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[theweaselking]

Laurell K Hamilton explains exactly why her Buffy The Vampire Shagger books are never going to rise above the state of Mary Sue fluff-fiction.

(For bonus points: She refers to her own work as intellectually challenging and disturbing to the reader's comfortable notions and suggests that the only reason you might not like Buffy The Vampire Shagger is that it's *too deep* for you. She then explains that those characters are REAL TO HER DAMMIT and she WUVS THEM and she just can't bear the idea of not writing about them all in every book.)

Comments

[anivair.livejournal.com]

She's a strange talentless women.

She has a point about people whining about how crappy her books are on her message board, though. Pointless. Not only are they not converting anyone over there, but they're preaching to the "other" choir. Just stop reading themn, stop bying them, and find an author with talent and depth who doesn't have to resort to creepy porn to get her material published.

Ahh well. The only other thing I have to say here is that her blog is the ugliest sight i've seen in quite a while. maybe it's just not optimized for browsers that are not IE, but it was really scary looking.

[matgb]

maybe it's just not optimized for browsers that are not IE

Uses IE view for a glance.

No, it's ugly in IE as well. They haven't defined a font or size at all, which means that some of the layouts just don't work properly, but it looks bad in TNR as well as in my preferred Verdana.

Ouch. I read one of her books because I had 2 in a 3-for-2 offer so thought a series with 10 books+ can't be that bad. Oh dear. Morbid curiousity got me buying a few more, and the Gentry books, and I still can't believe how bad they are.

But, getting something straight. They aren't comfortable books. They are books that push my character and me to the edge and beyond of our comfort zones. OK, got that, bad things happen. The characters aren't real to you. They are real to me, and to a lot of other people. I, and a lot of readers, would feel an emotional loss if some of these guys died.

Right. So, about this Comfort Zone thing? Ah well. And I'm pretty sure she's misspelling a few things she created as well. Not that I really care.

[ladymina.livejournal.com]

actually looking at her boards she is mainly referring to people who discuss how the characters went oc, how it would be really nice to get a bit more plot and less sex scenes and how they want her to have an editor (hell the woman can't even decide how to spell her own plot (*cough sex) devices adeur/aduer/adeurereur

[siouxsyn.livejournal.com]

She sounds like an RPGer who hasn't anyone to play with.

[opaqueplanet.livejournal.com]

As an RPGer I take offense. :P

[siouxsyn.livejournal.com]

Lol think about all the energy and imagination that goes into a good game, how everyone bounces off each other and makes it all good. Then try to do it with no friends. And obviously no lover either. Or we hope so.

[opaqueplanet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but even alone, I (or any of the gamers I know) could come up with better than that crap. Perhaps a more accurate assertion would be that she sounds like a really bad RPGer who hasn't anyone to play with.

[siouxsyn.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see how what I said could be offensive. Any other RPGer has some degree of skill because they've played. I was comparing her to someone who would play if they had any friends. So no, a step further down from a really bad player.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

Wow.

[netcrimes.livejournal.com]

Laurell K Hamilton *used* to be one of my favorite writers. But she's writing porn - hardcore porn now, as far as I'm concerned and I'll never buy one of her books ever again.

Hell, if I want porn, I'll buy Playgirl.

[waterspyder.livejournal.com]

I used to like her books, and I managed to make it to Incubus Dreams... or at least I think that was the one. Her format changed from 400 pages of plot and 100 pages of porn to 100 pages of plot buried deeply in 400 pages of very graphic porn with terms I did not care to learn – and that says something.

I do have to say Playgirl is liable to have more tasteful writing than Hamilton's latest efforts.

[kindofstrange.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I stopped one before that. It was an interesting enough series with a lot of potential, but good god she couldn't stop porning it up. A little sex in a series here and there is nice and flavors the stories with a bit of realism... but holy hell, super graphic gang bangs 10 pages in? No thanks.

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

I made it up to the last Anita book when I gave up on her. I can get graphic descriptions of sex for free. I want to see Anita shoot people...

[ladymina.livejournal.com]

and the quality of the porn would be so much better
btw I got here through a link of matgb if you wonder ..

[scixual.livejournal.com]

osh, maybe I should START reading her now! :P

[city-of-dis.livejournal.com]

Should I know who this person is? At any rate, if her prose in this blog entry is any indication, she's a piss-poor writer to begin with...

[unknownpoltroon.livejournal.com]

Shes a writer, who started out writing vampir hunter style books, with decent characters and plot, and within about 3-5 books it devloved into weird vampire/werewolf romance novel bad porn. I liked the first 3 or so, but after that, bleargh.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

She writes the Buffy The Vampire Shagger Anita Blake books.

You're not missing anything.

[sterroneous.livejournal.com]

You know, until this thread I'd forgotten I liked her first few books.

I'm suffering pulp pr0n for that 100 pages of plot. I think this makes me the worst type of consumer.

[unknownpoltroon.livejournal.com]

first few were pretty good. After that, blergh, nothing but bad supernatural porn.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

She seems to have entirely missed the point. People aren't leaving her books and abandoning her because they don't like her, or don't like her characters. They are leaving her because they hate what she has done to characters they connected with, characters they enjoyed.

She discusses the 'ardeur' as if it is a root of the problem. It is not. I stopped reading before the ardeur thingy and the problem was there then- the problem is the sheer amount of graphic sex scenes. I don't mind a sex-related plotline. I can even deal with the fact that LKH has about seventy million sexual plotlines. What I can't deal with, and why I stopped reading, is that (as someone said above) for every few pages of plotline there are one hundred pages of describing Character A's penis in great detail as it slides into Character B's arse. I don't care about that. If I want that, there are plenty of excellent sexual-oriented sites for free (many of them related to Harry Potter, but we can ignore those as well).

This doesn't mean I don't care about Character A or Character B. It means that I don't care about their penises or their...other...parts. She doesn't seem to realise that these 'negative fans' are still true fans. They want the Anita of the earlier books. They want the sexual tension and careful manoeuvring and subtle cause-and-effects of the earlier books. They don't want to pay $30 or so for a book that's 1/5th plot movement and the rest sex- and that little plot movement is related to the sex almost entirely.

Gah. Now you've made me all ranty.

What was the problem with 'fade to black and then fade back and the character's have cigarettes in their hands,' anyway? She could keep her damn sex plotlines if she wanted, but actually get some writing in.

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

I just want less penis and more penis substitute gun play again. Given her current focus on showing her apperciation I shudder to think what will be done in the next book with Edward and the serial killer stalker...

[ladymina.livejournal.com]

In a way the adeurreur (sorry if she can't decide on a spelling how should I ) was a bad idea
she did write herself into a corner, yes she wrote sex scenes before but there was no need for the sex scenes (no sex scene at all in OB- some use of sexual comments and one attempt at rape as a way of torture, but no sex scenes)- now since NIC Anita needs to have sex about once or twice a day, and can't use the same guy everytime, if that isn't writing a former monogamous character with morales into a deep corner that you will never dig out again, I wouldn't know what would qualify ...

Yeah I did read her books up to ID, I loved Obsidian Butterfly, hated NIC but thought that was a one time mistake and the next book would be better

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Which one was Obsidian Butterfly? Was that the one set in New Mexico or wherever (I'm terrible at US places) focusing around Edward and co.? I loved that one. I read Narcissus in Chains, to give LKH one last chance of redemption (she'd earned it after the Edward-themed one), but she failed spectacularly. The entire book was about the BDSM subculture. While I learned a lot about that subculture, it wasn't really an Anita Blake book.

Gah. Still all ranty.

[ladymina.livejournal.com]

It was the one in New Mexico
The one with Edward - I loved that one
the woman said Edward will be in the next book Harlequinn - I am afraid she will mutilate him then, too

Uhm and no, the book was not about the BDSM subculture AT ALL. It was about a fantasy vision of a BDSM subculture that gets the real subculture, screaming ranting and slightly homicidal ... LKH doesn't even understand the most important rules of BDSM ...
Please don't think you learned anything about the subculture at all

gah now I am ranty, too

Oh and if you wanna rant more . there is lkh_lashout ... nice place for rants

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Well- considering I knew nothing before, I did learn some things. I've learned more since, including some of her mistakes. Heh.

Yes, I fear for poor Edward, a fan favourite. He'll die, or have sex with her or something. Ugh.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

... Ok now I feel bad. I actually like her work! Granted I no longer read it for the mystery and plot, but I read it for the same reason I read crappy fluff romance novels. I enjoy the fluffy porn sometimes. The Meredith Gentry series I love, and the next to last book covered less than a full day between sex scenes. My husband though dropped Anita after Obsidian butterfly.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Goddammit, "maybe you do not feel for the loneliness of the vampires" sounds *terrible*. I am sure there's something wrong with that sentance.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Also, I think a comma is either missing or needs to be added in "Let's just say that what Nathaniel wants out of a relationship and what Anita wants out of one, may not match."

This is terrible.

Must kick brain out of edit mode.

[queenie-writes.livejournal.com]

There is nothing wrong with edit mode. Us writers need gals like you. ;)

[siouxsyn.livejournal.com]

The funny thing about all this was that the Anita was originally a virgin and a big deal was made of this. It was an interesting idea, and LKH could have run well with that, have her almost get it on, or actually do before she realises that it's all a dream. You know that kinda shite.

Mind you, has she ever shagged a human being? Maybe it doesn't count if she hasn't....

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

Er. No she wasn't. The character was never a virgin, she had a lot of sexual hangups from A: a Catholic upbringing and B: an ex-fiancee who dumped her when his family learned she was half-Hispanic...