My stick person summary was apparently a big hit. It's amazing what happens to a person when they're laid off work and spend day after day alone in the house with not much else to do (READ: B-R-O-K-E). I'm actually kinda ashamed of myself (the time I spent), but it is morbidly funny when I look back at it...
Glad everyone got a kick out of it. ;-P
I've been re-reading the Laurell Hamilton "Anita Blake" series. I just love these books. They aren't the best written books, and there is a thread of repeativiness throughout them, but if you like mystery, vampires, wereanimals, cops, carnage, love triangles, etc., the tales of Anita Blake are very entertaining.
Anita is a necromancer. She has control of most dead things. Her "night job" is an "Animator", meaning she raises zombies for a living. Zombie raising has become a means of settle court disputes and old family issues in this day and age. Anita is a good enough necromancer that most of her zombies are able to talk and retain memories for a short amount of time. Vampires are also legal citizens in the US. Anita's other job is state Vampire Executioner. It's her job to kill vamps when they get out of hand, yet in these new times, she needs a State Sanctioned Order to do it. She's the vampire boogy man, with 18 kills, if not more, under her belt. Her third job is acting as a perternatural specialist for a division of the police force that deals with supernatural crimes...usually related to rogue vampires, wereanimals, or killer zombies...throw in the occasional fairy or demon too.
Anita is a busy girl. She doesn't have much time for anything else, like being a normal human being...it sort of bugs her and she occasionally questions her humanity. However, things really start to get out of whack when she takes a job offered by her nemisis, the vampires, to kill another vampire. Anita finds herself in the middle of an undead power struggle and facing down a 1000 year old vampire with nothing but a few knives and a couple guns. She finds help in Jean Claude, a powerful master vampire, who's motives seem a bit less than honorable at times. You see, if Anita can kill the Master of the City, Jean Claude will take over. Anita has little choice but to help Jean Claude, and so starts a very interesting and often halarious relationship between the two.
Enter Richard...a good looking, honest as a boyscout, school teacher. He's Anita's dream guy, except he's also a werewolf. Infact, he's the Pack leader of St. Louis. Even more intreaguing, is that Richard is a softie, hates killing (something he's required to do from time to time), and just all round horrible at being a "monster". He and Anita hit it off at first, but things really start to go sour when Richard refuses to accept what he is and what Anita does for a living. It really bugs him that Anita kills things so easily, regardless wether they be monster or human. It doesn't help that Jean-Claude keeps interfering in their relationship, either.
So begins the love triangle. John Claude swears he loves Anita, but Anita just can't stand the fact that he's a vampire. However, she does admit she doesn't want to see him dead...unless she's the one who's doing the killing. Richard loves Anita too. He's asked her to marry him, offering the white house, picket fence, kids...and werewolf...Anita loves Richard, but she doesn't love the fact that he's not comfortable in what he truely is. That bugs her. It also bugs her that Richard can't accept her for what she is either. An assassain. A killer. And in constant danger. Jean Claude and Richard naturally hate each other, but are tied by the supernatural policies as well. Richard is a werewolf. John Claude, a Master Vampire, can call wolves as his familars. This makes things incredibly difficult for all of them.
Of course, it's also incredibly entertaining, if not down right funny. John Claude has the patience of a saint. A rare trait in any vampire. He's a smooth talker, a bit decietful, but an overall laid back kinda guy. Richard is pretty high strung, super defensive, and a chronic whiner. Anita is just plain volitile. She solves everything with violence, yet when it comes to her two boyfriends, she's often at a loss on how to deal with them. Especially when they fight with one another...
( A discussion between Richard and Jean Claude on why Anita shouldn't go out with a vampire)
Richard to Jean Claude: "At least I'm not dead."
Jean Claude: "That can be arrainged."
I love the interaction between Anita and Jean Claude as well. They're so opposite of each other, but so very similar. Anita is constantly suprising JC with her antics and her will to defy him at every turn. She thinks her pissy attitude will make him leave her alone, but he just finds it utterly fascinating.
(Argument between JC and Anita in his office)
JC to Anita: "Who hit you?"
Anita: "Why, so you can go beat him up?"
JC: "One of the fringe benifits of being my servant is my protection."
Anita: "I don't need your protection Jean Claude."
JC: "He hurt you."
Anita: "And I shoved a gun in his groin and made him tell me everything he knew."
JC: "You did what?"
Anita: "I shoved a gun into his balls, alright!"
Any other man probably would have ran screaming from the room, but Jean Claude's response was to laugh. Joyously....The guy cracks me up. I don't doubt his love for Anita, he does care for her, but he also wants her to be his human servant. Her powers combined with his own make him incredibly powerful. Anita isn't too keen the idea....
The books are fun to read, especially the first couple. The later ones grow even more complicated as Anita starts to find herself in deeper with the "monsters". She inhererits a wereleapord pard. Richard ends up going mad and hating her. People are trying to kill her. Her boss hates her guts for dating JC. It just gets better and better.
Posted by Zoso at December 15, 2004 01:14 PM