Guilty Pleasures ... How apt.

Published: Originally – 1993; my copy – 2003.
Publisher: Jove Books – Penguin Putnam Inc.
Read On: March 15^th-April 1^st, 2012.


Hello and welcome to another segment of Stone Cold Critique, where bad literature is given the cold shoulder! You’ve probably not noticed, dear minions, but I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus since March. Why? Mostly because college kicked my ass to the curb and back, and now that it’s summer I actually have time to read and bitch about terrible books (and dig into some really great ones; The A Song of Ice and Fire series is gorgeous!).

Now, I’ll have you know that I’ve heard of the infamous Anita Blake series; who hasn’t? From the New Powers as the Plot Demands to the anime-esque man-harem to the Mary Sue protagonist, trust me, minions, I’ve been warned. But does the first of this series foreshadow such eye-gouging atrocities?

Let’s take a look at Laurell K. Hamilton’s first Anita Blake novel, “Guilty Pleasures.”

The Gist

This is part supernatural-myth and part thriller/crime novel, to be honest. The story follows an unpleasant woman named Anita Blake, a woman who raises zombies for profit, and hunts vampires deemed criminals by the police, with police support. She’s been doing this for a while by the start of the novel, and she has the scars to prove it.

 Of course we rarely see her zombie-raising, and it’s all about her being a Badass Vampire Hunter. Naturally, she gets dragged into a plot involving the vampire heads of the city, as well as a vampire religion, a carnival, and a strip club. Oh, and people trying to kill her, but that seems sort of standard in this genre. It’s a book filled with Anita’s unsavory narration and judgements superimposed over the events and characters. But I’ll get into that later.

 What I’m getting at here is that the plot was very standard. Not cliché, but well-worn. There weren’t any surprises, really, and the one surprise was my fault – I should have seen it coming. This type of fiction really likes its Mauve Shirts.

The ending – the prologue, really – gets bonus points, though, because through the novel, Jean Claude, a powerful vampire, has been trying to court Anita, and she shuts him down thoroughly in the end. It’s a refreshing turn of pace.

The Bad

Let’s run through the laundry list, shall we? The pacing, for one thing, is very rushed and there is very little character development for anyone; our narrator is a terrible, judgemental harpy who shows a great deal of racism towards an established community of people – not humans, but still, they’re people.

But what really gets me – other than the terrible narrator, first-person perspective – is the fact that the pacing was so quick. I mean, there’s a light beach-novel, where you don’t have to think about much, and then there’s this complex world that LKH seems to be trying to make, and then never elaborating or dwelling on some of the moral dilemmas or how the characters reactions are not out of place compared to an outsiders (ie. The readers’) balking.
 
Which is another thing that got me – this was a very action and plot-based novel, and that’s fine – but the fact that moral dilemmas or third option-plans are never even mused on annoys me. I tend to like character development, and characters that have some depth, some conflict to them. I like grey areas, I like when characters really have to think about right and wrong and if they’re going bad things for good reasons – or visa versa. Having a character –our narrator no less – that sees things in such stark black and white doesn’t jive with me; it comes off as unsavory. In Anita’s world, all vampires are parasites, and all those that want to be vampires, or have joined the Church of the Undead (a vampire church) are idiots. There is no empathy, no inkling that people might be scared of death, or that there might be mitigating circumstances.

Moving right on. Just thinking on it now, I just … disliked a lot of the characters. Anita was unsavory, Anita’s human friends were plot devices that rarely got mentioned, the one decent character got killed off – after a couple hundred pages of Anita judging him for his occupation(male stripper at a vampire club) and his past (he used to be a fangbanger; that is, a human who was addicted to being bitten by vampires [something that is treated in the book as a fetish or odd kink]) – and the OTHER decent character was a sociopath, the Death to Anita’s Executioner, and undoubtedly bad ass, if only for the way he got in and got shit done, even if he was a terrible human being who kills people for money. The cherry on this terrible-character-soufflé is the main antagonist, Nikolaos. I’m calling her Nikky from now on, because it’s easier to type. Nikky is not an original character In the slightest. She’s a very, very old vampire that’s main character trait is being a Creepy Child of the highest calibre. That’s it. She mind-rapes and terrifies Anita, and she’s not ever a teenager by rights. There is no depth, there is no conflict. It’s been done, LKH. It’s been done.  

Oh! Now that I’m editing, I want to mention one more bad thing in a list of Bad Things: I’d heard in various other critiques of the series that Anita gains a reputation as gaining more powers as the plot demands, with little thought or reasoning as to why. I’d like to report that, to my recollection (it’s been three months, roll with it) that tradition has its roots in the first book quite firmly. And that annoys me more than you can comprehend, though, to the book (and author’s) credit, Anita’s super special awesome powers are explained – vaguely – and are not wanted by Anita, as the edge comes from being tied to a vampire as a human servant. So there’s that.

The Good

For all that was wrong with this novel – and there was a lot of it, trust me – the one thing that I particularly liked was the amount of world-building that went into it. And it was presented in an organic way, not just shoehorned in to be oohed and ahhed over. The premise of this series is that there are supernatural beings, creatures, that live alongside humans, and there are facets that spring up because of that: strip clubs and new kinks, a new religion for those that fear death and want to live forever, even a new division in the law enforcement community. It’s all presented in this really off-hand, natural sort of way. Anita doesn’t balk at it (mostly) because it’s not a new thing. She doesn’t have to harp over every little thing we as readers might find odd, because it’s not odd to her and therefore not worth going into detail.

 If anything, I’d say that the novel could use more of that, and more depth, rather than bam-bam-bam, plot point after plot point.

That being said, there was a couple of characters that I enjoyed, if only because they actually were mentioned and I found them interesting. Phillip, the stripper, for example, has a history, has a past that has influenced his present, and despite what Anita thinks of him, he’s willing to help her. He’s willing to walk into a vampire party – where humans will be willingly bit and drunk from by vampires – to help her get the information she needs. This, for those of you keeping score at home, is sort of like a recovering addict wandering into an opium den, or an alcoholic hanging out in a bar.

Edward, our sociopathic supernatural killer, is also interesting for all the wrong reasons. It’s said that he as a human assassin before he got bored and moved to supernatural creatures for fun and profit – this is a name who doesn’t like being bored, and really, really liked a challenge. He sets his sights on Nikky early in the novel, and I spent most of his page-time rooting for him to get his wish and kill the Creepy Child. He was blunt and no-nonsense, and didn’t seem to care about those he was being paid to kill past their skills, powers and challenges. It was interesting to see how that sort of character reacted with the world around him.

Conclusion

This was … okay? I mean, I could see that it was a fast, light read, something to be flipped through in an airport lounge, or on the beach. It wasn’t mean to provoke serious thought, it was meant to entertain and kill a few hours. And that it did – it accomplished its main goal, even if I was annoyed by a great deal if it, it was an interesting read. It had me commenting “that was a decent bit of world building right there” or “oh, hey, that was sort of neat!” even if the narrator had be groaning and grinding my teeth.

It was a decent set up for the rest of the series – it helped set the world in stone, it helped the reader get a great idea of what the setting would have in store, and kept the ending open enough that the verse could be continued. It’s a pretty solid beginning that acts as a decent start to a series, letting the audience know exactly what they’re getting into – they’ll know the setting, the narrator, and the general pace that the others will be set at.
 
This is a book you’ll want to read when there’s nothing else, or you want to be entertained for an afternoon. It’s short, it’s simple, and it’s fast-paced. It’s mediocre for me, if only because I’m so intrigued by the characters, and the characters’ stories, not necessarily the plot of a book.

Does this book deserve the cold shoulder? Well … not really. It stands on its own as an alright book, and isn’t so terrible that I feel I need to warn you away. If you like black and white narratives, and unlikeable protagonists/narrators, with a dash of crime/thriller/supernatural tossed into the mix, this is for you.

As always, if you have a book you think deserves the Cold Shoulder, let me know and drop me a line.

This is Contemptus, the Stone Cold Critic, signing off. I’ll see you when I see you, gentle readers.