Books Read: Cerulean Sins
Apr. 16th, 2003 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aJust finished reading Cerulean Sins the 11th Anita Blake novel by Laurell K. Hamilton.
To be honest, I find the books fairly trashy, and getting more so the more Hamilton writes. The early books were very solid police procedural novels, but since about Blue Moon or so the novels have been more and more about Blake's relationship with an increasing number of men.
To some extent I feel like I'm nowadays reading Hamilton's sexual fantasies written large on the page. Blake now has an insatiable sexual appetite and a huge harem of men to help satisfy it. A very similar situation, as it happens, to that other series Hamilton started writing a couple of years ago about Meredith Gentry.
Now, you know, I'm not opposed to all this writing about sex. I actually found the erotic nature of Hamilton's early books titilating, but it feels like it's getting a bit much now, with the answer to every problem being sex with at least two men.
Ah hem.
Despite that all I still found the newest Hamilton book to be totally enthralling. Hamilton absolutely knows, spot on, how to keep the action moving and the reader interested. The action is rapid and full of surprises. As has been the case recently, Hamilton mingled two or three different plots into this book, and in doing so made sure that that something was ALWAYS happening.
I've also enjoyed the fact that the last two books have started opening up Blake's world. We're seeing more and more about interactions with the worldwide vampire council, and that dark force which lies at its heart (the focus, I would bet, of the upcoming 13th Anita Blake book). On the other hand, we're starting to learn about governmental (and maybe international) forces which might have an interest in Blake's increasing powers.
All quite fun.
I also continue to be impressed by Hamilton's ability to keep the storyline of her world moving along even outside of the scope of her novels. She's willing to have important events happen in the world or to supporting characters off camera. Richard finally starts to turn himself around in this book, for example, though he's probably only on screen for 30 or 40 pages tops. Similarly, Anita's now got her federal status.
So, even though the content of the last four Blake novels isn't exactly what I would have liked, I continued to be impressed by Hamilton's prowess as a writer in quite a few different ways.
I'll be eagerly watching for book 12.
To be honest, I find the books fairly trashy, and getting more so the more Hamilton writes. The early books were very solid police procedural novels, but since about Blue Moon or so the novels have been more and more about Blake's relationship with an increasing number of men.
To some extent I feel like I'm nowadays reading Hamilton's sexual fantasies written large on the page. Blake now has an insatiable sexual appetite and a huge harem of men to help satisfy it. A very similar situation, as it happens, to that other series Hamilton started writing a couple of years ago about Meredith Gentry.
Now, you know, I'm not opposed to all this writing about sex. I actually found the erotic nature of Hamilton's early books titilating, but it feels like it's getting a bit much now, with the answer to every problem being sex with at least two men.
Ah hem.
Despite that all I still found the newest Hamilton book to be totally enthralling. Hamilton absolutely knows, spot on, how to keep the action moving and the reader interested. The action is rapid and full of surprises. As has been the case recently, Hamilton mingled two or three different plots into this book, and in doing so made sure that that something was ALWAYS happening.
I've also enjoyed the fact that the last two books have started opening up Blake's world. We're seeing more and more about interactions with the worldwide vampire council, and that dark force which lies at its heart (the focus, I would bet, of the upcoming 13th Anita Blake book). On the other hand, we're starting to learn about governmental (and maybe international) forces which might have an interest in Blake's increasing powers.
All quite fun.
I also continue to be impressed by Hamilton's ability to keep the storyline of her world moving along even outside of the scope of her novels. She's willing to have important events happen in the world or to supporting characters off camera. Richard finally starts to turn himself around in this book, for example, though he's probably only on screen for 30 or 40 pages tops. Similarly, Anita's now got her federal status.
So, even though the content of the last four Blake novels isn't exactly what I would have liked, I continued to be impressed by Hamilton's prowess as a writer in quite a few different ways.
I'll be eagerly watching for book 12.