|
-
News
- Features
- Events
Calendar
- Editorials
- Monthly
Zine
- Offworld
Report
- Our Daily
RSS Feed
- Movie/TV
Reviews
> Recent movies
> Movies by year
> Movies by title
- Book
Reviews
> Recent books
> Books by year
> Books by title
- Home
- Worlds
- Biography
- Bibliography
- Appearances
- Reviews
- Blog
- Community
- Press
- Links
Become
an Advertiser
- Web
Site Directory
- Search
the Net
- StephenHunt.net
- WoodenRocket.com
- Check
your E-mail
- Non Sci-Fi
News
|
Incubus Dreams by Laurell K. Hamilton
01/01/2005 . Source: Jennifer Howell 
pub: Orbit/Times Warner. 658 page enlarged paperback. Price: £10.99 (UK). ISBN: 1-84149-316-3. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out websites: www.OrbitBooks.co.uk
I don't think there are enough words for quite how badly Laurell K. Hamilton (LKH) has lost her way with this series. It's actually astounding how something that used to be a bit of slick, gory entertainment has morphed into something so hideously bloated and self-important that no editor is allowed near and it takes nearly 700 pages to puff out a plot that merits 200 tops. It's pretty hard work slogging through this if you've been a devotee of the series from book one, so I'll say right now that newbies shouldn't even think about starting here. For one thing, it's not even remotely a standalone novel and for another, it'll most likely put you off LKH for life, which is a shame.
No editor means that, on one level, there are an insultingly huge number of typos and inconsistencies. The fact that the manuscript hasn't even been run through a spell check in this day and age is pretty pathetic and no one appears to have touched these mistakes between the US and UK editions. So nice to see professionalism at work in the publishing industry at the prices they're charging for this.
To digress, there's one thing that's far actually more interesting than reading 'Incubus Dreams'. Hop over to Amazon.com and read the hundreds of readers bemoaning LKH's 'betrayal' and Anita's current fate and it'll keep you entertained for far longer than the book itself. I suppose we should be thankful that (as yet) the author hasn't done an Anne Rice and put her own rant on Amazon (Rice losing it on-line was possibly the funniest read of the year). Small mercies and all that.
For most of this book, it's pretty hard to see why they're still branding it 'Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter'. To be frank, all Anita really does is, well, shag them and any lycanthropes that happen to be in the vicinity. Occasionally, she'll raise the dead, but only so as you know that she's the biggest, bestest animator and necromancer in the entire world. Oh and she has to take her pet stripper wereleopard to work with her now, just in case she needs sex...oh, it sounds ridiculous and it doesn't come across any less ridiculous in the narrative. I know there's a whole mystical vampire power explanation in the ardour for her now being a slut, but it doesn't make the character any less slutty. It does, however, make her tedious, self-obsessed and wholly unbelievable.
There's a plot in there somewhere about a gang of vamps murdering strippers, but it's really not the focus; more a vague framework to hang Anita's conquests on. If the 500 odd pages of pointless sex scenes were even well written or remotely entertaining, I wouldn't mind so much. But in making them such a feature, LKH also seems to be oddly clinical and remote about the whole business. There's much graphic description of what goes where, but it just alternates between boring and plain old icky. And when they're not doing it, all the characters just love to talk about how angst-ridden they are about doing it.
Mainly, it's just a waste of a concept and a character, especially when flashes of Anita's old brilliance shine through. Parts of it are still readable but there's nothing even approaching a cohesive whole.
You would have hoped that having created an entire other series to use as a vehicle for supernatural soft porn with the 'Merry Gentry' books, the author could possibly give Anita's love life a break for a book or two and focus on the crime aspect again that used to work so well. It's becoming more and more apparent that this is never going to happen and I can't help but think that the kindest option now would be to end this series before it implodes under the weight of its own ego. I'm fairly sure this will still sell in droves, but that means a lot of people are wasting their money.
On another level, LKH has inspired a whole new generation of authors in this particular niche, most of who now have far more credibility than she is. Kelley Armstrong especially seems keen not to make the same mistakes as LKH by switching characters every couple of books and it certainly seems to be working so far. Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison and even Rachel Caine are all producing far better books than 'Incubus Dreams' could ever hope to be. After reading Robin McKinley's sublime 'Sunshine' (admittedly influenced by LKH) and post-Buffy, the vampires in the Anita books are really starting to show their age.
If you're a completist or you do happen to enjoy the way this series is going, then I'm sure you'll buy this book anyway. More than anything though, it's the weakest, most tedious entry in the series so far and you have to be a big, big fan to put up with this level of self-indulgence. If you want good reading, go back and start at 'Guilty Pleasures' and let's pretend the series ended at 'Obsidian Butterfly'.
Jennifer Howell
|
|
