Chelsea Gaither's Blog, page 57

Narcissus in Chains chapter 52

Business first, kids!

It took a week, multiple phone calls AND a house-wide search for a tax return (DO. NOT. ASK) BUT! My Pubit! account is finally functional. What does that mean to you guys?

You can now buy (some of) my books on Barnes and Noble.com!

I'll be porting over Starbleached and Planet Bob in March, which is when my contract with KDP Select runs out. Planet Bob is over on Smashwords here, fyi.

It's not an earth-shaking thing, I know, but it took more than a couple hoops to get that damn account. I am VERY happy right now.

 Okay. On to sucky book.

Jean Claude is taking a bath. Micah is sitting on the couch naked. Anita has no idea how she feels about this, and goes on about it for a couple of pages.

I think I am finally absolutely burned out on being offended by this book. I'm just rolling on an ocean of WTF. It takes Jean Claude twenty minutes to wash the gore off. I actually think this is close to realistic, so kudos to getting one thing in this damn book right.

Also? Jean Claude is enjoying this:

The look on his face was all for Micah. It made me go up on one knee, my butt against the arm of the couch. I felt oddly possessive, almost jealous, as if I should be defending Micah’s honor. I’d never felt like this with Richard and Jean-Claude, but then, Jean-Claude had never looked at Richard in quite that way.

Anita, if you can't handle being involved with a man who has multiple partners, you are first of all a HUGE hypocrite, but we already knew that, and you should have ironed this out before you started fucking the bisexual polyamourus vampire. Because rules and bounderies are the kind of things that safe partners set up before they get too involved.

Anita is confused because Micah seems willing.. I get that LKH is trying to show us that Micah is better than Richard, but Anita is coming off as having this "how is babby formed?" level of ignorance re: bisexuality. The men are turned on by other men. It's not that hard to figure out, given that both guys are looking at each other and are naked.

Though I think Micah's really sending off "I have been abused before" flags. He's passive. Way too passive. "Do whatever you want to me" in bed play is a turn on. Outside of the bedroom, it's a warning sign. He's willing to do anything to keep Anita. She sleeps with other people? Cool. She needs to fuck somebody for dinner? Micah will provide. She needs Micah to offer himself to one of her other lovers as supper? His neck is ready. This is not devotion, kids. This is un-fucking-healthy co-dependency, and the role reversal is no healthier for a man than it would be for a woman.

And Jean Claude, boys and girls, is taking his goddamn time with this. Also? Micah likes it. A lot. And I am very glad that LKH does not describe exactly how happy he is in detail.

When he's done, Jean Claude does everything except ask, "Was it good for you?"

Meanwhile, Asher storms out of the room in a huff. I'd make a non-pc joke probably involving Bobby Trendy--seriously, that's how he's played in this book--but Jean Claude is Asher's long-term boyfriend, and he just fed on a very hot guy in front of Asher, and now it looks like Micah and probably Jean Claude are going to have sex with Anita. Something that Asher can't do because Anita will get miffed. I think Asher is justified in being huffy. In fact, I think Asher would be justified in blowing this popsicle stand entirely and shacking up with Dead Dave, and the only reason he won't blow is he has the self esteem of a flame-roasted turnip.

This is how Anita reacts to Asher expressing his displeasure:

Asher. “Look, I am so far over my comfort zone right now that I can’t think, but I’ll tell you one thing. I am not going to salve your male ego while the little voice in my brain is still screaming, run away, run away. So, put the attitude on ice, Asher, I can’t deal with it right now...Fuck you, Asher."

Asher reacts by getting into Anita's personal space. She divines that he doesn't want to hurt her physically, just damage her feelings a little bit. And he responds in kind:

“Don’t offer things you’re not willing to do, ma cherie, because that is annoying.”

And then he leaves.

Micah asks what that was about, Anita tells him to ask Jean Claude while she gets Damian, Jean Claude says he'll follow her, and there is not a lot of book left. Damn, there is not a lot of book at all. The chapter's over. I can think of several things that could go in there. Resolving the plot with the missing alphas, resolving the plot with the snake guys. Hell, I'll even endure Anita fucking Richard on that fake viking throne if it'll give this book an actual (sigh) climax. But I'm now very worried because there is not enough book left for a decent climax. 

Narcissus in Chains chapter 51

There are a great many things I probably don't know about vampire cannon. Everything I know about vamps comes from Dracula, Frank Saberhagen's Drac fan fics, and my visceral reaction to Twilight.

I am still pretty confident that vampires cannot bleed to death.

JEAN -CLAUDE HALF FELL , half moved off of Micah. Blood sprayed in a red rain as he knelt on all fours, coughing, as if he were trying to clear his throat. It made the blood pump faster.

He's a vampire. He can probably heal it on his own as long as you stick something alive in front of him.

Ah, but it's an excuse for Anita and Richard and Jean Claude to open the marks between them while Micah screams "Nooo!" in the background. Not "No" boys and girls. "Nooo". It rhymes with "moo." It also works like this:


And then Jean Claude heals himself. Anita is amazed that the blood on his neck hasn't had time to dry. Folks, if you are bleeding from a vital artery and it takes until the blood dries for you to heal, you are probably the future past president of the Being Alive Club.

Then Anita smells roses and metaphysical...things...involving Belle Morte happen.

There is one thing that Laurel K. Hamilton fails at harder than writing sex scenes, and that's writing about magic or psychic phenominon. It's probably why the sex sucks as much as it does; they usually turn into these magic...things...that make about as much sense as The Room did. Apparently Bella Morte posessed Jean Claude and forced him to lose control of the ardeur and attack Micah.

The bodyguards stick their heads in the room and ask if the blood is Anita. Anita says no, so they shrug and say they won't leave her alone again. Nice.

Asher and Jean Claude discuss things, and figure out that Belle Morte wanted to destroy Jean Claude. Micah and Jean Claude talk about how ripping each other's throats out was totally justified, and that everything is okay and that they're kind of best buds. Anita reacts pretty much the same way I do, except I have a feeling she will eventually agree with them that this tit-for-tat shit is totally okay.

Anita says this:

“Jesus, only men could get a friendship out of something like this.”

Misandry is no cooler than misogyny, folks. There is no justification for either attitude. Ever.

Jean Claude says that Anita became friends with Edward after he tried to kill her, and Anita is all like "it's different".

I am trying really hard not to be totally creeped out by this, and I am failing badly. THIS IS NOT GOOD BEHAVIOR. FOR ANYTHING.

And then Anita says "kiss and make up" and then Jean Claude and Micah give each other a meaningful look and she's all like "I'M KIDDING I'M KIDDING," and I think that Anita does not understand WTF "Bi" actually means. It does not mean two men for one woman, folks.

Micah offers to let Jean Claude feed from him again, though this time he demands the bite be foreplay. At some point he shifted into half-leopard form, so he shifts back and somebody unidentified gasps at Micah's godly beauty. This is getting rubbed in a little much. Jean Claude is even so moved by Micah that he has to go take a bath first, because:

“Would I touch that for the first time covered in this?”

A couple promises of quick baths later, the chapter ends.

Folks, there are 422 "pages" in this e-book and I am on page 356. I do not know where the fuck we're going or how long it is going to rescue Anita Male Friend Number Three from Romantic Interest Number Two, but I do know that is not enough book for something awesome to develop. I don't know if I want this to be longer or shorter.

Narcissus in chains chapter 50

One chapter no matter how long it is, because I have to get back to editing soon.

Oh, right. Sex scene. This is going to take forever, isn't it?

WE KISSED , AND it was like melting from the mouth down.

It takes a very special kind of talent to make my gentalia try to climb back into my body on the very first sentence. I mean...EW. Seriously, your sex scene shouldn't make me think of I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream right out of the starting gate.

And then Micah starts grinding Anita, and Jean Claude...reacts. The text tries to imply that it's jealousy, but this is a hungry bi-sexual dude, and Micah has already been established as very pretty. I do not buy it, in other words. Also, when Jean Claude sinks teeth into Micah, he shifts his hands into claws and grabs Jean Claude's back, and then refuses to let go.

Meanwhile, Anita has her gun out.

And then Micah slits Jean Claude's throat and that's the end of the chapter.

Not kidding. This is not a rocks fall, everybody dies joke. Jean Claude opens Micah's throat in a feeding frenzy, Micah responds in kind, and the chapter closes with this sentence:

I was left standing there, watching them both bleed to death. Mother fucking son of a bitch.

Have I established how much this book sucks yet? Because this book sucks.

Narcissus in Chains chapter 48+49

So they walk down stairs that weren't made for people, following a person named Earnie who used to have a mullet.

he’d had one of those long hair cuts with the sides shaved.

AKA a mullet. Now he has a short haircut that he can "Gel into spikes", so basically we have a trend-follower who has no idea what he really wants to do with his hair.


Who the fuck is Ernie? Why couldn't it be Jason or Asher or one of the other nine thousand characters already introduced in this book?

Ernie is a human. Anita figures he's feeding vampires other than Jean Claude because Jean Claude can have lycanthrope for dinner. We find out that all the body guards fought over who would get to walk first and who would walk last, and that all the leopards are trailing behind Anita and Micah like lost little children. Anita worries about what she's going to do when she sees Jean Claude.

They keep walking down the stairs.

The chapter ends.

...I'm gonna have to do two again, aren't I?

So they go into Jean Claude's lair, and it looks like it was decorated by the laziest wedding planner on the face of the earth. There's drapes hanging in the middle of the room, it's all white and gold and silver and jewel box and fairly land and...hold on...


That's better. Hey, what's this description actually like?

it was everything a fireplace should have been, except it was painted white.

...what the fuck does that even mean?

Asher(s) ... gold hair in ringlets...his mustache and Vandyke beard a blond so dark it was almost brown.

The dot dot dots are descriptions of the painting Asher's in. Look, hair is either blond or brown. Pick one, stick with it. It's less frustrating for the rest of us.

And then Anita senses Jean Claude coming, and realizes all he wants to do is screw. She becomes scared. I have no idea why, the only thing of any concequence anybody in this fucking book has accomplished in a short amount of time has been fucking.

This is what Jean Claude is wearing:

He was wearing a silver frock coat with white edging, white buttons. His shirt was a spill of white froth, the pants, what I could see of them, were white, but the white leather boots covered almost all of his long legs. The leather looked soft, pettable, held in place with small silver buckles going from just above his ankles to his very upper thigh.

...yeah. When this review is done I'm going to go fire up my computer and play violent first person shooters just to get the taste of this out of my mouth. Seriously, white leather thigh high boots? You can walk in those, I guess, but...one, you can't sit down comfortably, and two...why does he need to wear pants? How can Anita even see that he's wearing pants? And "pettable". Holy fuck, she's sexualizing inanimate objects, and she's critizing other people for having sexy thoughts?

And it turns out that Jean Claude hasn't fed his own ardeur yet, and because he hasn't fed "all his hungers" he's going to be useless for saving Damian, and oh fuck that means somebody's going to have sex, doesn't it? When sex is a plot roadblock, you need to stop putting it in your books.

And then Micah speaks up and the whole damn thing turns into a pissing contest. Micah somehow breaks Anita's control over her own ardeur. Both Anita and Jean Claude literally fall on their knees before Micah's godly beauty. Jean Claude, I shit you not, is vacant-eyed and drooling.

And then he touches Anita and catches the ardeur like it's a goddamned STD.

Asher tries to break things up. This happens:

I’d been afraid; now it was sheer terror. I looked up at Asher and saw him through a film of all the times we’d touched him, all that beauty, all the beauty that I still saw. I whispered, “Help us!”

Laurel. Please. Start making some goddamned sense. 

They waste several minutes trying to explain to Micah that Jean Claude needs to have an orgasm.

Micah still offers himself as food for Jean Claude because Anita won't be fed on. Anita, you just fucked over Richard for refusing to be food for you. Your highly vaulted morals aren't worth shit.

And then we get paragraphs of hot man on man action as Jean Claude climbs over Micah and...just...stands there. Seriously. It's like "They stare into each others eyes. They stare into each others eyes. They stare into each others eyes" for a couple pages. Then Anita somehow recovers from the unbearable ardeur, and then Micah jumps her and Jean Claude jumps her and the chapter ends, mercifully, just before they have sex.

...it's still not as fucked up as the Gap series.

Narcissus in Chains chapter 47

I am not perfect. Okay? I am not a good crusader for human rights, though if you ask me to I'll get in the trenches and fight for them with you.  I am a very poor feminist. Give me a good enough story, and I will ignore any objectionable and/or offensive material within said story because the writing is just that good. How much offensive stuff can I put up with?

One of my favorite sci-fi series is Donaldson's "Gap" saga.

This is like admitting to drowning kittens.

If Narcissus in Chains is a terrible book for subject matter alone, the Gap series is a crime against humanity. If you are at all familiar with the series, you just cringed and dove for the brain bleach. If you do not know what this series is, well, if you took Ghost and the latter half of the Anita Blake series, reduced them down to their sheer fucking wrongness, amputated the sense of humor and placed a several month long abduction and rape sequence in the core of the plot (it's the entire first book, folks. That's all it is) you'd have the Gap saga. Donaldson makes Ringo look like lobotomized Tolkien. He makes LKH look like a toddler.  It's that bad.

And if you asked me to rate the series on Amazon, it'd be one star for the first book, and then five stars for all the rest, flat across the board. 

The plot of that series...oh my God. The plot. I can never recommend this series to another soul (if you're morbidly curious, for the love of God skip the first book) and I feel very, VERY dirty every time I read it, but that series has, no shit, the best combination of military hardware and political plotting in any series I've read, ever, and the character development would be in textbooks if a primary story arc were not the redemption of the biggest piece of shit rapist in the history of writing. The offensive content makes it almost unreadable, but the story itself almost makes it a must-read. Also, yes, a horrible crime against a female character is what starts the whole plot rolling...but that crime is never treated as okay. There's nothing casual about the awful things that happen in the Gap series. Even the rapist eventually admits his own actions were irredeemable and awful.

He admits this right before he saves the world. Like I said: the series is very, very, very fucking wrong. 

(Interestingly, I still cannot finish the Thomas Covenant books. Mostly because at least the Gap series never pretended Angus was the good guy. Also, there's only so much "poor me, I'm a leper" I can take before I start rooting for Lord Foul, and Donaldson took care of that well before the end of the first chapter. I made it to the incest scene in the second book before my brain imploded.)

(...and I was also thirteen and stupid when I read the Gap series. My parents policed my TV habits something fierce, but my mother actually recommended I read Thomas Covenant when I was ten years old. I don't think she remembered Lord Foul's Bane as well as she thought she did)

Why do I bring this up? 

Because Anita is going to the Circus of the Damned and it took me forever to remember why. You can pull off a complex plot. Fuck, kids, a complex plot with political intrigue and shapeshifters will make me forgive a hell of a lot of wrong, as evidenced by my reading habits to date. But you cannot pull off a complex plot if you ignore critical parts of it for twenty fucking chapters.

We're rescuing Damian.

The vampire that Anita owns somehow, that she fucked over by going MIA for months and months when he needed her for some kind of mental support.

This is not a dropped plot thread, kids. This one just plain never existed.

It made me realize my biggest issue with this book isn't the content (Trust me, I have issues with the content) but with the writing itself. I can acknowledge wrongness and offensive material and keep right on trucking if the writing is good enough. But the writing here is just that fucking bad.

Seriously. What the fuck does Damian have to do with the ardeur, Richard, or the missing alphas? We went from having NO PLOT AT ALL to having sixty threads thrown at us all at once. You can't do that. You want a densely plotted novel? You don't take a twenty chapter break in the middle of it. I think the point of this is to put Jean Claude and Micah in the same room together, because sex I guess, but there are a million other ways this could have happened, starting with "Hey, Jean Claude, do you know anything about missing Alphas?"

Apparently the leopards have never been to the Circus of the Damned before. They comment on fanged clowns (...there's another kind?) and the zombie raisings, which Anita takes offense to because it's disrespectful towards the dead. Oh, wait, no, it's because she won't use her God-given talents for "Entertainment purposes". Fuck the dead, man. It's just not good for her talents. Anita goes off on a tirade about how she's turned down more money than she's accepted, and how people want zombies raised for a party and one person wanted Marilyn Monroe raised for one night, no questions asked, and one of the other were leopards says the dumbest thing I've read in fiction this year:

"You're deeply moral,"

Ah, but what makes Anita the good kind of moral is, she'll break her own moral code if someone she loves or she herself happens to be in danger. 

We have those kind of people IRL too, Laurel. We call them hypocrites. (like...uh...being offended by rape in books when you kind of sort of like the Gap series) But seriously. If you violate your moral code at all then you're not deeply moral. You're a hypocrite who expects other people to adhere to your rules when you yourself would not. 

And then...*Sporfle*

Alright, there are a few hair styles I hate. Mullets are number one (I find them funny, but I hate them on people). Another is what I call douchebag hair. I don't know why, I think it's because sleezebags from the 80's wore their hair like this. You have long curly 80s perm hair, and you put it into a pony tail wet. Half of it is slicked straight to your scalp and the other half looks like a brillo pad. It looks stupid, and it looks sleezy, and that's exactly how Micah is wearing his hair, so I think it's supposed to be exotic. 

...his hair lay like brown velvet on....HEY, I thought Micah was a blonde. I could have sworn the text said blond. Okay, whatever, Brown it is.

Anita stresses about introducing Micah to Jean Claude. Hey, Anita? If you're doing the polyamory thing it's a good idea to get it cleared with everybody BEFORE you agree to a new serious relationship. 

With your rapist.

...well, it's still not as fucked up as the Gap series. 

Micah asks her what's wrong. Anita says she's nervy about Jean Claude meeting Micah. Micah says he'll behave. Anita says this: 

“Don’t take this wrong, Micah, but I’ve been disappointed pretty badly recently by the men in my life. It’s a little hard to trust that anyone can pull it off.”

...I just realized that I am actively offended by a woman emotionally blackmailing her rapist into being a good little boy in front of her other rapist. 

Okay. This is almost as fucked up as the Gap series. 

Gil is around. Anita. WHY DID YOU BRING THE OBVIOUSLY DAMAGED WEREFOX TO THE MEETING BETWEEN THE VAMPIRE AND THE WERELEOPARD? If you're going to think about somebody as a child then LEAVE THE CHILDREN AT HOME. 

We get new body guards. Anita does the "I don't need body guards just stay behind me" dance again. Anita, honey, let the bodyguards take your bullets. It's their job. Grandstanding because you're the bigger badass in your own mind isn't helping them at all. 

Description of clothing, description of weapons, more grandstanding, more discussion about who is screwing who. CAN WE GET TO THE RESCUE ALREADY? This is Nathanial and Gregory all over again.

And then it is implied that the weres present will be "entertaining" the vampires, the way the Sabine women entertained the Romans.

 And the chapter ends. 

*sigh* 

    
       That's all it is, folks.

And hey, bonus round: Comfort trash. I've brought up mine. What's yours? What goes against every principle you ever had, that you can't make yourself stop liking?  
 

ETA on EXILES: GRAY FOX

First edit is almost done. I must say I am much more encouraged than I was before I read through it the first time. It was difficult to write and I'd figured it'd be a massive mess, on a level with what This Found Thing was when I started on it. But there's a lot in the material that I didn't notice when I was drafting it, and it shouldn't take me that long to get it battered into shape.

So. Tentative release date is Feb 15th. This will push back any March releases to the 15th or (depending on how much work it is) April. Given that the March release would be TFT's sequel, and the Gray Prince stories aren't as popular as either Exiles or Starbleached, I'll probably drop the Gray Prince release entirely and just go with getting the third installment of Starbleached battered into shape.

In other news...I have an endgame plan for Exiles, as it leads into a novel trilogy I've already written. The other day I sat down and planned out the releases it would take to get things into place for the trilogy. It is looking like:

-Gray Fox + 3 more 30K word stories.
-3-4 50-80K word releases, two of which would be Exiles, two of which would be tangentally related but not Exiles stories.

My brain has gone "OH FUCK" and "Well, we might as well start now."

Starbleached is still mixed up in this, so, for those of you who are book readers as well as blog readers, I have a question. The Dragon novel is still in the wings as well, and that will come out (depending on how my sales numbers stack up between now and April) either in July or (more likely) in December. So I have a question.

Would you guys like the Dragon story to be released all in one go, as a real live novel, or to be broken up as a serial novel? A serial novel would give me time to get Exiles's ducks into a row, and keep Starbleached going at the same time. I think.


Another big change I'm making: From here on out neither Exiles nor Starbleached are going to be Kindle freebies. The first installments of each series are dirt cheap, the sequels aren't going to be too much better. The only one I will continue to keep exclusive to Amazon (and thus infrequently free) will be Gray Prince.

This scares me. The free periods are the best way I've found to get new readers, and it's going to require some serious work on my part to keep from falling flat on my face. Sales this month have been great, but (as far as I know) It's mostly because I put Starbleached up as a freebie the day after Planet Bob came out. People who've been long, LONG term blog readers know I am hard on myself when it comes to my writing abilities. I don't have a lot of confidence. I guess what I'm saying is...I'm trusting you guys. And if you want to support me...it's not required, believe me folks. I like you guys no matter what you do...but if you want to, God knows I'm going to need it.

The future is looking weird. Not good, not bad, kind of everything all at once. I have sold a grand total of 142 books in six months. This isn't amazing, but it isn't a total failure. Most self-published authors only sell 150 copies of their books. We're going to see what happens. I bet I can beat that.

Narcissus in Chains chapter 45+46

So Anita calls Dolph. Let us take a moment to acknowledge that Anita Blake, queen of the dumb choice olympics, has finally done something that MIGHT result in people coming back alive. Look, I know that cops aren't always the good guys IRL, but MOST of them are. And they are the ones who spend all of their time trying to find missing kids, murderers and traffickers. Anita raises dead people for a living. The cops know how to do this shit better than Anita.

Dolph half-jokes about Anita having killed somebody else. Given that her usual contact with the cops involves a dead body of some kind, this is not a big leap to make.

Anita explains about the missing people. Dolph lets her know that he now has to re-interview everybody involved in these cases because the were connection is a strong one that nobody brought up because they didn't want to lose their livelihoods. The snakes own a restaurant, one kid is studying to be a doctor, and...you know, we can have doctors, cooks, chefs, moms, cops, nurses and teachers who have AIDS, and we've only had to deal with that nightmare for seventy years. Weres have been around since prehistory in this universe. Why aren't there tolerance laws? I know we're trying to draw a paralelle between weres and gays, but that doesn't work. Vamps and gays, maybe,  but therianthropy is discriminated against because it is contageous. It's not like the weres would be walking around with "wolf" or "tiger" on their nameplates. Again: Shifting for Dummies should totally be a thing.

Anyway, Dolph being pissed is passed off as him being irratated over having a bigger work load. In reality the cop would be pissed because AT MINIMUM, there is a serial kidnapper and/or trafficker in operation, and the veil of were-secrets has allowed the guy to operate without reprocussions for a nice, long time. Worst case senario is a serial killer who is obviously a very bad boy, given that a were-bear is on the list of MIAs. Who knows how soon they could have gotten this guy if people weren't so scared?

Of course, we can't have this conversation without casual race/speciesism:

“Why is it that most of these people go in for professions where this is a problem?”

BECAUSE THEY WANT TO, YOU PIECE OF SHIT.

Moving on.

Dolph accuses Anita of still hiding things, which she is, and Anita accuses him of losing his objectivity, thus completing yet another overly defensive cycle of conversation. Dolph, at this point, probably agrees with Zerbowski: Anita's doing drugs. Possibly selling them. Better pass that tip back to Narcotics.

Anyhoo, they hang up, and that's the end of the chapter.

Hence, why this is a two-fer.

Chapter 46 opens with the were-cobras going off with Janet Talbot to speak with the cops. Did we ever figure out what she turns into? Whatever it is had better be fucking awesome, because that character is great. Christine the tiger goes home because she doesn't actively know anything. 

Donovan Reece says nobody gets to take his girls away from him.

Anita calls him on saying "girls". They're "women."

Anita, you get the right to correct people on their dehumanizing language when you stop calling members of your pard "leopards" and "puppies" and members of the wolf-pack "wolves". It's something that consistantly bothers me, even though I have a tendancy to do it too when I'm writing weres, but it bothers me more so when Anita does it, than when, say, Rae Seddon is talking about were-chickens or Mercy Thompson discusses Adam's pack. It's a little like the difference between saying "Native American" and "Pet Dog".

And then Anita spots Donovan's gun (Dibs on the band name) and gives him a quick lesson in gun safety and concieled carry laws for Missouri, because Donovan doesn't have a permit.

And then Donovan praises Anita for doing such a good job taking care of all the little were-animals in the area. And...wait. Where was Richard in all of this? Isn't this the kind of thing Richard should know about? Right. Evil person. He'll die later.

And then Anita suggests that there be a sort of were-animal council thing, and Donovan accuses her of wanting to be top kitty-cat on the puppy pile, and Anita is all like "Who, me?" And it all comes off about as sincere as that scene in Casablanca where the guy goes "I can't believe there's gambling down here."

And then we find out that scardy fragile Gil is a werefox.

...I do not remember timidity being a fox's primary trait. Playfulness, intelligance and an inability to understand ruses when briar patches are involved, but not "scared of my own shadow" fragility and...oh please dear god in heaven Anita lets him stay on the property, please tell me he doesn't become Sex Toy number three. Please.

There is a long discussion about what Gil will do if the shit hits the fan. It boils down to "Hide".

I touched his face very gently. He flinched, then relaxed a little. All the animals liked to be touched.

EW. Just. fucking. EW.

Anita realizes that she'll protect him, but not that much. And then she realizes she isn't a sociopath, because if she were a sociopath, she'd be throwing him out and making him take his chances, because he's a "fucking casualty waiting to happen". In other words...ta da, yet another ready made victim. And by the way, a good symptom of mental illness is denial. YOU ARE A FUCKING SOCIOPATH, IS WHAT I AM SAYING.

And then she brings him along on more "business" and the chapter ends.

Next chapter: ...oh right, that DID get mentioned several chapters ago. I thought we traded that for sex.

Narcissus in Chains 44

This book has induced a pavlovian response in me. Anita mentions that a male is curled somewhere in her vacinity, and my sex drive immediately dies.

Donovan Reece is the dude in question, and the dehumanization begins immediately. He's pretty. He's SO pretty, sports fans, that he is like a statue. An object, in other words.

I'm just going to leave this here:



He's also got the swanmanes with him, AKA the female swan shapeshifters. Words, as I have learned recently, are very important. And using a word that does not imply humanity towards a human individual makes them into something less than human. The description goes to the other Alphas in the room, and we get a truely WTF description of...people.

Donovan took over then, introducing me to the man and woman sitting between them. They were both dark-complected. Their bone structure was pure middle America, nothing special, but their eyes were too big, too dark, the hair truly black. There was something exotic about them that straight European just doesn’t give you. They also looked amazingly alike, like male and female versions of each other. They were Ethan and Olivia MacNair, respectively.

For half that paragraph, I thought she was describing African Americans. Then I thought it might be Indians, Arabs or Native Americans. And then we got to "European" and I went back and re-read the rest of the paragraph. No, no, it says "dark complected". ...And then I got to the names. Well, maybe they're something related to Roma (I know nothing about Irish Travelers, but that, maybe?) There's a big chested predator-shifter that Anita treats with respect, and then we get this:

 One man was slender with golden red hair, and strangely up-tilted green eyes. He sat on the floor, huddled against the side of the couch as if he were hiding.

Prey critter folks. I gaurentee it.

I swear to fucking god I am writing that werehippo story, and nobody on this planet is going to stop me.

And then...we have honest to god effective characterization:

The woman was tall, nearly six feet, broad-shouldered, strong-looking. Her hair was brown, streaked with gray, pulled back from her face in a loose ponytail. Her face was bare of makeup. She offered me a hand, and gave me one of the best handshakes I’ve ever had from another woman.

First reaction: Fuck you Anita Blake. Second reaction: I want to read six million books about this woman, and I don't even know her name.

BTW, her name is Janet Talbot. I'll bet money she gets severely injured and/or killed by the end of the book. She fucking outshined Anita in the space of one paragraph. 

The folks with the Irish names are the were-cobras. Their leader is Nilisha.  And her husband/Alpha/Mate/made up word was killed leaving another woman's house.

Yep. He's dead. Way to victim blame, LKH.

Olivia, Nilisha's daughter, and Nilisha have a fight. (How many times did LKH type that name? I hate it after three reps...) Anita herds everybody out to stop the fight. Nilisha asks what everyone is doing. Janet replies "Somewhere quieter" and holy fuck, I love this woman. She reminds me of Johanna Mason.

It turns out that Janet is missing a son, the werebears are missing their Ursa, (Think of that yourself, Laurel?) Gil the fragile red-head is just scared (Yep. Prey animal) and Christine is a rep for the folk only present in ones or twos, and is the city's only weretiger.

That shudder you felt was millions of desperate fans crying out in terror. Disturbed force is disturbed, folks.

Hey, this book hasn't really pissed me off this chapter yet. We might just survive without ge--

Christine continued as if I hadn’t spoken. Focused, Christine was always focused. “Joseph’s mate is pregnant. Amber would be here but she’s under complete bed rest until the baby is born.” 

“Until she loses it, you mean,” Cherry said.

I glanced at her. “You say that like she’s lost some before.” 

“This is her third try,” Cherry said.

Oh FUCK YOU Laurell.

FYI boys and girls, I'm not supposed to be here. I'm a pill baby, ladies and gents, and Mom was on the pill because she lost two kids before she had me. Due to a bad drug from the fifties, Mom's cervix was mush. She was told that she would not have kids, ever, and that she should give up. And she did. My brother and I were both woopsies, and she was glad to have us both. My mom also had to have total bed rest for me. (For my brother, they just sewed everything up and told her "See you in six months!").

So Fuck you, LKH, for dismissing that kind of dedication and dreaming as something stupid.

Admittedly, there's a reason for this. Weres can't carry to term because the shifting puts too much stress on the fetus. EXCEPT THAT'S TOTALLY FUCKING NOT TRUE AT ALL. The were-snakes bear children, I know the were-tigers bear kids because hereditary shifting is a big plot-point in the future books.

And then Olivia suggests they call the police.




SOMEBODY HAS FINALLY MADE THE SANE CHOICE. I know they're not actually going to involve the cops, BUT SOMEONE SUGGESTED THEY DO THE SMART THING. Let me enjoy it while it lasts.

It turns out, though, that everybody already has reported their people missing. And that, because they kept the shape shifting secret and made no obvious connection between the missing, the cops aren't doing anything.

So this book expects me to believe that there is a cluster of missing people, all of whom are caucasian, all of whom had relatively good family lives, one of whom is twenty-one, none of whom showed any signs of intending to disappear, and that the police don't give a shit.

And then...holy. fucking. shit. Folks, Anita is going to call the cops and tip them off that there's a connection between the people in this cluster. Anita Blake is going to tell the truth about things. SHE IS GOING TO SAVE PEOPLE'S LIVES FOR REAL BY NOT BEING STUPID.

The chapter ends with her going to the phone. Hot shit, boys and girls. This could actually be good.

And this is why I keep reading this series. Because this could have been the whole book. This could have been beautiful. And it won't be, because non-con sex is more interesting than a whole bunch of missing Alphas.

Narcissus in Chains chapter 43

Anita's snuggling with Micah and Nathanial gets interrupted when the swan king and his swanmanes show back up, along with somebody from all the were groups in the city. Anita decides to appear with Micah. They waste about a page talking about how bad it would be if Jean Claude and he were to appear in the same room.

Given that JC is bi? I don't think he's the one with issues.

I think if I have one issue with LKH's writing--I don't mean her storytelling ability, but the actual mechanics--it's how fucking repetitious it is. First, Anita will think about a thing for about a page. Then someone will ask her about the thing. Then she and the someone will talk about the thing for about a page. It's amazing filler, but it's boring as fuck to read it over and over and OVER again. If LKH is so desperate for a book length story that she has to use NaNoWriMo level cheats? She needs to write another story.

And then Donovan Reece breaks in on the snuggle party and drops this in the middle of the floor:

He shrugged. “Nothing important, just find some missing alphas and try to convince the Kadru of the werecobras that her Kashyapa, her mate, isn’t dead, just missing with the rest. Trouble is,” Reece said, “I think she’s right. I think he’s dead.”

Wait. WHAT? We've been reading about rape-shifting and rape hugs and rapey rapey things and Anita's ANGST and Richard's ANGST and disgustingly depressing bad writing, and we could have been reading THIS PLOT? Kidnapped Alphas? Murderous mates? Werecobras? 

LKH sucks for putting us through this whole awful slog instead of that potentially AWESOME investigation plot. I mean, damn it, there would have been a couple dark closets for sex along the way, right?

Hey, it's been a while since we had religion fail.

Marianne tells me that the universe/ deity loves me and wants me to be happy.

Prosperity Gospel is stupid no matter what religion it shows up in. Deity, my dear Anita/LKH, does love you, but wanting you to be happy? Happiness does not cause growth, and Deity is not the magical slot machine in the sky. It doesn't matter how many faith tokens you drop in the slot. You will not get a pony. 
 
And...uh...that's the end of the chapter. Seriously. It's a convoluted paragraph that boils down to "God hates me".

Laurell. If you're going to pull this shit during the end game? YOU DO NOT NEED SIXTY FIVE CHAPTERS IN THE BOOK. This one and the last one would have made one good long chapter. Although this is less "book" and more "Filler, padding and ugly sex with porn plot".

God, this is gonna be ugly, isn't it?

Oh, and I have decided on our next book. I know I said I'd never do Twilight, but I never said I wouldn't do a Stephenie Meyer book, did I?

Here's what's next:
--The Host (I like it, and S. Meyer keeps the ugly to a minimum...RIGHT UP UNTIL THE END OF THE BOOK.)
--A Merry Gentry book. I have not decided which one yet.
--Save the Pearls. Which I think I will do concurrent with "The Host" because I'm pretty sure most of "The Host" is going to be a positive review. Nothing in the universe will ever make Save the Pearls a positive book. EVER.

Alright, kids. See you tomorrow!

I've been busy last night

So today I brought my Smashwords library back online. The only titles there are Blue Ghosts and Planet Bob, but they're up. As soon as Amazon lets go of the other titles, they'll go up there too.

I'm also working on getting a pubit account so that I will have books directly uploaded to Barnes and Noble.com. You guys will know the second that works out.

Go get 'em, folks.