Right around the time urban fantasy became popular (leading to awesome series like The Dresden Files and Patricia Briggs' werewolf books), Laurell K. Hamilton took a merely mediocre series and turned it into a horrific sucking maw of ghastly vampire porn. This basically is all about Snappy Sue Anita Blake, who prides herself on being the manliest man to be born with a vagina and who loves the fact that she is allowed to hack off the heads of unconscious vampires. Also, she develops at least one superpower per book.
And here's our intrepid heroine, showing how tough she is by scowling a lot and letting her hair hang in her eyes:
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But like any vampire-series Sue, she inevitably hooks up with the effeminate Lestat clone, and spurns the attentions of a nice loving considerate respectful werewolf (who is based on Hamilton's ex-husband). After that, the series goes completely downhill as Anita gains a sex power that allows her to do what she obviously wants to do - collect long-haired effeminate men that she HAS to have sex with. It's actually worse than it sounds.
Here's what it basically turns into:
... ALL THE TIME.
- Guilty Pleasures - In which our heroine bumbles around randomly until she stumbles across a bad guy, who considerately reveals his evil plan. Then she forgets about it.
- The Laughing Corpse - A promising book that basically consists of Anita having endless conversations with various people and occasionally dealing with crazy voodoo grannies.
- Circus of the Damned - Enter the hot future whipping boy, Richard Zeeman. Also werewolves and evil vampires and a caveman vampire. WTF?
- The Lunatic Cafe - Endless talking about lycanthropes and who is dominant to who. Also were snuff films by evil people and wereswans. Yes, wereswans.
- Bloody Bones -Anita Blake fights a big evil fairy thing and a child-toucher fairy vampire, all of which is retconned later in the series when LKH decided she wanted to write a separate fairy porn series. Harry Dresden did it better, faster and cooler.
- The Killing Dance - Anita proves what a wonderful person she is by cheating on her fiancee and deciding to have a relationship with her blackmailer/stalker. Oh yeah, and apparently swearing off blood isn't good for a vampire's skin.
- Burnt Offerings - Apparently every were in St. Louis is a pathetic wimp, because they're all running to Anita for protection. Also a bunch of superpowered vampires show up, including Phantom of the Opera clone Asher. He just needs some Anita Lurve (and by that I mean licking) to erase centuries of bitterness and hatred.
- Blue Moon - Richard has been accused of rape, and Anita manages to bollix up everything by screaming abuse at master vampires and toting along a pathetic band of followers. This will end well.
- Obsidian Butterfly - Like the big tough macho man she is, Anita goes running off to New Mexico to pal around with psychos and pro killers. And she's the heroine.
- Narcissus in Chains - This is when the series went downhill: Anita gains the "ardeur" or sex magic, which leads to rape-with-soap-lube by a total stranger (who becomes her new main squeeze) and Anitacentric orgies.
- Cerulean Sins - Asher is being tortured by a little blonde vampire, so Anita decides to rescue him the only way she knows how: creepy sex. Also, Anita is SO awesome that secret agencies want her.
- Incubus Dreams - Anita lets a vampire serial killer escape because she's too busy boffing various new vampires, a creepy child-man, and snagging clones of Legolas and Aragorn.
- Micah - Micah has a giant penis and only Anita isn't scared away by the Big Bad Bobble. That's the plot. Seriously.
- Danse Macabre - Anita has sex with a lot of people. There's a ballet. Oh, and she might be pregnant and there are dozens of potential babydaddies.
- The Harlequin - Evil vampire thingies are in town to make trouble, and Anita has sex and spreads Luv And Happiness wherever she goes. Oh yeah, and have a man killed for not committing adultery with her.
- Blood Noir - Jason's daddy is dying, so the machoest manly tuff dude Anita comes along to prove he isn't gay. Riiiiight.
- Skin Trade - Anita gets a severed head, and LKH manages to turn a story about a serial killer in Vegas into a boring grind of "my penis is bigger than yours!" and underage sex.
- Flirt - I still don't know what the hell this is about, except Anita's terrible business sense.
- Bullet - Somebody dies. Richard is having a spinectomy. Anita is suddenly fine with gay sex.
- Hit List - Anita and Edward head out to Twilight-ville to deal with the Harlequin... again.
- Beauty - A two-chapter wankfest that was too pointless to be in Kiss the Dead.
- Kiss the Dead - A bunch of random people are turned into vampires... and unfortunately, it really doesn't have anything to do with the story.
- Affliction - Micah's dad is sick. Anita runs around not accomplishing much and preaching the gospel of polyamory.
- Dancing - Another short, where Anita poses and complains and waves her penis around.
- Shutdown - In case you haven't noticed, none of Anita's men will ever find a woman better than Anita.
- Jason - Everyone must be a bisexual BDSM polyamorist who does nothing but worship Anita! NO EXCEPTIONS!
- Dead Ice - Wedding preparation... kill me now.
- A Kiss of Shadows - A fairy-princess is hiding as a P.I. So to include sex in the plot, it's decided that she has to get knocked up or her evil cousin will get the throne. Enter a harem.
- A Caress of Twilight - The worst creatures in existence are no match for Merry's Magic Self. Also LKH's first lesbian sex scene, which according to Merry doesn't count. Be insulted, lesbians.
- Seduced by Moonlight - Merry turns people into gods with her magic vagina. Also she's the goddess. Did I mention she's superspeshul?
- A Stroke of Midnight - Somebody gets killed, and Merry has lots of sex. In one day.
- Mistral's Kiss - Merry has lots of sex, summons the Wild Hunt, and has lots of sex. In one day.
- A Lick of Frost - Merry is finally knocked up, and some of her guards are being charged with rape thanks to Merry's crazy incestuous uncle who wants to boff her. Because everyone does, see.
- Swallowing Darkness - Merry gets over rape with cuddling. The entire who-killed-Merry's-dad is ended in the most obvious way possible.
- Divine Misdemeanors - Merry is awesome and sexy and superfamous, and rose petals fall out of her magical vagina. Barinthus is a jerk. Merry has magical sex and saves soldiers in the Middle East. Oh yeah, there's a serial killer too.
- A Shiver Of Light - Merry finally squirts out those kids offscreen, and spends the rest of the book wandering around, having dull conversations, and whining because she can't have sex. Also, someone dies for some reason.
Can He Bake A Cherry Pie? - LKH tries to write a feminist fairy tale involving pie. It doesn't really work.
Authorial Madness - Laurell K. Hamilton - blogs, rants and nonfiction nonsense.
The First Death 1 Part 1 - The first half of a prequel that is supposed to show Anita's first job as a vampire hunter, and how she met Jean-Claude. It's a lot less impressive than it sounds.
The First Death 1 Part 2 - The second half of the first part, mainly because I found out snarking comics requires a LOT of pictures.
The First Death 2 Part 1 - The second half of the prequel, in which Anita lies, wusses out and gets rescued by men. Yaaaaayyyy...
The First Death 2 Part 2 - See above.
Vampire Victim - This is a sort of side story just to show Anita working with RPIT. Treasure it because after awhile Zerbrowski will go MIA and Dolph will be crapped on.
Guilty Pleasures Part 1
The Anita Blake Comic Cover Critiques
An Anita Blake Christmas Carol - because I am very cynical, I love Christmas, and LKH's world is far too edgy and dark to ever have people celebrate a happy holiday. An unashamed spoof.
Sweeties in the Night - another spoof, this one based on Monty Python's brilliant skit "Strangers in the Night."Type in the content of your page here.
12 Days of Anita Blake - A traditional Christmas Carol rewritten for Anita and her boytoys.