Grade: C-

I’m just going to go ahead and say it: I hate Micah. I think he’s the worst character in the history of fiction. He sucks. He has no point. Why does he even exist? He’s like Wesley Crusher from TNG… if Captain Picard had sex with him three or four times a day. I hated, HATED, hated Wesley Crusher (but love the actor, Wil Wheaton!), HATED him, and every episode I would wish that he died a very painful, very slow, very excruciating death. That’s how I feel about Micah except multiply that about a thousand times.

I loved Anita Blake. I loved her. After the Laughing Corpse, however, I felt that she was descending into Skanky Nympho Dirty Whore Land, never to return, but Obsidian Butterfly brought her back to me in full force (and I started having fanfic fantasies of Anita deciding that she’s had enough of those whiny-ass monsters and fucking them up with a blowtorch courtesy of Edward). I was convinced that from there on out, Anita was going to be this kickass take-no-prisoners bitch that I knew and loved, but with Narcissus in Chains, Hamilton decided that the ardeur storyline was a fucking brilliant idea and instead of killing all the monsters, Anita STARTED FUCKING ALL OF THEM (and I mean, all of them). Narcissus in Chains also introduced us to FUCKING MICAH and his GIGANTOR penis and when I learned that LKH had written a book that is all about him, I wrote this long-ass, very NC-17 rant to express my frustration, which made FerfeLebat bust a fucking rib (this review is for her, by the way). I can’t even explain how much I hate Micah, I FUCKING HATE HIM, hate him so much that I’m tempted to send LKH the bill for the industrial-strength therapy that I needed after reading Cerulean Sins (which was the most badly edited, most unreadable piece of crap that I’ve ever read in my entire life). My hate for him is unhealthy, y’all. But this book? I don’t know how to explain it… I don’t know if I can even explain it… I tossed and turned last night, wondering how I could explain this to you, my loyal readers, but… umm… how do I put this without making you vomit… uh… okay… rip it off quick like Band-Aid®… I kind of liked it.

I don’t know, maybe it’s the shock that’s talking, shock that an editor may have actually looked at the manuscript before sending it off to the presses, that is. Or maybe because this book is actually better than the pieces of dog turd that LKH has been churning out since Narcissus in Chains, but I didn’t get a nose bleed or anything while reading it! That ardeur shit? Didn’t dominate the book for once and Anita only fucked one dude this entry, but that’s probably because this book is really more like a Nancy Drew mini-adventure than a full-length story. Nevertheless, I still hate Micah, y’all. The hate lives!

Remember that piece of shit episode of House where the writers contrived that Stacy and House fly out of town together and get stuck there due to inclement weather and had to share a hotel room together, just so House and Stacy can be alone in a hotel room together? Yeah, this story is just like that except it’s courtesy of Anita’s protégé Larry Kirkland not being able to attend a zombie gig because his new wife is having pregnancy issues. Naturally, it’s Anita to the rescue, because she’s like the best zombie raiser ever! And she has to bring Micah, so she can have someone to feed off from when the ardeur hits (eye roll), because Anita doesn’t want to have to fuck strangers. Oh, like she hasn’t done that before!

Anyway, Micah informs Anita that they have never been truly alone together before and this sets off Anita in a frenzy of self-doubt and self-questioning. This includes the classics (paraphrased for convenience): “How can he love me when I’m such a dirty slut bag whore who sleeps with every stranger I meet?” and “Who has bigger testicles, me or Micah?” and “Who do I love most: Jean-Claude, Asher, Nathaniel, Richard, Jason, Micah, or myself?” and “Am I sleeping with all these men because my daddy didn’t love me?” and “Why am I a bigger monster than the ones I sleep with or kill or sleep with AND kill?” and “How could they not love me, Anita Blake, when I’m the most beautiful, most psychopathic, bestest zombie raiser, and most powerful being ever? And I’ll fuck anything!” and last but not the least, “You know that cold, empty look that I get in my eyes when I’m trying to intimidate people? I totally ripped off Blue Steel and I practice it in the mirror at least a hundred times a day!”

In this entry, we get some kind of story in which Anita must raise the zombie that Larry can’t because he has to take care of his conveniently pregnancy problems-having wife. Anita also has to deal with FBI agents who are understandably wary of her because they heard that she will fuck anything that moves, but after a pissing contest in which Anita proves that she has a bigger dick and will only fuck creatures with fangs and/or can transform into an animal or something, she earns their grudging respect… and admiring erections. The zombie that Anita has to raise—oh, like you really care.

The story isn’t really a story, but only an excuse for Anita and Micah to be alone together and talk about how big Micah’s dick is (but Anita’s is bigger, mind you) and how small and tight (don’t forget tight) Anita’s va-jay-jay is and how much they love each other because he’s the leopard king and she’s the leopard queen (don’t ask) and how she’s a bigger monster than him and then they have sex some more. The “plot” is thinner than a porno where a jaded detective investigates a sex therapist who allegedly fucks her patients to death and bow-chica-bow-wow and all of that. I mean, does anyone really care about what happens as long as the characters get to the fizznuckin’?

Interestingly enough in a not-really kind of way, we learn more about Micah and how he may secretly hate being a wereleopard because he’s a monster and can’t have a normal life and shit. What the fuck—he’s copying Richard’s storyline now? What next, he’s going to dump Anita because she’s “a bigger monster” than he is? Man, this book is supposed to make us like Micah, not hate him some more! I already hate that whiny crypussy Richard and LKH wants to give me a mini-me version of him in the form of Micah?

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? LKH, are you FUCKING with me? Seriously, what have I ever done to you? I have bought everything you have ever written, woman, the least you can do is throw me a goddamn bone! I even sat through the travesties that were Narcissus in Chains, Ceruleans Sins, and Incubus Dreams, and the whole Merry Gentry faerie-fuckathon and this is how you repay me? DON’T YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR FANS? When are you going to stop with this self-indulgent bullshit? Don’t you know that if you don’t stop churning out garbage like this, the only person who’ll be reading your stuff is Jon? When will you realize that the books you write are no longer good and that you’ve been producing nothing but shit since The Laughing Corpse? Do you even care that even MaryJanice Davidson is outwriting the shit out of you? You are a talented writer, woman, so for God’s sake, take that dick out of your ass, concentrate on your storylines, AND WRITE US SOMETHING GOOD! Oh, and for God’s sake, girlfriend, HIRE AN EDITOR!

Do you, my loyal readers, want to know why LKH pisses me off so much? It’s because she used to write really good shit, you guys. She used to be really, REALLY good, and back then, I would have given up my kidneys, my lungs, my bone marrow, my lady lumps, and my first born child to get my paws on an ARC of an Anita Blake book. Even though this book is still a piece of crap, it’s a better edited piece of crap, and I found myself almost enjoying it, and that pisses me even more because when I think of how good she used to be, I just want to cry, you know?

LKH is like an abusive boyfriend; at first, it’s a dream come true, but then one day, she just slaps you really hard and you threaten to leave her, but she apologizes and tells you that she’d rather cut off her hand than hurt you again, and for a while, it’s all lovey-dovey and stuff? But then the day comes when she’s had a bad day at work, so she breaks a beer bottle over your head and you have to go to the hospital for stitches, and she comes to your bedside, begging for your forgiveness and because you love her, you take her back, but after only making her promise that she won’t hurt you again? And then it keeps happening and your girlfriends are telling you that she’s never going to change and implores you to leave her because the next time, she might kill you? Yeah, my relationship with LKH is like that AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS NOT A JOKE, people, seriously!

But I can’t just let her go, people… I… I love her… For her audacity to churn out shit after shit, for foisting Micah on us, for not giving a shit that we’ll stop buying her self-indulgent crap… the lady’s got guts, man. And I don’t think she’ll ever stop. She’ll just keep breaking my heart and kicking me while I’m down on the ground. But I can’t leave her. I won’t. Maybe I’m a masochist like Nathaniel. And that’s why I’ve already pre-ordered Danse Macabre… all 720 pages of it. And don’t you judge me, FerfeLebat! DON’T YOU JUDGE ME! You don’t understand! None of you understand! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 1st, 2006 at 10:28 am and is filed under Books, Grade: C, Sci-Fi/Fantasy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.