Book Reviews - Laurell K. Hamilton - Anita Blake series

Zombies, werewolves, vampires, and ghouls populate this rich universe. 
 Meet Anita Blake, connoisseur of weapons and martial arts, vampire hater (and killer), and resurrector of the dead as zombies.
New: Titania's Hitlist of Deadwood to Kill-off or Reboot (see below)

Pro I love the series and the alternate reality that the author makes.  The dialogue is fun, and the characters are well done and likable. The Meredith Gentry series lured me in to this author in 2014. That series is quite spicy, which I like.  Both series action, humor and spice are a delightful diversion from real life and sad things.
Con This series starts in 1993, a era sandwiched between “Mash”, “Desperately Seeking Susan” (1985) and “Sex and the City” (1998).  Even by 1980’s romantic-relations standards, this 24-yr-old kick-ass person is complicated by the trauma and abandonment of her mother dying when Anita was 8-yrs-old.  She perhaps closed herself off to any relationship risk-taking, failing to gain relationship experience and confidence.  She may still have an 8-yr-old's views on relationships.
Bottom Line: It is a fun ride.  I love the characters and action.  Will she grow, mature and change?  It will be exciting to see.

00. Strange Candy (2006) Novella/Short-Stories:  Contains original Anita Blake short stories that started the series:  "Those Who Seek Forgiveness", "The Girl Who Was Infatuated with Death".	ISBN 0-425-21201-7 Book 0
01. Guilty Pleasures (1993) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Zombies, werewolves, vampires, and ghouls populate this rich universe.     Meet Anita Blake, connoisseur of weapons and martial arts, vampire hater (and killer), and resurrector of the dead as zombies.  She’s blackmailed by vampires to find out who’s killing the master vampires.  If she refuses, her friend gets wacked (and most likely Anita).   She’s also being leveraged by a fellow vampire killer.   She meets Nikolaus, an evil child-queen of the vampires, and John Claude, an extremely handsome master vampire, who may be up-to-something.  A werewolf journalist, a gorgeous male stripper/bite fetishist, and a Lord of the Rats may or may not help her. John Claude forces Anita to pretend to be involved with him “for the case they are investigating”, and despite her hating vamps, it gets hot!   He does share his life-force with her to save her life, and also save himself later, so she’s bound to him.  Does this give her extra power?  Shockingly – or not, she manages to enhance John Claude’s position (ahem, politically).	ISBN 0-515-13449-X Book 1
02. The Laughing Corpse (1994) Review & a touch of Spoiler: A killer super-zombie is roaming the countryside eating cute little families.  Anita is dragged along by her boss on a business visit, only he’s so naïve, he gets them in-deep with a corrupt millionaire and his dead-eyed henchmen.  They want to resurrect a 300-yr-old corpse, requiring a human sacrifice.  Will she do it? She attends the funeral of a fellow “animator”, and his brother, a very powerful Voodoo guy, begs her to find his brother’s killer.  Why can’t (or won't) he do it himself?  A Voodoo queen keeps popping up.  What does she have in her basement? The Voodoo queen traps Anita into resurrecting the 300-yr-old corpse and they try to force her kill a defenseless friend.  Things don’t go quite as planned and Anita inadvertently causes a glorious frenzy of blood and mayhem.  So much power erupts, all the undeads in St. Louis are alerted, including Juan-Claude, the new Master Vamp of St. Louis.  He watches her activities from the shadows.  Is it possible he chose her all along to help him grow in power?  Will her power keep growing?	ISBN 0-425-19200-8 Book 2
03. Circus of the Damned (1995) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 0-515-13448-1 Book 3
04. The Lunatic Cafe (1996) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Anita is hired by a husband to locate a missing Werewolf-wife.  The police send her to investigate an attack on a hunter, but local cops are sooo rude.  She is continuing to date Werewolf-Richard against Jean-Claude’s wishes and things are getting serious.  You know the fur is gonna fly in this one!  Shapeshifters are disappearing, and Anita goes to the local pack for information.  She unfortunately gets dragged into wolf-pack political gameplaying. Schoolteacher-Richard is freaked out by how Anita delivers her own brand of justice.	ISBN 0-425-20137-6 Book 4
05. Bloody Bones (1996) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Raymond the Real-Estate-developer flies Anita to a remote mountain top to raise a cemetery of 200+ yr-old corpses as he wants to build on legally contested lands.  Mind you, this is in rival vampire territory.  The police send her to a few local crime scenes where young boys have been killed in a gruesome way.  She meets new characters, Magnus and Dorcus of the hypnotic blue-green eyes; and Bloody Bones, namesake of the “Bloody Bones” BBQ pitstop.  She bargains with Jean-Claude to come and help her negotiate with the rival master vampire of the region, but definitely gets more than she bargained for.   Jean-Claude can tell how she feels and fights dirty with a nice bubble bath.  Oh yes, Richard is gonna to be mad!!!  (Will she tell him?)  Larry the Howdie-Doodie boy gets roped into wearing a stripper's "F-me" leather clothes that “cut-inta-ya”.	ISBN 0-425-20567-3 Book 5
06. The Killing Dance (1997) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 0-425-20906-7 Book 6
07. Burnt Offerings (1998) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 0-515-13447-3 Book 7
08. Blue Moon (1998) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 0-515-13445-7 Book 8
09. Obsidian Butterfly (2000) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 0-515-13450-3 Book 9
10. Narcissus in Chains (2001) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 5-558-61270-3 Book 10
11. Cerulean Sins (2003) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 0-515-13681-6 Book 11
12. Incubus Dreams (2004) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 0-515-13975-0 Book 12
13. Micah (2006) (novella) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 0-515-14087-2 Book 13
14. Danse Macabre (2006) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 0-425-20797-8 Book 14
15. The Harlequin (2007) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 978-0-425-21724-5 Book 15
16. Blood Noir (2008) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 978-0-425-22219-5 Book 16
17. Skin Trade (2009) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 978-0-425-22772-5 Book 17
18. Flirt (February 2010) (novella) Review & a touch of Spoiler: A short novella, a cute poolside speed-read. As usual, Anita runs into a few dicey clients who want zombies raised for questionable reasons. (Why does she not prescreen the crazies using a: 1. secretary or one of her security guys to do intake interviews 2. Then do an internet conference & avoid letting them too close to her and her special people? I suspect her power (or something) causes her to make choices that feed it novel flavors of power and opportunities to enhance her survival skills, much like young hatchery fish vs wild fish. Ex: her avoiding having security despite the previous kidnap attempts, and having at least one serial killer obsessed with her.) (NOTE: What happened with Haven? His character had so much promise, his earnestness was touching, and his chance for fun-in-the-sun is skipped?? Please create another intermediate novella to explore that territory without glossing lightly over it.) Anita demonstrates how flirting can be a dangerous game, and you can get caught in your own spiderweb. Anita is kidnapped by mercenaries working for a crazed client, they threaten her boys if she doesn’t reanimate the client’s dead spouse. Fun and games ensue when the mercenary's weaknesses are turned against them. (If only corporate hound-dogs would pay the prices these folks do.) They get more than they bargained for in an Anita-flavored “reverse-f-ck”, she makes her survival choices and knowingly winds up with extra baggage. --Maybe Jean-Claude should buy an Army barracks.	ISBN 978-0-425-23567-6 Book 18
19. Bullet (June 2010) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 978-0-425-23433-4 Book 19
20. Hit List (June 2011) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 978-0-425-24113-4 Book 20
20.5 Beauty: An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Outtake (May 2012) Novella/Short-Stories:  Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 978-1-101-57930-5 Book 20.5
21. Kiss the Dead (June 2012) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 978-0-425-24754-9 Book 21
22. Affliction (July 2013) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 978-0-425-25570-4 Book 22
22.5. Dancing: An Anita Blake Novella (September 2013) (novella) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 978-0-698-15643-2 Book 22.5
22.7?  Shutdown (October 2013)  (short story; unofficially and temporarily released October 2013, not yet formally published) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Don't know how to get access of this content.	?? Book 22.7?
23. Jason (December 2, 2014) (novella) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN 978-0-515-15607-2 Book 23
24. Dead Ice (July 2015) Review & a touch of Spoiler: Review Coming	ISBN Book 24

Titania's List of Deadwood to TO BE KILLED

Since LKH mentioned she was looking for cannonfodder, I thought these deadwood folks could either use trimming, or some serious roughing up and rebooting.

Deadwood to Chop or Reboot	Reason
·   Micah ·   Anybody else that lied about Micah's doings	his lying/secret doings have attracted a huge amount of future gov digging, gov-or-bad-guy killers, jealous lovers to St. Louis that we haven't even seen the tip of the iceburg
·   Nathanial	he could have, and could still be morphed into Jared Leto/hipster/Renaissance-man with military-type household management skills, but instead currently he's morphed into whiny June Cleaver in an apron.  I would love to either see him morphed into more masculine, or let him be a great gay-best-friend, which is fine as Anita needs that.  That Long Ponytail is a No-GO:  I love long hair, BUT anything past the mid-back brings back memories of high-maintenance dudes.
·   Asher and/or his "side-piece" ·   Narcissus ·   Jade	whiny-cows
·   Jean-Claude's side-pieces ·   Jason or his girlfriend ·   the-Lady-cop-stalking-Nathanial ·   Crispin ·   Domino ·   Bernardo ·   Veronica Simms ·   Richard/Micah's family	nice though stagnant, good cannon-fodder.

Titania's List of Favorite Characters TO SAVE

Who to Save (but they could still be rebooted)	Reason
·  Nicky	Nicky--MY FAVORITE!!   awesome--want to see him raising 2 Anita/Nicky girls ranching and doing horse 4H with them, and being forced in life (beyond just talk) to make choices about his Bride-state and independence.  Hopefully he'd find a way to reinstate his bond with Anita, but what if it took awhile? --with a lot of emotional drama, either due to him being forced away or him considering it.  I don't believe for a second he doesn't mind being left-out of the wedding-type deals...once they are at zero-hour, it will start to fester & burn.
·  Jean-Claude	I'd love to see him “Poldark”-ed, his wealth has removed his manhood and trapped him.  Reboot him in a manly/dirty/sweaty/riding-horses way where they might have to live "rustic" for months (hiding out somewhere super-rural, or sent to another time by baddies).  Heck, this is a fantasy series, he could live part-time in rustic-ville (say in an alternate time/dimension), being all manly, hiding from baddies.
·  Richard ·  Dolf-police boss ·  Olaf/Otto-the-serial-killer ·  Jacob Leon-Nicky’s old leader	They need to suffer more in fiasco-ish humiliations, which “could” happen off-Anita's-radar, in somebody else’s point-of-view in novelettes.  Olaf: I hope Olaf gets "bride"-ed, humiliated, and retrained before he earns any redemption (ala “Fido” zombie-spoof movie).  I doubt he could ever be released from Bride-state, but him getting loose & recaptured occasionally like the wicked boss in “9-to-5” would be awesome!  (Ballgag,  harness him and winch him up to the ceiling when he’s naughty!!  Let Narcissus be his master!) Dolf especially should not just slide back without a word into normal-relations with Anita after his YEARS of bullying without ME viewing some insane comeuppances and evidence of growth.   Richard obviously needs to learn the very hard-way the white-picket fence will destroy him (mentally, physically, legally) before he earns his way back to the fold.  Talk-therapy is just talk without doing the follow-through work. Jacob Leon (of “Flirt”) was a very sly-dry-darkly hilarious Dumb & Dumber spoof.  I’d love MORE.
·  Wicked & Truth/ ·  Rafael-RatKing ·  Sin-Blue Tiger ·  Ethan – Multi-colored Tiger	Neglected, yet very noble and deserving, would love to see more of them.   Wicked & Truth: The Vegas and cemetery scenes with Wicked & Truth were AMAZING.  Rafael needs something heroic and wonderful.  Ethan was wonderful in the Tacoma book. Sin has so much potential.
·  Edward ·  Olaf ·  Bernardo	need to see that 3-way ardeur scenario or just be teased with it some more.  The whole bizarroid sizzle factor with the serial killer & two humans would be hilarious & over-the-top.
·  Edward	love being teased by his possibilities, sooner or later, he's going to get in an ugly situation or dying, where he has to be turned by the good guys, or turned by the bad guys.