I can see Laurell K Hamilton sitting at her desk. She arches her back and cracks her knuckles like Lurch getting ready to play the harpsicord. She smiles as she thinks to herself, what could I do that would be more boring than watching Anita Blake have sex for the umptempth time? Aha! Inspiration strikes. I could have Anita talk about having sex!
The Anita Blake books used to be nice and predictable. She would go to work and raise a zombie or two. Word would come down about a Monster on the loose. She would track the Monster down and kill it. Roll credits. But somewhere along the line Laurell decided that straight thrillers and detective stories were not her thing, so she tossed in the curse called the ardeur. Now Anita has to have sex or she will die. Fine. Ok. No problem. But then things got a little out of hand.
In each of the past ten or fifteen books, Anita has added at least one new fuck buddy, and often more, sometimes a lot more. The result being that Anita Blake has a harem that would be the envy of any Sultan. Again, ok, fine, whatever. Except that this has radically changed the tone of the books. Instead of having say, a handful of Main Characters, like Sherlock Holmes or James Bond or Gilligan’s Island, we have a cast of thousands. Anita Blake’s universe is more like Lord of The Rings or Star Trek, so damned many new people have been added, and are constantly being added, that I need a scorecard to figure out who all these people are.
I basically like four people in the Anita Blake books. Anita, Edward, Jean Claude, and Richard. Which means there is not a lot for me to like in the bulk of the last ten books. This is sort of like saying my favorite characters on MASH are Spear Chucker Jones and Painless Pole. In other words, Richard and Jean Claude and Edward aren’t exactly central to Anita’s story any more.
Jason is about one of Anita’s fuck buddy’s who has a new girlfriend who doesn’t understand BDSM. So instead of buying her a copy of 50 Shades of Grey, they decided to show her what it means by having her watch Jason and Anita have rough sex. The first third of the book is Anita and four of her people talking about their sex lives over coffee and tea.
The rest of the novella is Anita having sex and trying to learn how to be a good lesbian. It’s a bit repetitive and I have to admit that I just skimmed most of it. It’s just not worth the effort of learning the names of these new people, let alone learning what gets them off in the bedroom. It’s a rare book that I can’t finish, but Jason made the cut.
On the plus side, there’s a sample chapter from the next book, Dead Ice, which reads more like an old fashioned Anita Blake fighting monsters book and less like a how to guide for the poly curious.
