For Those Who Came Late to the Merry Party...

Courtesy of a friend on amazon. First the amazing news that Swallowing Darkness paperback is # 22 on the New York Times List as of 12/13/09!  I wonder how many of those devious, conniving Canadians were thwarted for this to happen. Mwahaha! https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-mYO2F0IRP9I/VG7jRuqe-pI/AAAAAAAAFgM/immtAjgbUac/s400/ooh%2Bi%2527m%2Bthe%2Bbad%2Bguy.gif Thanks to everyone who bought a copy and helped us get on the list.  I'm sure they rushed out to buy it just so LKH would be on that list. Second, I'm going to blog about the Merry series and some of the questions you guys have been asking on-line.  Like: when is it going to end? Why are you still writing this crap if you obviously hate it? Why couldn't you end it at the natural stopping point instead of dragging out the adventures of SparkleFairySue? What is the purpose of life ASIDE from having sex? But enough of you on-line have told me you've either just found the Merry Gentry series, or read them out of order,  Because of course, order is of the utmost importance. After all, how could you POSSIBLY understand what's going on with this boytoy or that random magical item unless you've read the books that introduce them? It would be SO confusing to read a Merry book, and discover that she's fucking someone you've never heard of. So to help clarify all that, plus welcome all the new people to the Merry party.  Here's a welcome from me and my snarky pals: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-XX-iHeIJ-DE/VG7uZ2GB91I/AAAAAAAAGu8/4jknjHONK0w/s400/abandon%2Bhope.jpg Then she lists the MG books in order, apparently because these people have drooled all over their keyboards and can't just look it up on wikipedia. Seriously, what is wrong with those people? IT'S CALLED GOOGLE, PEOPLE. It's not hard to do! The idea behind the naming convention for the series was that each book would  ... sound like a pretentious porn movie. get progreessively darker and then the titles would have light imagery in them as Merry triumphed over her enemies and won the day.  Like THAT would ever happen.</li> <li>For one thing, "light imagery" is not GAWTHE.</li> <li>For another, Merry won't ever triumph over all her enemies because then LKH couldn't justify continuing the series anymore. She'll always have more of them popping out of the woodwork.</li> <li>Plus, some of her enemies are her enemies less in the sense of trying to kill her... and more in the sense of, "You were mean to me and now I hate you."</li> </ol> Swallowing Darkness seemed to me to say everything I wanted to say about that point of the books, but my editor at the time couldn't see her way clear to it. </b> "Oh shit, she's openly giving her books porn titles instead of just making them 'sexy.' How the hell are we supposed to market this to the masses?" https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hs6gBMYkxcg/VG7jXKFux0I/AAAAAAAAFhk/S-kWONPLMds/s400/porn%2Bporn%2Bporn.gif That said, it definitely does say everything she wants to say about the series overall. There's a character nicknamed Darkness, and there's an unsubtle pun about oral sex, which Laumerita says is her favorite activity. It doesn't take Einstein to figure this title out. Or to figure out that Merita swallows. Ew. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YsdIpLsxqUI/VG7smFDl1RI/AAAAAAAAGag/figLSwU8Y_E/s320/deep%2Bthroating%2Bbanana.jpg In fact, both my agent and my editor seemed strangely quiet, or reluctant, or even nervous whenever we discussed the title. </b> Teehee, I'm so naive about these naughty things. Wait, no I'm not! I'm a sexual sexy sex person who likes to talk about sex! Uh, wait, I'm not a slut who would actually notice an oral sex joke... except when I'm a sexual sex-loving person who was a teenage oracle of sexual knowledge... My idea behind the title Swallowing Darkness was that Merry would have to embrace her darker magic to save herself and the people she loved, </b> So, why not the title Embracing Darkness? It can imply something sexual, something protective, or just affectionate. "Swallowing" on the other hand means... eating. Or, you know, swallowing after oral sex. It does NOT evoke what she claims it would. as those who read the series know Doyle's nickname is The Queen's Darkness, or simply Darkness. </b> We know. We get the "Where is my Darkness?" speech about him in EVERY SINGLE BOOK. So everyone in New York thought I meant to imply some sort of ... sex double entendre with the title. </b> TEEHEE they all thought dirty things! Imagine THAT, somebody seeing a double entendre in an LKH book title! With a character called Darkness which is reiterated about a thousand times per book! And Sues praising the joys of sucking dicks! Imagine, thinking about naughty dirty things because of THAT.... https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-FNZHk76_m6w/VG7jTa2LBdI/AAAAAAAAFg4/7TT_C24n3-4/s400/penis%2Bpottery.gif I swear to you that I didn't intend it that way, and didn't get the joke for years. </b> RIIIIIGHT. Does she really think that we're that stupid, or that we can't see the pattern in her books? We've got caresses, kisses, licking, seduction, stroking.... but we're supposed to believe that "swallowing" is meant in a purely G-rated manner and totally WASN'T meant to be naughty? Really. HOW DUMB does she think we are? That's not even taking into account that everyone is pretty sure that she checks message boards, and everyone was shrieking, "I can't believe they let her use that title." The light would finally dawn, and then I felt sort of stupid for not realizing the double meaning in Swallowing Darkness. </b> I don't think there's a single person in the world who knows about that type of... consumption who DOESN'T realize the double meaning. So yes, if you didn't notice that, you ARE stupid. I'm not a good joke audience, because much of that kind of humor passes me by, whether the joke is sexy or not. </b> So basically LKH is admitting that she's totally humorless. I think we all pretty much knew that already - her books are as funny as a broken nose, and the few attempts at humor she's made are either cribbed from someone else ("I never drink... wine") or are deeply unfunny. The funny moments are usually unintentionally so (like the infamous rainmaker scene, or the Anita-flashes-the-police-station-with-her-shoe-stuck-in-a-vampire's-chest scene). https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-tyeZqDf60KQ/VG7cBKVP0pI/AAAAAAAAE9Y/Z9MyyqBkHu0/s400/blackadder%2Bis%2Bnot%2Bamused.png Sometimes you have to explain the joke to me and then its not funny anymore, I don't do it on purpose, but sometimes I'm a little clueless. </b> I don't know why she's insisting so hard that her next-to-latest book of fairy porn and self-worship totally has a G-rated title, after an entire series of suggestive ones. So yeah, we have licking, kissing, stroking, seducing, and caressing. But we're supposed to think that SWALLOWING isn't even remotely sexual. If the eighth book had been Sucking Magic, she would have claimed that we all took it the wrong way. Just because her Sue talks about the joys of gobbling cock doesn't mean we should interpret the word "suck" in a dirty way! Did somebody complain to the publisher about it? Were they shelved in erotica at her local bookstore because of the title? Did somebody cite it as an example of how her books are NOT deep and intelligent ones? They finally let me use the title and it matched with the new naming convention which was one of Merry's bodyguard's and lover's names with some sexy sounding phrase: </b> I can't help but wonder if Swallowing Darkness managed to kill that new naming convention, when they realized that <ol><li>Readers aren't as stupid as LKH clearly thinks they are.</li> <li>From there, the naming convention can only go downhill.</li> <li>I mean, what's next? A Gulp Of the Green Man? Sholto's Shwanstugel? Gobbling Galen? Ravishing Rhys? Fucking Frost?</li> </ol> And now we have yet another naming convention for Divine Misdemeanors. </b> So now in the pretense of actually having a plot that involves crime, it's gonna have crime names? Can't wait. Magical Muggings, Holy Handcuffs, Beatific Beatings, Angelic Asskickings... I deliberatly chose to switch title themes for this book. I see the first seven books as one story arc, and Divine Misdemeanors beginning a new one. </b> So pray, why would she change naming conventions TWICE? At first it was whatever references to darkity-darkness as possible, then it switched to sexy words + Merita's fairy boytoy. I think she started with one convention, but either got bored or lost title inspiration. Merry has made her choices, thrown out a third of my plot, and remade her life. </b> ... except I doubt she'll actually stick to that. For one thing, "remaking her life" might mean having to pay attention to CRIMES and MYSTERIES instead of fairy etiquette and Merry's new parade of boytoys. As for making her choices, no choices in these series are permanent if they take away a chance for power for the Sue. I'm sure in LKH's mind, the Goddezz is just biding her time so she can make Merry ruler of EVERYTHING. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MfkjIwTK7-U/VG7ffq7W9FI/AAAAAAAAFPM/kQ8k-1_oAZU/s400/i%2Bam%2Bthe%2Blizard%2Bqueen.gif And it really shows how insecure LKH about her latest attempts at writing mysteries that she was throwing jabs at Jim Butcher in Divine Misdemeanors. Why? Apparently because he dared to write an actual whodunnit in Turn Coat - it wasn't a brilliant whodunnit, but it was a decent one. And it actually centered on the mystery, not on Harry's love life woes and who he was boinking (which were a very brief side story that was actually RELEVANT to the main mystery). I think it really grinds at LKH that while she preens that her books are hard-boiled mysteries, someone else is actually writing that sort of book and doing better at it than she ever has. So what does she do? Try to work harder at writing a good central mystery? Naaaaahhh. She'll just lob hilariously untrue claims about how wizard detectives are good at magic but not crime-solving, sniff sniff. The REAL detective is a fairy Paris Hilton who is constantly followed by the paparazzi, and is only able to solve the crime when some random dude wanders in and says, "Hey, I think my friend is the killer." I don't want to spoil the surprises for you guys, but I want to talk to the readers who have read them all. I don't know how to do that without series spoilers. </b> So put some fucking spoiler warnings in your post. that the first seven books are set in modern America and a fairy land if J. R. R. Tolkein was more interested in socilogy, politics, and personal relationships than language. </b> ... oh no SHE DIDN'T. She did NOT just compare herself favorably to Tolkien. SHE DID. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IqU2FYLefPw/VG7zRPDcFeI/AAAAAAAAIXs/7FrD06vo4ik/s400/berserk%2Bbutton.jpg Okay, for the record, JRR Tolkien made the fantasy genre as we know it. You may like his works, or you may not - but you can't deny that the fantasy genre as we know it did not exist until he wrote his books, and he's inspired (whether positively or negatively) most of the fantasy that has come since then. Before him, there WAS no fantasy except for a few lone pioneers. Whether it originated from him (hobbits, ents, the cosmology) or was filtered through his work (the elves, special swords, lost kings), it is from him that we got the whole mess. What's more, comparing them is like comparing a paper doll to a Michaelangelo sculpture. Tolkien wrote a whole HISTORY to his imaginary world, and spent his entire LIFE creating a vast and expansive story of the elves and their existence in Middle-Earth, as well as an entire cosmology to run the place and spawn several subplots. The Lord of the Rings is a book that has a whole bunch of interweaving subplots that are carefully choreographed, and a cast that splits and reunites constantly until the end rather than focusing exclusively on Frodo. People die. Others can't be healed. It's also an epic that involves the entire known world AND beyond. LKH... takes modern day American and plops fairies, vampires and werewolves in it. No real backstory, no complex cosmology, no societal differences except for a subsociety who haven't affected human society or history at ALL. What little action there is revolves around Merry/Anita and her boytoys, affects nobody else, and extends no further than the story currently being told. And that sniffy snotty "if he were more interested in X, Y, and Z than in language" makes me think that she tried to read the book, but couldn't manage to get more than a chapter or two in because there was no sex, no bishies (how DARE Tolkien not describe Legolas's flaxen flowing hair and eyes like the summer sky, which was two shades lighter than X's eyes and a shade darker than his silk undershirt which caressed blah blah blah), and no character she could pretend to be (Eowyn is a BLONDE! YUCKY!). https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-XLZEun6qR-k/VG7qaGJ4FMI/AAAAAAAAF5o/iU-SUbke0UU/s400/eowyn.jpg As for the other stuff: <ul><li> Socilogy ...wait, I think she means SOCIOLOGY, which is ridiculous related to LKH compared to Tolkien. In the Merry Gentry series, LKH sets up basically one major nonhuman culture - monarchs, nobles, and no real differences from humans except for Technicolor skin and obsession with sex.</li></ul> Tolkien created hobbits, elves (different subcultures), dwarves and humans (different subcultures), and carefully sketched out different skills, laws, flaws, traditions, feuds, strengths, weaknesses, development, religious focus, etc. So yeah, who came up with the interesting sociological concepts now? <ul><li> Politics:  Please, having people bicker over the finer points of etiquette and determining who has to bow to whom is NOT politics. Tolkien's works have way more actual politics than LKH's works ever have - Aragorn's friction with Denethor and the line of Dunedain kings; Saruman's manipulation of Rohan and the Dunlendings at the SAME TIME; Bilbo negotiating to try to stop a war from breaking out; Saruman taking control of the Shire; the involvement of Prince Imrahil, and so on. And that's not even addressing the Silmarillion.</li></ul> <ul><li> Personal relationships : oh, don't make me laugh. There are only three kinds of real "personal relationships" in LKH's books - people who are sexing her Sue, people who are going to sex her Sue and people who hate her Sue because they're Jellus Prudes. Apparently in her mind, "personal relationships" mean people who are boinking like mad.</li></ul> Tolkien? Well, lessee - there's the central Sam/Frodo relationship, based on longtime friendship, trust, caring, and support. And yes, love of the platonic variety. Then there's Legolas and Gimli's gradual growth past their prejudices to become best buddies, Aragorn's close friendship with almost everybody in the cast (and then some!), Aragorn's romance with Arwen (in which she GIVES UP IMMORTALITY FOR LOVE! with no magical asspull to give her immortality AND true love!), Merry and Pippin's buddyhood deepening into real friendship under pressure, Frodo and Gollum's weird connection, Bilbo's father-son relationship with Frodo, and so on and so forth. Again, only in the ONE BOOK. There's a vast web of relationships that he writes about at length... but since they don't involve sex, wangst and sharing feeeeeeeelings with a Sue, it doesn't really count in her eyes. So in conclusion... fuck you, LKH. You have a ridiculously exalted opinion of yourself. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-zZpOJ5t6Ll8/VG7jZLtEVlI/AAAAAAAAFi4/DQMZ6cSMueY/s400/rage%2B-%2Bgrohl.gif It is a quest, but instead of a distant land, or a holy relic, Merry and her friends are trying to stay one step ahead of assassination attempts and trying to live long enough for her to be crowned queen </b> That is NOT a quest, nor is the actual series anything like that - she makes it sound like it's thrilling and dangerous and full of action. The only action Merry gets is the THAT KIND of action. Trust me. I've read it. Not much action. And what the fuck does that sentence even mean? Quests are not "distant lands" OR "holy relics." They're QUESTS. Journeys TO a place to do something or bring something or achieve something. <b>Dark Court of Fairie. She is literally a fairie princess </b> ... has anyone actually seen anyone except LKH spell the word that way? I've seen it as "fairy" and "faerie," but not "fairie." <b>Um, no little girl you can't read these books, its not that kind of fairyland and Merry is not that kind of fairy princess, not even close. </b> She's the slut Sue kind of fairy princess. And LKH would never "sanitize" the genre she images she invented by writing a book they could read, because urban fantasy = sex and gore. All fairies must fuck, all the time! If they do anything else, it's no good! <b>There are moments of horror and violence that wouldn't be out of place in a slasher flick. </b> When was the last time we had one of those? Right now it's all screwing and Merry being the center of attention. <b>There is sex. </b> So I'm told, but the plot is so overwhelming and complex that I had forgotten all about the sex. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-mExF5eqN7do/VG7jeTyWYwI/AAAAAAAAFj8/5VSdPOjQ81s/s400/sarcastic%2Bblackadder.gif <b>Good sex. </b> Wrongo. Not only is the sex in her books agonizingly boring, silly, repetitive and very vanilla, but nobody seems to enjoy it. Isn't enjoying it one of the points? <b>Real sex, except for the whole glowing skin and magic thing, </b> What the hell is her definition of "real sex"? It's in a book, ergo it is not real. It involves glowing skin, magic, superpowers emanating from the Divine Coochie, people turning into gods, and magical trinkets showing up to emphasize the SuperSpeshulness of the Sue. What's "real" about that? <b>but I try for all the sex in my books to be humanly possible. </b> Including the neck-chomping, the beast-men, the animals trotting around, and the magical powers generated by the choo choo entering the tunnel? <b>I guess in some ways Merry's world is the antithesis ot Tolkein. </b> And thank God for that. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-j4j-lOR6zHk/VG7fWSLg2xI/AAAAAAAAFMY/ao5o_mR5p0I/s400/hallelujah.gif And if you're gonna try to elevate your pitiful self above him, at least spell his NAME right. It's not like he's an unknown. <b>There is no sex in Tolkein. </b> "Teehee, I'm totally better than Tolkien because there's SEXY SEX STUFF in my SEXY books. I have whole books full of nothing but my Sue getting repeatedly porked, and he DOESN'T! He's totally not edgy and interesting, like ME! Maybe I should claim I started the fantasy genre too, teehee!" Seriously, what does it matter that there's no sex in Tolkien? First off, it wasn't terribly common back when his books were published. Second, the books don't NEED sex. They succeed magnificently WITHOUT sex. Sex would add nothing. It's really pathetic that she has to try to be THE FIRST and/or THE BEST in any genre she dips her pinkie toe into. She claims she's superior to King, also to Doyle and Christie, and now she's decided she's superior to Tolkien because she puts sex in her books? In her feverish little wet dreams. <b>There is this feeling of the old boy's clubs when they gathered together to get away from the women and not have to worry about all that girl stuff. </b> <ol><li>Given her revulsion toward and dismissal of all men who actually act like and look like men, and anything that relates to their way of thinking, this is a hilarious statement.</li> <li>It's even more hilarious given her contempt for women and "girl stuff."</li> <li>Actually, Tolkien's approach is somewhat different from LKH's snotty interpretation. Read his description of women like Arwen, and it seems more worshipful and awed than dismissive.</li> <li>Additionally, I love how LKH takes the absolute nastiest and most misogynistic view of the Inklings. It couldn't be that they were all colleagues AND personal friends who met for personal and artistic reasons.</li> <li>AND it couldn't possibly be that Oxford probably didn't even HAVE female professors and academics back then.</li> <li>No, the only reason a bunch of men with shared interests would go hang out is because they detested women and wanted to get away from "girl stuff."</li> <li>Which would undoubtedly explain why Tolkien and Lewis were friends with Dorothy Sayers.</li> <li>And they adored their wives. Lewis wrote A WHOLE BOOK about his grief over his wife's death, and considered her his intellectual equal and compatible in every way. Tolkien openly based the MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN in his imaginary world on his wife, devoted an immense amount of his mythology to Luthien Tinuviel, and by all accounts they were a loving and devoted couple. I don't know about the other Inklings' personal lives, but those two men at least could NOT be said to want to get away from "girl stuff."</li> </ol> https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-grk1r9DZMdc/VG7gmg1q9QI/AAAAAAAAFW0/xwjS3C-uJ3g/s400/is%2Bshe%2Ba%2Bmean%2Bgirl%2Bor%2Ba%2Bnormal%2Bgirl.gif <b>My books have almost none of that, </b> We've noticed. It would be a lot more interesting if it did. <b>and the term elf is never used though Tolkein's elves are probably close to my high court sidhe in appeance </b> What, pray, is "appeance"? If she means "appearance," I suppose she's deriving that entirely from the movies because Tolkien's elves are rarely described physically in terms of how they differ from humans. If they do, it's usually more in the sense of a light shining from them... and not sex glowing either, which is the only kind LKH knows of. And I love how she talks about whether Tolkien's elves resemble HER sidhe, not the other way around. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IbAI17Eern0/VHLiCkPD1mI/AAAAAAAAIoE/zMO2_dWvMJU/s400/sparkly%2Bballs.gif <b>but where I always felt the elves in his world would never want to get dirty enough to have really good, squealchy sex, </b> WRONG. According to Tolkien, '' "The union of love is indeed to them great delight and joy." ''Which not only sounds a lot more enjoyable and intimate than anything she writes about, but confirms officially that yes, Tolkien's elves like sex. Some will have sex for centuries. It just isn't the only thing they think about or do, and they aren't so tacky as to hump in public in front of an audience. The reason LKH can't imagine them having a satisfying sex life is, simply, because sexuality is not the elves' sole characteristic. And frankly, they're too classy to do the sort of "sexual" stuff she describes - pawing others in public, walking around half nude, doing silly stripper walks. It's a sign of her limited imagination and tolerance, not some problem on Tolkien's end. I imagine what bugs LKH about this is that <ul><li>elves only have sex with their spouses</li> <li>they don't screw around in public or talk about it</li> <li>Tolkien doesn't write any elf porn</li> <li>sometimes it's for babies, not for contrived magical-roofie excuses</li> <li>as an immortal species, they wouldn't have very strong sex drives</li> <li>he said that eventually their interests stray towards stuff other than sex (which, given that they're immortal, would make sense - otherwise, the world might end up hip-deep in elves with no end in sight).</li></ul> Hell, one elf couple had SEVEN kids, which for an immortal race is quite a brood. How the hell does she think they had all those kids? Holding hands vigorously?! https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T9f_7QYseno/VG7gthmCJRI/AAAAAAAAFYg/rI8294a6WYw/s400/kiss%2Bmy%2Bass.gif"></a> <b>I will say this for Tolkein's world I always thought that if any of his races liked a good roll in the hay it had to be the Hobbits. </b> Lemme guess - because they're short and obsessed with food (like her!) they must also be obsessed with sex (like her!). Seriously, isn't anything sacred to LKH? Aside from pretending to be a transgressive sexual gawthe outsider, that is. <b>It was also why I think it had to be a Hobbit that took the ring through everything, because they seemed to have a more complete life to lose. </b> WRONG. So this dumb bint thinks that Frodo had to take the ring because the Hobbits obviously like eating, drinking, and MUST love having sex, so they have more of a "life" than anyone else in Middle-Earth? Methinks the Elves, Dwarves and Men might disagree. Wow, LKH, you just managed to TOTALLY miss the entire fucking point of the Hobbits. The whole point is that they're contented, unambitious and innocent at heart, and thus are more difficult to tempt. It is not that they have sex, teehee, so they're perfect to take the Ring to Mordor. WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING SMOKING? https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-mon-Q2kgULM/VG7fT6e6-6I/AAAAAAAAFLM/OrkPmqUD1fc/s400/gollum%2Bfreakout.gif Then again, the whole point of Frodo taking the Ring is that he can resist the lure of power, which will corrupt him and lead to the destruction of the world. And LKH's works are all about how embracing any power - no matter how evil or vile - because if you don't snatch all the power you can, somebody you love might die. The fact that Frodo was sent off on this quest shows that yes, sometimes people who are loved have to be sacrificed. So in short, LKH probably thinks Gandalf should have accepted the Ring, because obviously he wouldn't be corrupted if he wanted to do good! And Aragorn should have taken the Ring because then he could marry Arwen! https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-PPWWXR13rWs/VG7fUZmkP2I/AAAAAAAAFMM/sneP5aCISB0/s400/gollum%2Bfreakout2.gif Don't worry, you're so speshul and pure that the power won't corrupt you! Embrace the evil vile power of the Ring! It's the only moral thing to do! It would be WRONG to REJECT the evil power that can corrupt angels and ancient elves if it means someone you love might DIE! Because the whole world being enslaved and/or destroyed doesn't matter as long as "my people are safe!" So yeah, she comes up with some lame idea that "Frodo had to take the Ring because the Hobbits have good sex," because if she acknowledged that Tolkien's message is "embracing power leads to corruption, even if you have the best of intentions," then she'd have to admit that her series has the exact opposite message. <b>When I was younger I wanted to be an elf, but as I grew older I knew I was a Hobbit. I'm too short to be anything else for one thing. </b> Have I mentioned how incredibly freakishly short I am? I'm obviously only three and a half feet tall! And I don't wanna be an elf anymore, because they're tall and slim and Nordic and Galadriel doesn't have enormous tits hanging out of her dress. And what does she think Dwarves are? https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UCXfcpv4eoc/VG70L4H46aI/AAAAAAAAIXk/yeWLdqQGpmU/s400/motiv%2B-%2Bfantasy%2Bdwarves.jpg <b>The Merry Gentry series is marketed as a paranormal romance, </b> Fairy porn fits the bill nicely, thank you. <b>and they are closer to that paradeim than the Anita Blake books, </b> And what, pray, is a paradeim? If you can't spell a big word, don't use it. <b>but I say, I write Paranormal Thrillers, because that covers what I really write. </b> No, it doesn't. It's fairy porn where the only thrill is the last page, because that means you can read something else now. <b>The first seven books are more romantic as in the princess is looking for her true love </b> ... while wangsting that if she gets knocked up, she'll have to jettison the rest of her harem. Yup, that just screams Troo Wuv to me. <b>but its me and I'm always the subversive </b> She's as subversive as leaving jelly off your PBJ sandwich. Subversive and distasteful are not the same thing. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-rfCkQq2LG4k/VG70tOg4sYI/AAAAAAAAIWo/sLPs4dCOJbQ/s400/motiv%2B-%2Byou%2Bfail%2Bat%2Bfailing.jpg <b>so my princess isn't your typical one, </b> Yeah, she lies there all day getting boinked by boytoys. Aside from that, she's a whiny wangsty adolescent who basically does nothing except gain magic powers. She's Bella Swan with asspull powers and a stretched-out vajayjay. <b>I mean what other fairie princess has as her major magic the ability to make people bleed out or melt their flesh so they turn into a little, screaming ball of flesh. </b> A major magic ability doesn't mean anything if your heroine doesn't use it, and instead relies on the power of magic sex to handle every problem.

And if her princess is THAT powerful, then why does she need a small army of bodyguards? <b>For the male readers, </b> ... she has MALE readers? Since when? And what the hell do they see in the books? I would think this would be the NC-17 version of Twilight - guys aren't typically captivated by constant adoring paeons to how hot effeminate wangsty boy-men are. <b>They look like straight sexy romances </b> No, they look like porn. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hs6gBMYkxcg/VG7jXKFux0I/AAAAAAAAFhk/S-kWONPLMds/s400/porn%2Bporn%2Bporn.gif <b>and I know that it takes a secure guy to carry that around school, or work, or on the bus. </b> Assuming, of course, that they do and they don't hide them shamefully under their beds at home for furtive nightly masturbation. <b>The men who have braved it say the books are great, but they're really happy that Anita Blake is being repackaged in something other than body part covers, </b> Now they can look like they're slobbering over torture porn. Isn't that awesome? <b>We've had three men acosted on the bus or subway by older women accusing them of reading porn because of the early Anita covers, or Merry covers. </b> And the old ladies were right, God bless 'em. <b>One guy got hit with an umbrella. </b> I assume that little old lady had been subjected to LKH's writing. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-uDoplypYua4/VG7fa_gjELI/AAAAAAAAFNs/59lKKpPLhhc/s400/horrified%2Bcovering%2Beyes.gif Then again, I seriously doubt this is actually true. If people of any nationality are getting up in someone's face, usually it's about something slightly more worthwhile than "YOU PERVERT, YOU'RE READING PORN BOOKS!". Assuming you're not masturbating to it or reading it out loud in a public place. I've seen little old ladies cause trouble plenty of times. But they usually don't go up to perfect strangers and start howling about their reading material, and DEFINITELY have never seen one hit. <b>We will conqueor our detractors with luv. </b> Funny, her "luv" hasn't "conqueored" on any of us. <b>I love the cover of Divine Misdemeanors, </b> ... which looks like a bird. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-oiX2xSDlEqg/VG7ObHMlBOI/AAAAAAAAEgw/tSUtmN0ISTA/s400/divine%2Bmisdemeanors%2B-%2Blkh.jpg No, it really does. I thought it was an oriole. No joke. <b>I can see where as a guy it might make you feel like you're trying to sneak contraband across the border from the girl's side to the boy's. </b> I assume she's only talking to three men in the world, probably who dream of being in Jon's position. Because honestly unless they enjoy the idea of being treated like a doormat by a foul abusive little whiner with a Napoleon complex, I can't see why they'd enjoy those books. And she sounds like she's admitting that her books are aimed just at women, not at men. <b>Trust me when I say that the men in my world are very manly, </b> Is the manliness when they ooze around whining about their hurt wittle feelings for chapters on end, the "delicately pretty" faces and long hair, or the fact that they just cluster about Merita and fawn on her? https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-CgSygMr5u6M/VIVWXnoWbhI/AAAAAAAAJS4/E-EEBjnZb7g/s400/you%2527re%2Bnot%2Bmanly%2B2.gif <b>We have battles and duels and all that adventure stuff, </b> When? Between book-long boinkfests in the garden? And duels are not fun to read about when it's just two people shooting sparkly powers at each other, and the heroine promptly yanking a new power out of her ass. <b>plus enough blood and gore to make Quentin Tarotino happy, </b> In her little erotic dreams. Pretty clearly she's never seen a Tarantino movie, because she can't even come close. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1DyH19Tr90U/VHS_BPaxsxI/AAAAAAAAI0E/fHAQQQ1U4ks/s400/blood%2Band%2Bdestruction.gif <b>but with enough real emotion to make Nora Ephron smile. </b> I could imagine her smiling... and laughing... and rolling around holding her sides. <b>I can't think of a movie maker that does magic and sex to the degree I do, so I'll have to leave the movie metaphores behind. Maybe for fantasy Del Toro? </b> OH NO SHE DIDN'T. Leave Del Toro out of this - he would never sully his hands with the sort of disaster that LKH does. And his magical systems are far more eerie, alien, beautiful, strange and frightening than anything LKH has ever created. He doesn't have to stoop to cheap gore and sparkly sex powers... because unlike LKH he has TALENT. The man who made Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy has true talent, and would NEVER do a movie that just has a Sue being porked in a spray of glitter and moon-swallowing glows. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-edIia2d-p0E/VG7YIUHn0cI/AAAAAAAAEsI/sMXFDrB-wHM/s400/hellboy%2Bwith%2Bgun.jpg But I can tell you who is comparable in sex style - a thousand bad "erotic" fanfics written by 13-year-old virgins. Divine Misdemeanors is less of a romance and more of a thriller. <ol><li>No, it's not. It has to be thrilling to be a thriller.</li> <li>Also, it's not a thriller if the heroine occasionally wanders into a crime scene, then goes home to her McMansion and has sex. And then the bad guy's buddy wanders in and announces, "Hey, my pal might be a killer.</li> <li>Oh, it starts off with Merita investigating a crime, but the auditioning of new boytoys and the TMI details on her later sex scenes indicate what the real focus is. Plus, when her deadline is upon her, LKH writes bad sex scenes.</li> </ol> <b>We have a seriel killer </b> Anything like a serial killer? Or is it killing people named Seriel? <b>Merry and Grey's Detective Agency our requested to give their cultural expertise. </b> Which is absurd, since these fey have supposedly been in the US for more than two centuries, but apparently have never been studied culturally. IT'S SO STUPID. Also, it's "are." https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ucTscLwczlg/VHLfI8eJnRI/AAAAAAAAIdo/DP_AUeKEfuk/s400/grammar%2Brepair.png <b>The relationships between the characters continue to build, </b> Waaaaa, Merry, we wuv you soooooo and wish you would boink only us! But you're so awesome that we'll take a number and wait our turn! <b>and there's sex, so does that make it a romance? </b> Romance requires ROMANCE, so no. This is a sex story with pretensions of being a mystery/thriller. <b>Or does the serial killer and solving the who-dun-it make it a detective drama? </b> Only if the whodunnit is actually worthwhile and has a semi-satisfactory mystery. Which it does not, because LKH hasn't written a good whodunnit since... ever. <b>I write Paranormal Thrillers, because that covers everything I write in every book. </b> Magical porn, because that covers everything she writes in every book. No thrills, and only the most 2-D of paranormal stuff.