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An Anita Blake Danse Macabre retrospective
The Anita Blake Danse Macabre retrospective - Thanks and So Long to the Plot
I think by now, anyone who's been reading my LJ has noticed that I didn't like the latest installment in the Anita Blake series, Danse Macabre. After all, the book came out a few weeks ago and I haven't said anything about it. At first, I wasn't sure why I was so annoyed by DM. After all, I liked Cerulean Sins and Incubus Dreams, in spite of their numerous flaws. I couldn't figure out why halfway through the book I wanted to throw the thing across the room, burn all my AB fics and never read another word by LKH again.
ETA: I should add that I really, *really* wanted to like this book. Maybe that's why I'm so disappointed.
I've recently re-read the book and finally figured out the reasons why I disliked DM so very much.
1. No plot
I like stories (movies or books) that contain a whole story. There has to be some kind of movement for the overall story. If there isn't; if the book is one long space filler, I get annoyed at having spent $30.
Okay, yes, there was a plot. I just can't figure out what it was. Was it the baby? Was it Auggie? Was it Richard proving that he can sink to further depths of dick-dom? Nothing had a resolution, not even the baby thing. The entire book had a long set-up and no resolution. Instead of making me want to read the next book, I experienced the opposite effect. You can throw whatever you want at me in fiction, but if there's no story, I'm not buying. And next time LKH puts a book out, I can't say I'm at all interested in reading. She lost me as a reader and if her recent trend continues, I'm not interested in going back.
2. Anita the slut
I'm sure there's a reason that LKH is making Anita into a slut in the eyes of law enforcement and even her own body guards. I just can't figure out what purpose it's serving. It can't be "sexual choices are one's own" and female empowerment (ignoring the issues of making a formerly chaste strong woman have to have sex with strangers to survive, which bothers me the more I think about it). At least twice in this book, the bodyguards were ogling Anita and she basically said that she'd passed into a piece of tail in their eyes. Why do this to your main character? Why reduce a formerly strong woman into the stereotype held by misogynists that all women are weakened by sex?
3. The Mary Sue syndrome
I am loath to bring this phrase into it, but it's time. Let's review Anita's growing Mary Sue-ness:
-Super powers growing exponentially for no reason? Check.
-She's the most beautiful girl in the land? Check. In earlier books, Anita was pretty, but not beautiful. Now, as either Sampson or Auggie said, when Anita was busy with Mrs. Mermaid, all the men in the room were looking at Anita as the epitome of desirability.
-All the men want to do her? Check.
-All the women hate her because she's so perfect? Check. This can also be titled "The character assassination of Ronnie Sims", and include Meng Die and Belle Morte in this little 'Anita Hate" club, previously populated by Tammy Arnet.
-Nothing can stand in her way: Check.
Incidentally, I took the Mary-Sue Litmus Test for Anita. She's at a whopping 92 and counting, folks. The test only goes up to 100.
4. Chapter 30
The first time I read this book, it was at chapter 30 that I actually slapped the book closed and walked away. It's the chapter in which Anita breaks down, tries to break away from the men, getting all cold and almost killing Damian and Nathaniel in the process. Sounds fine on paper, sure, but it's just the whiniest chapter ever, and negates all the character building Anita has done in the last few books where she accepted Nathaniel and to an extent Damian as part of her life.
And the worst part is, for all she almost kills Nathaniel and Damian in chapter 30, they’re all fine and dandy by chapter 33, and it's an excuse for Anita to have sex with yet another stranger.
5. Asher
My problem with Asher isn't Asher per say, it's how he was used to bring the book to a jarring end. The scene at the end in Jean-Claude's office of the club felt like a lame cop-out to the end of the book. Instead of the party, with all the Masters and the highly intricate plot machinations this might have inspired, we have Anita+Asher=Near Death because neither one of them bothered to recall the last time they had wild sex, Anita also almost died.
At this point in the book, I no longer had any questions about Anita’s insanity, but now I'm starting to seriously wonder about Jean-Claude leaving those two alone.
6. Richard
Until this book, I was okay with Richard. But all my issues with him aside, what bothered me most about how Richard was used in this book was how he continuously diverted the story. Anita would get moving on something, then Richard derails her.
My problem here isn't with the character. It's with the writing. I've had characters run away with me. All authors do. But you pull back, delete six or seven pages, and take control of your story again.
7. Micah and Nathaniel
Ah, yes. The ardeur "gave" Micah and Nathaniel to Anita, and vice versa.
*sigh*
The fact that Anita was beginning to love again, beyond Jean-Claude, was the great character building moment of the last few books. Anita was loving, she had accepted people into her life... Oh wait. That was all the arduer seeking power sources for Anita, brainwashing not only Anita but the men?
Perfect. Thanks so much.
Here endeth the rant. I didn't like the book. Sure, I'll use various angle from it in my new AB/BtVS crossover (in which I attempt to deal with the baby issue for my own sanity) but the rest... well, writing pre-DM seems like a good idea now.
Feel free to debate the issue.
I think by now, anyone who's been reading my LJ has noticed that I didn't like the latest installment in the Anita Blake series, Danse Macabre. After all, the book came out a few weeks ago and I haven't said anything about it. At first, I wasn't sure why I was so annoyed by DM. After all, I liked Cerulean Sins and Incubus Dreams, in spite of their numerous flaws. I couldn't figure out why halfway through the book I wanted to throw the thing across the room, burn all my AB fics and never read another word by LKH again.
ETA: I should add that I really, *really* wanted to like this book. Maybe that's why I'm so disappointed.
I've recently re-read the book and finally figured out the reasons why I disliked DM so very much.
1. No plot
I like stories (movies or books) that contain a whole story. There has to be some kind of movement for the overall story. If there isn't; if the book is one long space filler, I get annoyed at having spent $30.
Okay, yes, there was a plot. I just can't figure out what it was. Was it the baby? Was it Auggie? Was it Richard proving that he can sink to further depths of dick-dom? Nothing had a resolution, not even the baby thing. The entire book had a long set-up and no resolution. Instead of making me want to read the next book, I experienced the opposite effect. You can throw whatever you want at me in fiction, but if there's no story, I'm not buying. And next time LKH puts a book out, I can't say I'm at all interested in reading. She lost me as a reader and if her recent trend continues, I'm not interested in going back.
2. Anita the slut
I'm sure there's a reason that LKH is making Anita into a slut in the eyes of law enforcement and even her own body guards. I just can't figure out what purpose it's serving. It can't be "sexual choices are one's own" and female empowerment (ignoring the issues of making a formerly chaste strong woman have to have sex with strangers to survive, which bothers me the more I think about it). At least twice in this book, the bodyguards were ogling Anita and she basically said that she'd passed into a piece of tail in their eyes. Why do this to your main character? Why reduce a formerly strong woman into the stereotype held by misogynists that all women are weakened by sex?
3. The Mary Sue syndrome
I am loath to bring this phrase into it, but it's time. Let's review Anita's growing Mary Sue-ness:
-Super powers growing exponentially for no reason? Check.
-She's the most beautiful girl in the land? Check. In earlier books, Anita was pretty, but not beautiful. Now, as either Sampson or Auggie said, when Anita was busy with Mrs. Mermaid, all the men in the room were looking at Anita as the epitome of desirability.
-All the men want to do her? Check.
-All the women hate her because she's so perfect? Check. This can also be titled "The character assassination of Ronnie Sims", and include Meng Die and Belle Morte in this little 'Anita Hate" club, previously populated by Tammy Arnet.
-Nothing can stand in her way: Check.
Incidentally, I took the Mary-Sue Litmus Test for Anita. She's at a whopping 92 and counting, folks. The test only goes up to 100.
4. Chapter 30
The first time I read this book, it was at chapter 30 that I actually slapped the book closed and walked away. It's the chapter in which Anita breaks down, tries to break away from the men, getting all cold and almost killing Damian and Nathaniel in the process. Sounds fine on paper, sure, but it's just the whiniest chapter ever, and negates all the character building Anita has done in the last few books where she accepted Nathaniel and to an extent Damian as part of her life.
And the worst part is, for all she almost kills Nathaniel and Damian in chapter 30, they’re all fine and dandy by chapter 33, and it's an excuse for Anita to have sex with yet another stranger.
5. Asher
My problem with Asher isn't Asher per say, it's how he was used to bring the book to a jarring end. The scene at the end in Jean-Claude's office of the club felt like a lame cop-out to the end of the book. Instead of the party, with all the Masters and the highly intricate plot machinations this might have inspired, we have Anita+Asher=Near Death because neither one of them bothered to recall the last time they had wild sex, Anita also almost died.
At this point in the book, I no longer had any questions about Anita’s insanity, but now I'm starting to seriously wonder about Jean-Claude leaving those two alone.
6. Richard
Until this book, I was okay with Richard. But all my issues with him aside, what bothered me most about how Richard was used in this book was how he continuously diverted the story. Anita would get moving on something, then Richard derails her.
My problem here isn't with the character. It's with the writing. I've had characters run away with me. All authors do. But you pull back, delete six or seven pages, and take control of your story again.
7. Micah and Nathaniel
Ah, yes. The ardeur "gave" Micah and Nathaniel to Anita, and vice versa.
*sigh*
The fact that Anita was beginning to love again, beyond Jean-Claude, was the great character building moment of the last few books. Anita was loving, she had accepted people into her life... Oh wait. That was all the arduer seeking power sources for Anita, brainwashing not only Anita but the men?
Perfect. Thanks so much.
Here endeth the rant. I didn't like the book. Sure, I'll use various angle from it in my new AB/BtVS crossover (in which I attempt to deal with the baby issue for my own sanity) but the rest... well, writing pre-DM seems like a good idea now.
Feel free to debate the issue.
no subject
Okay, thank you for noticing that! HOW many times did she have unprotected sex in the course of this book? There's the very great possibility that the baby thing is more postponed than resolved. Also, the biology of this book annoyed me. To recap the various points that annoyed me:
a.) I sure as hell hope her doctor looked for an ectopic pregnancy, especially considering her very-recent near-shifting episode that involved the re-arrangement of her guts. This was not mentioned specific. This bugs me. No embryo in the uterus does not, unfortunately, necessarily equal no pregnancy.
b.) The false positive pregnancy test was a lame-o plot device to begin with. To fully understand the lameness of this, you must understand how the test works - it's looking for HCG (human chorionic gonadotrophin) - which will simply not be present in your body unless you're pregnant, period. It's produced by the embryo. No embryo = no HCG = no positive pregnancy test. The only possible way to get a false positive is if the test itself is faulty. What point this had in the story, I'm not sure, unless the point of the story was supposed to be "boy does it suck to be Anita, the random badness follows her".
c.) Anita testing positive for Mowgli's Syndrome actually makes some sense (and that, incidentally, was one of the few things I liked about this book) - she is, biochemically, a lycanthrope. Her lycanthropy doesn't fully express itself because of something to do with her bond to Jean-Claude (though I begin to wonder whether it would have, had she been infected with wolf first - his animal to call). Anita testing positive for Vlad's syndrome makes NO sense. She's not biochemically or physiologically dead. Let's keep our biology and our metaphysics straight here, y'know?
d.) So Auggie's bad mean lions were going to come in and take over the local pride and kill all the kids just like real lions would, as is apparently traditional in werelion politics.
. . um, except the part where lycanthropes can't carry a pregnancy to term, remember?
Well, maybe Joseph's wife did, she was pregnant as of NiC, five months and counting as I recall, with the full moon of that month having just come and gone, and if she threw herself into labor at the next change (~6.5 months along) the baby would have a semi-decent chance of survival. So, perhaps there's one kid who's a werelion. There may be other kids whose fathers are werelions, but I wasn't under the impression that lycanthropy was be inherited from the father. Which would mean whatever kids belong to the pride members . . would be mostly human unless they were intentionally infected which is illegal and if Anita knew about it she'd be having serious fits, and she wasn't, so I'm guessing that's not the case. So . .. huh?
(Also, I gotta ask, with the advent of Mowgli's Syndrome .. why can't wererats carry to term? Gestation for a rat is 21-23 days. Space between full moons is 28 days. If you time it right, no problems.)
At this point in the book, I no longer had any questions about Anita’s insanity, but now I'm starting to seriously wonder about Jean-Claude leaving those two alone.
Uh, yeah. Seriously. And as of the end of the book, as I recall, they're not allowed to be alone again.
. .. so what this books needs is for me to re-write it with Michael and Selene in it and Anita really being pregnant. *nod*
- Sonya
no subject
I was actually referring more to the emotional issues, because Anita sure was quick to push that out of her mind, but yeah. Either her birth control works and she's not pregnant, or etopic pregnangy as you said.
Unless she's stpiud enough to stop taking her pills because of this.
c) I figure that she's got the same panwere thingy as Chimera, and the mysterious strain of lycanthopy is vampire lycanthropy, as she's been bitten very often by vampires. I think this because it's just insane enough to seem attractive to certain authors at this point.
d) How dare you point out plot inconsistancies from book to book!
Also, I think the doctor mentioned something about serious birth defects with Mowgli's syndrom, but I can't be sure.
. .. so what this books needs is for me to re-write it with Michael and Selene in it and Anita really being pregnant. *nod*
Exactly.
no subject
Hrmm .. well, I'd assume that at the point where she had a positive pregnancy test and had decided she was going to keep the baby, she'd stop taking the pills. Actually, it'd make sense for her to have stopped taking them as soon as her period was late, when she was reasonably-sure-but-not-quite-decided that she'd keep it if she were pregnant, but also to have stopped having intercourse just in case she wasn't. We know the latter didn't happen, dunno 'bout the former.
I'm not sure if you're one of the people with whom I've ranted about this, but actually, it's pretty danged dumb of her to be relying on the pill to start with. Even assuming that she somehow manages to take the things at roughly the same time daily and also to store them in such a way that they're still good when she takes them (which I so *don't* see happening in her life), metabolic changes will screw up the pill. Things like taking antibiotics, or frequently skipping meals, etc., etc. - never mind, y'know, stuff like the ardeur and 837 different variations of lycanthropy. Personally, I'd say her not having been pregnant before now has maybe 25% to do with her being on the pill and about 75% to do with the same lifestyle stuff that's going to screw with the effectiveness of the pill probably also screwing up her body chemistry such that she'd be unlikely to concieve (or at least, unlikely to actually hold onto a pregnancy).
Another random, interesting thought .. she carries two different kinds of feline lycanthropy .. in domestic cats, being around a (not neutered) male can actually bring a female into heat when she's not due to be. Not sure with leopards or lions, but it's a distinct possibility, I'd think.