Review: Incubus Dreams by Laurell K. Hamilton

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 12 Incubus Dreams by Laurell K. Hamilton

This is hands down the worst novel in the series so far. It starts out fairly typically, with Anita investigating the death of a woman bitten by multiple vampires, then veers into a four-hundred-page detour that is mostly focused on Anita having sex with her multiple partners and talking about all of her relationships. Hamilton also creates a new excuse for Anita to have sex with people—she can now heal people through sex—but mostly it is simply a long and tedious digression with about fifty pages worth of plot enhancement. After that, things improve slightly, returning to the main investigation with further time taken out for yet more sex and relationship talk. Overall, the investigation is not enough to save the story.

 

Not all of the relationship talk is bad—it just needed to be seriously cut down through the editing process. For example, Anita has a heart-to-heart with her best friend, Ronnie, the private investigator. Ronnie’s problems fit her character and helped to develop her. Developing a second triumvirate also has importance for the series, but again the book needed substantial editing.

 

Hamilton has the right to write the books she wants, but it seems a bit unfair to readers to change the series so dramatically. To be blunt, if this was the first Anita Blake book I read, I would never have read another one. I’m only holding on because the first ten books were so enjoyable.