[personal profile] snarp
Because I was throwing a hissy fit about Anita Blake on Tumblr, I am reposting this comment I made about about that series a while back:

Well, the thing is that AB was the first urban fantasy/paranormal romance series of a particular modern breed: the competent female protagonist with a cynical worldview doing a dangerous job and protecting the weak. She's unappreciated for it - and realistically broke, which I think is an important element here - until some equally-competent supernatural guys in positions of power show up, admire her, vy for her affections, offer her wealth and security, etc.

The latter part is obviously not a new thing for romance, but the first part was. Urban fantasy heroines pre-Blake were like typical romance heroines in that they tended to be kind of passive figures, unable to defend themselves, much less anyone else. They might have some sort of special heritage or magical powers, but it was something that for whatever reason, they didn't actively use until forced.

And then here was this whole series about this sarcastic woman going out and fighting zombies every day. What makes these books important and attractive is that Blake, though she frequently seems outclassed early on, always ends up able to take care of herself and those around her. The first book was about her rescuing Jean-Claude, the vampire who's in love with her, from a female vampire.

...But then it all turned into weird softcore BDSM erotica! And now a lot of people know more about Laurell K. Hamilton's private kinks than we originally anticipated. Books 7 and 8 (Burnt Offerings and Blue Moon) were where the problem started to get obvious, as I recall, though I think it wasn't until the latter that scenes explaining werecreature pack mating/power dynamics and analyzing people's relative sexiness actually started outnumbering plot-related scenes.

Then there was book 9, Obsidian Butterfly, which was sort of a self-conscious backtrack to the early-series formula, and obliquely and maybe-accidentally self-analytical, with several scenes directly mirroring those from the first book. But having gotten that out of her system, she threw all shame out the window and wrote the demented Narcissus in Chains, and from then on it was apparently all werecreature orgies and metaphysically-induced orgasms. (I couldn't even finish NiC, so for this I rely on the reports of others.)

The early books haven't aged well, now that there are so many others following the same basic plotline and doing it better: they're simultaneously formulaic and badly-paced, and the prose lies someplace in between utilitarian and awkward. They're also very violent - I would say unusually so - but lacking the sense of humanity required to make it feel necessary and earned. And there's a lot of really unpleasant misogyny aimed at women who aren't Blake. With maybe one exception, they're always either victims she needs to protect or monsters she needs to destroy.

Basically, I would recommend Marjorie Liu, JD Robb, or Ilona Andrews instead.

(Persons who have been reading the askblog for my Homestuck fanfic wherein Kanaya has a blog may recognize some of these words. My characterization of the alien vampire is flawless and entirely uninformed by my own prejudices.)

Date: 2014-04-09 02:16 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] nicki
I made it through Incubus Dreams before I quit. Dear lord was that book terrible. And I hear they haven't gotten any better with the magical roofies and the extortion and the statutory rape. So godawful.

Date: 2014-04-09 05:32 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] malkingrey
That's the problem with being the first writer to break ground in a new subgenre -- readers who come across your stuff after having first read all the later stuff aren't going to say, "Wow, so that's where it all started!" They're going to say, "What a bunch of subgenre cliches, and badly done ones, at that!"

I agree that Obsidian Butterfly was the last of the old-style Anita Blake novels. After that . . . well, I'll still read one if I happen to find it lying around where I can pick it up, but I'm not going to waste my book-purchasing budget on buying one.

Date: 2014-04-09 08:34 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] petronia
Yeah, Obsidian Butterfly was the last I remember as a decent read (I don't think I read all of the first ones, though; they sorta blended after a while).

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