Blue Moon snark

Penguin wrote:

I'll give Hamilton credit where credit is due:
She is pretty successfully setting up this business as a case of "the
lady doth protest too much" and a protagonist in denial about her
feelings.

Did I really say that? Well, it turns out that I spoke to soon because she's completely overdoing it now in Chapter 7, and now that I think about this, it's probably going to continue right up until the inevitable happens.

Quote :

"Have fun visiting your boyfriend?" Maiden asked as he followed me down the hall.
I waited at the second locked door. "He's not my boyfriend."
"Everyone keeps saying that." Maiden unlocked the door and held it open. "Maybe it's a case of the lady protesting too much."
"Take your library card and shove it, Maiden.

Officer Maiden: Best character in this book.
It's rapidly getting to the point where once this is over I'll have to create a blooper real or something good God

Damn those literate cops in the South. You'd think this wasn't an Anita Blake novel, because a cop that isn't on her side is intelligent.

OH WAIT he might actually be "on her side" because when he gives her the gun back, he does it with a round in the chamber, and gives vague warnings that imply he can't say too much.

This makes Anita nervous because she doesn't feel safe carrying the Browning with a round in the chamber. This is where the hit-and-miss research on the part of Hamilton becomes apparent: The Browning Hi-Power is what's called a "single-action" automatic. It is common practice to carry single-action pistols like the BHP "cocked and locked," that is, with a round in the chamber, the hammer cocked back, and the safety on.

There's a reason for this: It's arguably the best way to carry your gun safely but ready to go immediately. All you do is thumb the safety off as you draw. Without a round in the chamber, you have to pull and release the slide to chamber a round AND turn the safety off.

THAT can make all the difference in the world:

Spoiler:

...and she's consistenly going up against clawed creatures and people who were around when edged weapons were state of the art. And she thinks that Maiden's Colt Python, a .357 Magnum, is too much gun for bipeds.

But then again, if my gun basically seemed to fire silver-plated 9mm tactical nukes like hers does, maybe I'd be a bit nervous too.

Anyway, it's been awhile since we've had a stupid hick for Anita to face off against, so let's just walk out into a crowd of them.

Quote :

A pickup truck pulled in across the street in front of the little grey house that Shang-Da was camped out in. Four men jumped out of the back. There was at least one more in the cab. He slid out of sight, and they formed a semicircle at the base of the porch. One of them had a baseball bat.

GO TEAM HICK!

We have a long and stilted stand-off between the Racist Hicks, and, in order of usefulness, Shang-Da "the China Boy," Anita "Girlie" Blake the Executioner, a little old lady, and Jason. Inevitably, Blake manages to get the fight kicked off by pelting them with tough girl one-liners until a big fat guy gets tired of hearing them, and she judos his ass.

One the good guys get done permanently maiming Team Hick, the cops show up. They quickly establish themselves as being on the wrong side.

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Sheriff Wilkes was about five foot eight, and he was wearing a pale blue Smokey the Bear hat and a matching uniform. He looked trim and in shape like he worked out and took it seriously. The gun at his side was a ten mil Beretta. It was holstered. The day was looking up.

Beretta doesn't make any ten millimeter pistols. They DO make lots of .40S&W pistols, which is technically 10mm, but it's a shortened, weaker form of the actual 10mm round. Nobody would see a .40S&W gun and call it a 10mm. This basically makes Anita... this guy.



...also, all of Beretta's .40s look exactly like their 9mms. Anyway, time for more bad cops.

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There were two deputies behind Wilkes. They were both over six feet tall. One had a scar that went from eyebrow to jaw on one side. Jagged; more a broken bottle than a knife. The other deputy had a shotgun in his hands. It wasn't pointed at us, but it was there. Scarface snickered at me. The one with the shotgun just stared with eyes as empty and pitiless as a doll's.

I think it's worth recapping the plot so far.

Anita awakes to a phone call telling her that Richard is in jail for attempted rape, which he would never do, so it's a little THE COPS ARE BAD suspicious. Someone seems to have framed him for some reason but THE COPS ARE BAD we don't know why yet. She drops anything and runs into town to try and see if she can do anything to help him, and receives cryptic warnings from Deputy Maiden THE COPS ARE BAD before they're attacked by a gang of racist hicks. The local sheriff's department THE COPS ARE BAD rolls up to arrest them, and they're all big intimidating types THE COPS ARE BAD who are forced to take everyone to the hospital before they can start interrogating anyone in the next chapter.

So there's a lot of violence THE COPS ARE BAD happening, but why? I understand that mystery type novels have to avoid revealing too much to the reader to keep them going as the plot unfolds, but jeez, watch a few episodes of 24, Hamilton: Learn to plot twist.

Anyway, that's it for 7.

All right, Chapter 8 is basically boring filler and mercifully short. Everyone goes to the hospital, then Anita and company get interrogated at the police station where she squares off with Sheriff Wilkes. It doesn't really add much beyond the whole THE COPS ARE BAD thing being hammered home.

Oh, and Richard got out on bail and shit. The cops are willing to leave everyone along if they agree to just pack up their travelling freak show and go home.

However, the end of chapter narration is so over-the-top, well. You know what that means.

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I stared into his brown eyes. I've looked into scarier eyes, blanker, more dead. He didn't have the eyes of a professional killer. He didn't even have good cop eyes. I could see the fear shiny and almost panicked around the edges. No, I'd seen scarier eyes. But that didn't mean he wouldn't kill me if he got the chance. Make even a good man scared enough, and you never know what he'll do. Make a bad man scared, and you are in trouble. Wilkes probably hadn't killed anybody yet or they wouldn't have framed Richard for rape. They'd have framed him for murder or just killed him. So Wilkes hadn't slid completely into the abyss. But once you embrace the screaming darkness, eventually, you kill. Maybe Wilkes didn't know that yet, but if we pushed hard enough, he'd figure it out.

once you embrace the screaming darkness? Are you fucking kidding me? Could you imagine a more hackneyed, tortured metaphor? Plus, you know, the screaming. It sounds more like trying to hug an upset ZeroPunctuation imp than joining the Dark Side. Then again, I suppose Hamilton can't just say "embrace the darkness" by itself because Anita has already done that with every orifice. I guess Jean-Claude isn't a screamer.

EDIT: MegaUpload seems to be tweaking out. Refreshing the page a couple times should fix it if it tells you the file is temorarily unavailable. I'll do more later but I really need to crash. 13 hours at work, bleah.

Oy vey. I still have a copy of "Guilty Pleasures" on my shelf, and after spotting this snark, I reread it for the first time in ages. And damn, it's sad how far this shit has fallen. Anita was never grade-A brilliant, but the first couple of books were fun. Oh, and once upon a time, Jean-Claude didn't say "ma petite" all the time. In Guilty Pleasures, he says it about twice, at the end of the book. Them was the days, huh?

ETA: "Screaming darkness." Dear God that is a terrible bit of phrasing. Nicely skewered, Penguin.

I still can't get the last MU link to work .

Rehosted.

Screaming Darkness is going to be my new band's name. We'll play pretentious over-the-top metal, with lots of references to vampires, death, sex, and the futility of life.

Our first single will be 'Ma Petit'

Penguin wrote:

Rehosted.

Wonderful, that was beautiful, thank you.

One thing that Hamilton likes to do at this point in the series with were-creatures is to give them animal behaviors in human form. And you know what? I'm all for that. The problem is that we're talking about Laurell K. Hamilton here, so every time she does this, it'll just come across as humans with a weird fetish.

So, y'know. YIFF IN HELL FURFAG and all that.

Case in point:

Quote :

The cabin door behind Jamil opened. A woman appeared in the doorway. Richard had her arms and seemed to be trying to push her, gently but firmly, out the door.
The woman turned and saw me. She pale brown hair and one of those hairdos that seemed artless and simple, yet actually take hours to do. She pulled away from Richard stalked towards us. No, towards me. Her dark eyes were all for me.
"Lucy, don't," Richard said.
"I just wanted to smell her," Lucy said.

See, this is the problem with Hamilton's writing. At this point she's realized that sex sells, so she sexes everything up at every turn. This actually hurts the narrative when she's actually on to something:

Quote :

It was the kind of comment a dog might make if it could speak. Smell me, not see me. We primates tend to forget that a lot of other mammals consider smell more important than vision.

The thing is, this already comes after her dark eyes were only for me. So at this point we've already sexed up the scene and anything involving I want to smell her becomes I want to sex her.

So what could have been a tense scene where a not-quite-human acts like a strange dog and runs up to you for a sniff becomes something off-putting for the wrong reasons, and fetish-y.

I mean, for example, when a real dog runs at you, it's a tense moment because you don't know what it wants. It could just be checking you out, it might want to say OH HI THERE I LOVE YOU, or it might be out to tear out your throat. This is the sort of tension entirely appropriate for this scene: Anita is meeting a werewolf who has apparently just fucked her ex-boyfriend. She has every right to be freaked out by this, even in an analytical way. But this is sold from the start as another sexual power game with Anita and another female.

Remember, the theme of these novels is actually Anita's Vagina Is Stronger Than Yours.

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She was only a little taller than me, maybe five foot six. Her walk was an exaggerated sway, so that the short, plum colored skirt bloused around her and you got glimpses of the hose and garters she was wearing underneath. She was carrying a pair of black heels but walked towards us in a graceful, almost tip-toe movement. Her blouse was a paler purple, unbuttoned so that you glimpsed enough of the bra to know it was black, and matched the rest of the undies that you could see. And either the bra was either a wonderbra or she was, well, stacked.
She was wearing more makeup than I ever wore, but it was well-applied, and made her skin look smooth and perfect. Her dark lipstick was smeared.

1.) She's taller than Anita.
2.) She walks all sexy an' stuff, while Anita makes a point of adopting masculine body language wherever possible.
3.) She's graceful. Anita's not.
4.) You can see her bra? How scandalous! Anita would never do that!
5.) You can see her other undies!? Why, Anita would never flash anyone! Unless she'd been hiding a gun under her skirt. No, really.
6.) She has big breasts! But Anita's self-described as a "beanpole."
7.) Not in this excerpt, but soon after, Anita senses her strong werewolf power when she gets close, "like insects crawling all over my body."

You know what that means? It's time for Anita Blake, Vampire Executioner to live up to her family name and face full life consequences! And by that I mean exert her dominance as Alpha Bitch. No, really.

Quote :

She blinked at me. "My name is Lucy Winston. Remember it."
I looked into her pale brown eyes from inches away. I was close enough to see the small imperfections in her eyeliner.

OH BITCH YOU SO UGLY

Quote :

Richard had mentioned a Lucy in jail. He couldn't be dating two of them, could he? "Lucy--Richard mentioned you," I said.
She blinked again, but this time she was puzzled. She took a step back from me to glance at Richard. "You mentioned me to her?"
Richard nodded.
She backed up and looked on the verge of tears. "Then why..."

And just like that, Anita Blake has beaten another challenger, this time completely by accident. Her rapidly growing Sue powers are becoming increasingly difficult to control.

Quote :

I glanced from one to the other of them. Why what, is what I watned to ask. But I didn't. I'd been enjoying disliking Lucy. If she cried, it might spoil my fun.

Come off it, Anita. We all know you're a sociopath by now. Accepting this victory, she walks past the bewildered werewolf. Finally, we're treated to a ridiculous description of the ridiculous character known as Richard Zeeman.

Quote :

He leaned against the doorway with his hands behind his back. Water beaded on his naked upper body. He'd always had a nice chest, but he had been lifting weights since last I'd seen him without his shirt. His upper body was almost aggressively masculine, though still short of that overdone look that bodybuilders strive so hard for. He was slumped against the door. It made his stomach muscles bunch.

An aura of "almost too perfect" seeps from every one of Richard's pores every time he gets a description. Almost too tall, almost too muscular, but still not quite there. The sort of guy who gets to have big muscles without all those unsightly veins required to support them.

Not to mention she likes to go on about how werewolves and vampires can bench-press trucks. What sort of weights has Richard been lifting that would actually do him any good? How has he exercised without "coming out of the closet"? And it's deeply important that he stay in the supernatural closet; it's the whole driving force behind this novel and most of the character, which is his angst over being a werewolf. And his angst over Anita.

Quote :

Once upon a time, I could've helped him dry off.

Oh shit, I forgot they used to date! It's like I haven't read this wistful backstory about Anita and Richard 30 times already in this novel; thanks for the reminder! Anyway, words words words. Richard lives to make extremely petty victories over Anita.

Quote :

That made him smile again, and it was almost his normal smile. That bright flash of perfect teeth in the permanent tan of his face. Most people thought Richard was tanned. I knew it was skin color because I'd seen the whole package.

YOU USED TO DATE

I GET IT

FUCK

CAN WE PLEASE GRADUATE HIGH SCHOOL NOW

Quote :

He was white bread, all Middle American, with a family that made the Waltons look unfriendly, but a generation or so back was something not so white bread.

Thus we have the ridiculous character of Richard Zeeman: Perfect muscular body, perfectly long blond male stripper hair, perfectly white teeth, only a line of hair down his abdomen. And as we'll find out... well.

Spoiler:

This is the sort of thing that makes Richard intensely annoying. He's a big, strong, complete bitch. He has no business being the Alpha of his wolfpack because he's a total submissive. If he tries to exert his authority, it's a textbook case of Doing It Wrong. He whines about everything and lives to make passive-aggressive digs at Anita, even during the good times in their relationship when Anita was egging him on to become Alpha and end the oppressive nature of his pack.

Richard was basically an entirely disgusting character but Anita can't stop writing MRS. ANITA ZEEMAN in her Trapper-Keeper at every opportunity even while she fucks Jean-Claude.

Not to mention his bizarre genetic makeup, which makes him a perfect resident in Anita's world. Anita's half-Mexican, but you couldn't tell because... well, she has no trace of an accent despite being bilingual, she's Protestant, her last name is Blake, she's pale white... the only trace of that lineage is her curly brown hair. Her angsty sexual backstory hinges on her fiance putting more importance on his family's racist opinion of her ("OHNOES MESSICAN") than their love. Richard Zeeman fits in well because the only minority ancestry he has just so happens to give him a perfect tan but leaves his blond hair blond. Conveniently for people who thrive on defeating minor antagonists, however, they tend to run into racists with genetic telepathy, apparently.

Quote :

Three months with Jean-Claude, and I was a sex expert. It was almost funny. I'd been chaste until he came along. Not virginal. My fiance in college had taken care of that. I'd fallen into my fiance's arms with the trust that only first love can give you. It was one of the last naive things I ever did.

AAAAAAAAAARGH

Anyway, once she's had enough wanking over her lost chance while he's in the shower, she wanders around the place and infodumps some stuff on trolls and their history in the US that will obviously be important later. Richard pops out of the shower and they actually have a civil talk about trolls and getting to see them. Some foreshadowing happens; Anita is behind on the news.

Quote :

"I don't watch much television anymore."
"Jean-Claude not a fan of musicals?" Richard asked, and there was that edge to his voice that I'd heard in the last few weeks: angry, jealous, hurt, cruel.

"Angry, jealous, hurt, cruel" pretty much describes Richard entirely as a person. Just add "passive-aggressive" to the mix and turn it up to 11. He takes some more potshots at Anita before finally making with the exposition: He's been framed for rape because he's been protecting the local endangered trolls from a land grab.

No. Really. Richard Zeeman, Werewolf, Junior High School Science Teacher, is framed for rape because he's been protecting endangered trolls from a land grab. Let that sink in.

Anyway, he finds out that she's been in a scuffle with the corrupt Sheriff Wilkes' hoodlums, and then asks her how many she hurt.

Quote :

My pulse was beating so hard, I was afraid he could see it jumping in my throat. "Just one."
Richard scooted just a little closer to me, hand still trailing up and down my cheek. "What did you do to him?"
I didn't know whether to move away or to cuddle my aching face against the cool warmth of his hand. Ï broke his arm and leg at the joint."
"Why did you do that?" Richard asked.

You know, if they actually did get married like they originally planned (note: Richard isn't the virginity stealing fiance of the racist family, he's the Other Ex-Fiance), there's no way it could've lasted long. In Anita's line of work, if she had to come home and justify every single act of violence to someone as squeamish as Richard, it would put a ridiculous strain on their relationship.

(Also it's quite clear that Richard's need to point out that Anita does violent things all the time is a passive-aggressive way to make her, the human, feel more like a monster than he, the werewolf. All this so he can feel better about himself, less like a monster. Isn't he just a fucking charmer?)

Anyway, more [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] happens and Richard makes his stand: He won't take Wilkes' Get Outta Dodge Or Else deal because he will not see those poor innocent trolls get hurt. He might be a little bitch, but at least he's a noble little bitch. The sexual tension starts coming to a head and Richard makes his moves on Anita, who's having none of it.

Quote :

"The last time you listened to me, you killed for the first time, and you haven't recovered from it. I should have just shot Marcus for you."
"I'd have never forgiven you for that," he said.
I gave a harsh sound that was almost a laugh. "But at least you wouldn't be hating yourself. I'd be the monster, not you."

And that sums up why Richard is infuriating to read about. He's the worst thing to happen to the protagonist since getting marked by a vampire, but she can't stop going on about how awesome he is and how she constantly regrets how she fled to Jean-Claude when Richard changed into his werewolf form while pinning her to the ground, drenching her in werewolf juices, before hopping off to eat Marcus.

And then she finally retreats to her own cabin and the chapter ends, thank fuck.

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"Angry, jealous, hurt, cruel" pretty much describes Richard entirely as a person. Just add "passive-aggressive" to the mix and turn it up to 11. He takes some more potshots at Anita before finally making with the exposition: He's been framed for rape because he's been protecting the local endangered trolls from a land grab.

No. Really. Richard Zeeman, Werewolf, Junior High School Science Teacher, is framed for rape because he's been protecting endangered trolls from a land grab. Let that sink in.

Jesus fucking christ, this is like Laser Mission without the lasers!

Penguin wrote:

Quote :

Richard had mentioned a Lucy in jail. He couldn't be dating two of them, could he? "Lucy--Richard mentioned you," I said.
She blinked again, but this time she was puzzled. She took a step back from me to glance at Richard. "You mentioned me to her?"
Richard nodded.
She backed up and looked on the verge of tears. "Then why..."

And just like that, Anita Blake has beaten another challenger, this time completely by accident. Her rapidly growing Sue powers are becoming increasingly difficult to control.

Wait, what just happened?

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

Penguin wrote:

Quote :

Richard had mentioned a Lucy in jail. He couldn't be dating two of them, could he? "Lucy--Richard mentioned you," I said.
She blinked again, but this time she was puzzled. She took a step back from me to glance at Richard. "You mentioned me to her?"
Richard nodded.
She backed up and looked on the verge of tears. "Then why..."

And just like that, Anita Blake has beaten another challenger, this time completely by accident. Her rapidly growing Sue powers are becoming increasingly difficult to control.

Wait, what just happened?

*Re-reads scene.*

Now that you mention it, yeah, what did happen? I assumed it had something to do with "remember it." Lucy was crushed that Anita had heard of her but didn't recognize her, meaning that she had no standing in the eyes of the SOOPER SPESHUL Anita Blake?

That's just the thing. It's not explained in this chapter, and I don't remember if it's ever explained later. Apparently, Lucy is confused and upset that Richard would've mentioned her to Anita. All we're left with is, "Why what, is what I wanted to ask. But I didn't."

gaijinguy wrote:

Malganis wrote:

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Incidentally, I am the only person on whom the "ma petite" thing really fucking grates? He's named Jean-Claude. You don't need to remind us that he's French.

No, you're not the only one, and I'm wondering if it's a real French term of endearment or just something that Hamilton pulled out of her ass.

I know "ma petite chou" ("my little cabbage") is a real term of endearment, but "my little [unspecified]" doesn't make much sense in almost any context.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, given that it lacks an object, I'm not sure why it's feminine. Maybe it's supposed to be "my little Anita," with the object as implicit? Any chance of some input from someone whose French isn't quite as rusty as mine?

What I really hate is how it's used with the same frequency as periods. It's like a much swishier version of Raijin's "ya know?" only this is supposed to be from some uber vampire lord, not some cloddish second-tier minion.

"Ma petite" is correct in French. It's also quite condescending, and most French girls would smack their boyfriends if they used it with the same frequency as Jean-Claude. I guess a sort of equivalent in English would be your boyfriend calling you "little girl" all the fucking time.
Seriously, why can't he just call her "ma chérie"?

Also, the idea that an 18th century French vampire is named "Jean-Claude" is highly amusing. It's an awfully 1950's or 1960's sort of name, and I can't help picturing some guy in his fifties who likes to listen to Claude François.
And names with hyphens in France are more a thing of the 20th century than the 18th. If Hamilton really wanted him to have a name with a hyphen, "Jean-Baptiste" would have made more sense. I hate bad research, even in silly books. "Oh hey, how about I write about a vampire born in Scotland the 14th century, and I shall name her Dakota"!

BTW, you say "mon petit chou" or "mon chou", as chou is a masculine word. You can say "mon chou" to a woman.

I'm willing to give her a pass with regard to Jean-Claude's name. He is, after all, a long-lived vampire and vampires have only been allowed to exist openly in human society very recently; it's conceivable that he has changed names repeatedly to keep up with the times.

...but that wouldn't fully explain why people from his ancient past don't trip over this or smugly allude to previous names. Never mind.

Malganis wrote:

Quote :

Incidentally, I am the only person on whom the "ma petite" thing really fucking grates? He's named Jean-Claude. You don't need to remind us that he's French.

No, you're not the only one, and I'm wondering if it's a real French term of endearment or just something that Hamilton pulled out of her ass.

It's real french, literally meaning "my little". You could translate it as "my child", since "petite" can be used to name a kid (girl, male would be "petit") you don't know the name of. This is a small addition to Avari's good explanation.

I had a friend who was trying to get me into this series a couple years back. When she told me Anita gains powers by sexing up muscly man-creatures, I lost interest; hopefully, I'm thinking of the right series. Either way, that friend also loved Twilight, so there's no surprise as to why I didn't pick up anything she suggested.

I have nothing of value to add, I just want to celebrate the return of the snark.

What can I say? Not living in a room with 8 other dudes has its perks.

The next story is just boring backstory as Anita's cabin has some vampire bodyguards in coffins in it. She can smell them, and magically sense them, blah blah blah blah. They start to wake up, and then we get descriptions.

VAMPIRE STRIPPER TEAM, ASSEMBLLLLLLLLE!

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Damian was a green-eyed redhead, but that didn't really cover it. His hair fell like a red curtain around his upper body, the hair so red it looked like spilled blood against the green silk of his shirt. The shirt was a paler green than his eyes. They were like liquid fire, if fire could burn green. It wasn't vampire powers that made his eyes gleam. It was natural color, as if his mother had fooled around with a cat.

Ridiculous pretty man with excessive hair? Check.
Insisting that some unnatural attribute is completely natural? Check.
Unnecessary, intensely disturbing sexual imagery? Check.

Yep, he's an Anita Blake character all right.

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Asher was a blue-eyed blond, but again, the description didn't really do him justice.

Oh, of course not.

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The waves of his shoulder-length hair were golden. I don't mean blond, I mean gold. His hair was almost metallic in its glittering brilliance. His eyes were a blue so pale they were almost white, like the eyes of a husky.

Goddamn. He doesn't sparkle, but he comes awfully close. Does metallic luster count as sparkling?

If so, Hamilton could sue Stephanie Meyer for something, I'm sure.

Anyway, half of Asher is hotter than Damian but the other half is all burned by holy water and shit. Boring emo past stuff. And then... yeah.

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I knew that the scars touched his upper thigh, but I had never seen him completely nude. I had to take his word that the scars covered the space in between. It had been implied but never stated that he was still capable of sex but was still scarred. I didn't know for sure, and I didn't want to know.

Just a little shout-out to the burn scarred penis fetishists out there, I guess.

Anyway, since Asher was Jean-Claude's lover for centuries or some shit there's an obligatory awkward moment that's entirely too boring to talk about here. Anyway, there's a lot of [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] about their respective relationships to Jean-Claude, and then they get a another phone call from Richard's little brother. Turns out their mom has tracked down the woman accusing Richard of rape.

Since Anita knows that Richard will try and show up and white knight for his mom, and they're both too cowardly to stop their mother from having her way, she's going to have to step in and stop this herself.

Yes, Anita must now dominate Richard's mom. End chapter.

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Richard had driven his four-by-four. He'd finally gotten around to blow-drying his hair. It was a thick, wavy foam around his face and shoulders. It looked so soft, you wanted to plunge your hands into it. Or again, maybe that was just me.

Thanks for the update, Anita. Up next is Phil with the weather.

After telling us about her gang's costumes in detail, Anita convinces Richard to stay in the fucking car in case he gets hauled off to jail, because his mom would obviously put up a fight and get hauled in with him. Isn't she a peach?

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There was a live band playing country music so loudly it might as well have been hard rock. A haze of cigarette smoke floated over everything like a late-night fog. The entrance was on a little raised platform so you could look around before plunging into the sea of bodies. Charlotte is actually an inch or two shorter than I am, so I didn't bother scanning for her. I looked for Daniel. How many six-foot-tall, tanned guys with wavy, shoulder-length hair could there be? More than you'd think.

More than you'd think, especially in Hamilton's stripperiffic take on the South. She goes on to describe the whole sexy Zeeman family.

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The two oldest had cut their hair, the oldest was almost blond, and the father was going a little grey, but the five Zeeman men in one room was a tesosterone treat.

Do I detect a hint of an upcoming sevensome in a future Blake novel? [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] She finds Charlotte poking her finger into the chest of a blond woman.

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The second woman had a mane of curled blond hair, but I was betting that neither the color nor the curl were real. It had to be Betty Schaffer, and the name didn't suit her. She looked like someone named Farrah or Tiffany.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
WHORE! WHOOOOORE! A slut like that couldn't possibly get raped by poor, perfect Richard!

Anita foils an attempt by some dude to pick her up on the way over to the matriarch and the slut.

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Charlotte got up in the woman's face. I was close enough to catch a word or two above the band, "Liar ... whore ... my son ... rapist..." To hear even that much, Charlotte was screaming at the woman.
Betty was tall, but the spike-heeled boots put her at six feet. The jeans were painted on, the blouse was midriff, and there was no bra. She had small enough breasts that she could get away without, but it was still noticeable and meant to be. She looked like a cowboy hooker. Richard had dated her. It made me think worse of him.

....small-breasted, inferior WHOOOOOOOOORE!

I gotta say, after the group that Anita normally hangs out with, going to such lengths to paint Ms. Schaffer as a total whoreslut is downright hypocritical. Anita tries to get her to leave.

Quote :

Charlotte shook her head again. "I am not leaving until she tells the truth. Richard did not rape her."
"Of course he didn't," I said. "Water is wet, the sky is blue, and Richard isn't a rapist."

I mean, just like these other things, you can tell just by looking at him! Anyway, Anita believing in Richard convinces Charlotte to leave, but not before Betty decides she's had enough of this bullshit and slaps Charlotte across the face. Charlotte, being the morally superior matriarch, lays her right the fuck out on her ass with a closed fist.

Seriously.

Anyway, Charlotte's all pissed at Anita for dragging her enraged ass out of the bar.

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"Don't you ever lay hands on me again," she said.
"Behave like Richard's mother and not his outraged girlfriend, and I won't."
"How dare you!" she said. She moved closer. I moved away. I didn't really want to have a fistfight in the parking lot of a bar with Richard's mother.
"If anyone should be trying to beat the shit out of Ms. Peroxide Blond, it should be me."
That stopped her cold. She stood straight and looked at me. I could almost see her sanity returning. "But you aren't dating him anymore. Why should you care?"
"That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn't it?" I asked.

Well obviously this series can't continue without at least a love triangle. C'mon, easy money.

Quote :

Charlotte smiled suddenly. "I knew you couldn't resist my boy. No one could."

Ohhh, Richard. He's soooo dreamy.

Anyway, Anita wins again. The situation is defused. They all head to drive off victoriously when Anita finds out that, what with the impending full moon, there's going to be a werewolf ritual. As Richard still hasn't found a lupa (i.e. alpha bitch) to replace Anita yet (which is why he's been fucking everything in sight), she's gonna have to go. There's more verbal sparring in which she inevitably wins. End chapter.

Penguin wrote:

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It was natural color, as if his mother had fooled around with a cat.

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His eyes were a blue so pale they were almost white, like the eyes of a husky.

I was gonna make a comment on how the author keeps using animals to describe her character traits, but then I remembered the whole story already has furries in it. And furry sex too.

Penguin wrote:

Quote :

Damian was a green-eyed redhead, but that didn't really cover it. His hair fell like a red curtain around his upper body, the hair so red it looked like spilled blood against the green silk of his shirt. The shirt was a paler green than his eyes. They were like liquid fire, if fire could burn green. It wasn't vampire powers that made his eyes gleam. It was natural color, as if his mother had fooled around with a cat.

Ridiculous pretty man with excessive hair? Check.
Insisting that some unnatural attribute is completely natural? Check.
Unnecessary, intensely disturbing sexual imagery? Check.

"I wonder if the Geneva Convention covers torturing metaphors." -Yahtzee

First: Fire can burn green. Throw the box a 12-pack of Pepsi comes in into a bonfire if you don't believe me.
Second: I realize this is a nitpick, but cooking up a fire metaphor when talking about a redhead that's doesn't involve their hair is just confusing. Hell, "firey redhead" is almost a character archetype by itself, so mixing and matching there is particularly ill-advised.
Third: Why does any of this matter? Description of the characters and setting are important for the feel of the thing, but why paragraph-long descriptions of what they look like? Given that they're supposed to be bodyguards (though the usefulness of a bodyguard who's confined to a coffin for 12 hours a day on average is at best questionable) wouldn't a job description be as/more important than a physical one?

At least, IIRC, it's the summer so their dormancy is limited since they seem to rise shortly before sunrise fall dormant just after sunset. But yeah, they came along mostly because Jean-Claude knows that Anita running to Richard's rescue means she's probably going to bone him at some point, so these two are more like chaperones than proper bodyguards.

It's still laid out in dialog, however, that Anita is so important and speshul to Jean-Claude that he will kill Asher if he fails to protect Anita's life.

The next chapter starts out with Anita getting a lesson in werewolf manners for the big hoedown. To show that Anita has done the research, she talks about some books on natural wolves that she's studied ("natural" wolves is the PC term with werewolves, "real wolves" is an insult... for some reason). Hamilton name-drops some real-world authors, L. David Mech and Barry Holstun Lopez, to show that she's done the research. She's done this in other cases, too. When it comes to guns, she name-dropped Massad Ayoob.

It's very important that you understand that Anita reads books by real authors, see.

There's another insane pissing contest in which Anita learns what it means to protect someone, to be asked for protection, and to grant it, blah blah blah. We also find some obligatory, but completely unnecessary spellcheck melting to assert Anita's dominance:

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"Greet me," Jamil said.
"Uh-uh," I said. "I'm lupa. You're just the Sköll, the muscle. I outrank you, so you offer me your face and throat first."
"She is you lupa, and our Namir-ra, which is an equivalent to your Ulfric, she has the right to ask," Zane said.

MY NAME IS HUGE

At this point there have already been so many pissing contests in this novel that it's a wonder anyone can read these novels without feeling like they're an unfortunate bystander in a watersports film.

So yes, an unnecessary reminder that she's alpha to the wereleopards and the werewolves' alpha bitch. (Note that there will never be a werecreature in this series that isn't made up of pretty animals.)

Anyway, a whole bunch of boring blah-de-blah about the importance of touch, and then they cart Nathaniel (the jailbait male prostitute werewolf) in.

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I ran forward. "What happened?"
Asher laid Nathaniel on the bed on his back, trapping the jacket under his body. He was nude except for the jacket.

Oh of course. Damian provides more [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] so we know that whoever hurt Nathaniel feeds off of fear.

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"I felt it when we met Colin. I smelled it. He's like her. He's a night hag, a mora."
"What the hell is a night hag or a mora? And what do you mean, you met Colin? I thought you rescued Nathaniel."
"No, they gave him back to us," Asher said. "If we did not see him, the message would not be complete."

The message is that they can bite your dick with poison teeth.

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"There is a third bite," Asher said. Through it all, his voice had been utterly calm, as if nothing touched him.
Cherry looked down the length of Nathaniel's body, then touched his thigh. She moved his legs apart. "Of course, the femoral artery.

OF COURSE! Poison dickbites are serious business. Asher says that against this poison, nothing they have in their medkit will work. More [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] about the poison and Colin's ability to do terrible, terrible damage.

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"Jean-Claude can't harm from a distance," I said.
"No, and no one else can spread corruption from their bite. No one else in this country."
"You keep saying corruption," Jamil said. "What does that mean, exactly?"

This would be the perfect time for somebody to talk in and give a graphic demonstration.

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Cherry came to us with white gauze pads in her hands. Her pale freckles stood out like ink on her suddenly pale skin. There was yellow and green puss on the gauze. "This came out of the chest wounds," she said quietly. "What the hell is it?"

Could it be... CORRUPTION!?

Anyway, the poison makes people rot. Anita blurts this out loud in case the subtlety is lost on the reader. Through some more dialog, we find out that the only way to save Nathaniel is for the vampires to suck the poison out of him, but it takes a very powerful vampire to pull it off and live. Anita gets them to do it.

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"Don't let him die, not like this. Please, mon chardonneret."
He jumped like I'd hit him when I used the old nickname that Jean-Claude had used so many years ago. It meant literally, my goldfinch, which sounded silly in English. But the look on Asher's face wasn't silly. It was almost shocked.

I'll leave this one for our French audience to clobber. The vampires need to convince each other to get down to business.

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Asher held out his hand to Damian. "Come, my brother, or does the famed courage of the Vikings fail you now?"
"I was slaughtering your ancestors before you were a gleam in your great-granddaddy's eye."

Gleam in your great-granddaddy's...

A: I don't think the gleam thing works this way, and
B: If he's trying to sound like a tough Viking, using the rather American southern "granddaddy" does not suit him.

Anyway, after some more goading, they get to work, and that's the end of the chapter.

So glad you are doing this. :D Just wait until later in the books she makes a second triumvirate with Nathaniel and Damian. Owait, spoilers. Owait, who cares? lol

Could the author just go ahead and give Anita a dick? It's obvious she wants to be Alpha Male so badly she'd kill for it, and given the people she hangs around with, I doubt the presence of an extra sex organ would bother them. Then she could get into literal pissing contests with the boys instead of metaphorical ones. It'd save a lot of time.

Chapter 13 begins with the vampires feeding on Nathaniel to heal him. Anita narrates about it taking longer than in the movies, and then...

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Jason came to stand beside me, leaning on the desk. "If I didn't know his life was at stake, I'd be jealous."
I looked at him, trying to tell if he was teasing. There was a look in his eyes, a heat, that said he was not.

Having the literal shit sucked out of you by two long-haired dudes is SEXY. Just in case you had any doubts...

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Asher's face was buried in the man's inner thigh, so close to the groin that Nathaniel's slack genitalia touched the side of his face.

Hahaha, you're being teabagged by a semiconscious werewolf. Sucks to be you! But wait, Hamilton's always sold Anita as the modest, reluctant fucker of monsters.

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A blush flowed over my face so hard and fast I was almost dizzy. In turning away, I caught a glimpse of myself in the room's only mirror. My face was burning. My eyes looked wide and surprised. It was junior high all over again, stumbling on couples under the bleachers, hearing their laughter chase me into the night.

Yes, Anita. This is all about you. The fact that you've hounded two vampires into sucking the shit out of a werewolf's crotch means nothing, it's the fact that there is OMG NAKED PENIS in your presence, and that mix is what truly disturbs you. Asshole.

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Jason was still sitting against the desk, watching the show. I looked at him without turning around. "You do realize that you're the only one who seems to be enjoying the show."
He shrugged, grinning. "It's a nice view."
I raised my eyebrows. "Don't tell me you're gay."

Yeah, watching people suck the pus out of people of the same sex is totally sexy to gay people. What a fag. This results in more completely unnecessary [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] in which we learn that Jason's a bisexual. What a fag.

Nathaniel's pulse gets stronger despite the blood loss.

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Asher drew back from the wound. "We are not so much drinking blood as sucking out the corruption."

Oh, I thought you were sucking him off. Well, the day is saved!

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Someone drew a hissing breath. Damian was backing up. He was staring at his hands. That pale, milky skin was turning dark, a blackness flowing over the skin. The flesh of his hands began to peel back while we watched.

Oops!