when every other chapter is another build-up to a new sex scene it tends to lessen the anticipation. Just like riding a roller coaster that has the same hill over and over again. You stop getting surprised over what is up the next hill and even though the drop may be thrilling, you want to experience something new like a loop or a twist when you top it. I'll definitely read her next one because Hamilton to me is the mother of paranormal romance. But I just hope the next story will give us more character growth than growing her array of sexual partners.
3 1/2 stars out of 5
posted by J.T. Bock at 5:28 PM
2 Comments:
You know, I have to say, after having had her book (or maybe it was her style) hyped up by so many others...I just found it to be a total let down. Too many characters, too much sex when I wasn't expecting it to be all about the sex. Or feeling like a needed a character map to keep track of all the players.
It bordered on the "enh" to me. I didn't pitch it across the room, but I'm not rushing out to buy it for friends either.
Having read all of the anita blake books, i have to say that i agree with others commets. There was alot of sex and little of anything else. I liked the other books when there is also emotional and phyiscal battles not just sex. While the sex is not in poor taste, there is an awful lot of it. I still liked the book so i would star three out of five stars!
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