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The Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series is a terrific guilty pleasure for me. I wallow in them.

Set in an alternate reality where St. Louis (indeed, the world) is populated by packs of werewolves, vampires, ghouls, zombies, and other assorted supernatural creatures, the series is a cross between a horror novel, a mystery story, a romance, and a science-fiction story. They're hard to classify, really.

To me, they're like curling up on the couch and watching a great detective movie from the 40s - they have that "hard bitten detective" feel.

It's interesting to find a book series where the main character is strong, wily, intelligent, and a real "action-hero" - and is a woman. Anita is great character.

I must admit that I like the supernatural "rules" that govern the Anita Blake books much more than I do most other authors'. They make sense, and Laurell has such a strong foundation that they are consistent. While magic plays a role in her world, it is not the filmy mysticism of so many fantasy novels. It is just enough rooted in the real world that is it believable.

She's started another series, Meredith Gantry, with fey in the modern world -- a sweeping story of court rivalry and the political intrigue of the Light and the Dark sides of Faerie. Meredith doesn't really want to be queen, but she's pretty much forced into the role. This series has definitely followed the same path as the Anita Blake novels: less plot, more sex. The latest in either book series has become very well-written soft-core porn -- enjoyable, but pretty graphic. I'd like to see Anita go back to actually solving crimes again, and move the plot along in the Merry Gantry series a bit faster, but these remain on my bookshelf and get re-read periodically just for the fun of it.

The audio books, available from Brilliance Audio (or through Simply Audiobooks), are pretty good. The narrator has a tendency to speak male voices in a monotone, but on the whole they are enjoyable.

Book list

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter

  • Guilty Pleasures
  • The Laughing Corpse
  • Circus of the Damned
  • The Lunatic Café
  • Bloody Bones
  • The Killing Dance
  • Burnt Offerings
  • Blue Moon
  • Obsidian Butterfly
  • Narcissus in Chains
  • Cerulean Sins
  • Incubus Dreams

Merry Gentry

  • A Kiss of Shadows
  • A Caress of Twilight
  • Seduced by Moonlight
  • A Stroke of Midnight

Others

  • Nightseer
  • Nightshade (Start Trek)
  • Death of a Darklord (Ravenloft)
  • anthologies: Spells of Wonder, Sword and Sorceress VII, Sword and Sorceress VIII, Superheroes

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