Danse Macabre

*sighs* Much better than the last Anita Blake book, but Laurell K. Hamilton just doesn't get some things. Among other things, she's never been good at ending books, especially if there wasn't a clear-cut mystery plot. They just sort of...fizzle out. For another, she still hasn't figured out that less is more when it comes to sex scenes. I swear, it's like reading an anatomy textbook some of the time; it's just so...clinical. Less of that in this book, but still annoying.

So, on the plus side: good character development, interesting plot until it just fizzled out (ummm... what exactly happened with the rest of the Master vamps in town?), and some new power spikes for Anita. It was especially nice to get a few outstanding personal issues resolved. Oh, and finally some more explanation as to what's really been happening with Anita's powers [Hint: how many kinds of lycanthropy has she come into contact with? Does "impossible" ever apply to her?].

Minus side: Too many characters in a room never works. Especially not for, ahem, certain types of scenes. Those are best done in summary. Also, no policework. LKH is quite good at describing crime scenes and such. Actually she's good at describing most things, but I think I've figured out part of the problem. She puts a liberal dose of sensuality in most of her descriptions, except bedroom scenes. Those come across as cold and sterile by comparison. It's...odd. What else... Yeah, the other main problem is the ending. Nothing in the non-personal-stuff plotline is actually resolved. There are some good setup points for a future book, but, really, there needed to be at least some attempt at resolution of the whole convocation of Master Vampires.

Anyway, it's a relief to see LKH heading at least somewhat back towards what I liked about the first Anita Blake books. I think she's trying to get more of the ardeur stuff out of the way so it doesn't dominate the plotlines like it has been. But, um, how many times can you have Anita drain out her power and need to feed the ardeur on whoever's handy? I got bored with that in the last book. It didn't happen nearly as often in this book, but towards the end it just felt like LKH ran out of material and decided that would be a "nice" thing to throw in. Sorry, but, Bored Now doesn't begin to cover it.

And for anyone interested in the series, all the books up through Obsidian Butterfly are well done. Narcissus in Chains and Cerulean Sins are basically sexfests with little other plot (you'll need to know that Chimera was a mulitphasic shapeshifter later on and that Anita inherited Jean Claude's succubus; not too much else actually happens). Incubus Dreams was about half and half. Half plot, half sexfest; the plot was quite nicely done. There's a paperback out, Micah, that I didn't get because there didn't seem to be any room for plot in it. Danse Macabre, though, is mostly character development, with some actual plot in the midst. But the character development will catch you up on anything you missed skipping over NiC and CS. I'm hoping Edward shows up again in the next book. There's always a better plot when Edward's around.

[Background: Edward started out as an assassin who killed humans. Humans were too easy, so he switched to vampires and shapeshifters. He has an alter-ego named "Ted" who pretends to lead a normal life. I like Edward. Ted scares me.]