Laurell K Hamilton 4 Copy Boxed Set [Paperback]

If you haven't read Laurell K Hamilton's work, I do not recommend starting with this boxset. All of my personal thoughts on her later works aside, the main reason I wouldn't suggest getting this box set is because for some reason the publishers decided to add one of her most recent books (#16 in the series) to the first three books in the series.

This means that any potential reader will miss an incredibly large amount of story & that they'll also be in danger of losing interest due to the way the action has shifted. (Most of the action happens in bed rather than out in the field.) But as far as the books go? The first three books are wonderful & are worth reading. I didn't really care for Blood Noir, though. I thought it was boring.

If you are curious about Hamilton's books, do not start with this box set. Go out & purchase one of the other box sets out there that do not mix things up horribly. They do exist here on amazon. I honestly don't know what the publishers were thinking by doing this.

I'm giving this set 3 stars because I liked the earlier books, but the misplaced volume makes that number drop down to 2. This isn't a good way to start the series.

There is another box set out right now that collects the first 4 books in the series & if you are looking to start the series or just want to collect the books, I recommend that instead. I'm including the link to this box set here: Laurell K. Hamilton Set - Guilty Pleasures, The Laughing Corpse, Circus of the Damned and The Lunatic Cafe

Laurell K. Hamilton has written both main types of urban fantasy -- cheap porn with well-endowed supernaturals, and grimy bloody stories about murder and mayhem. "Laurell K. Hamilton Box Set" brings together her three earliest books with one of her much later ones -- and the juxtaposition is not only very, very confusing (who ARE half these characters?), but it's also a sign of how far the series degraded.

"Guilty Pleasures" introduces us to Anita Blake, vampire hunter and zombie animator. She also isn't too fond of vampires or werethingies, though St. Louis is apparently swarming with them. So when a vampire comes to hire her, she turns him down. But at a bachelorette party, she finds herself "hired" by the lethal, childlike Nikolaos. To find who is offing vampires in St. Louis, she'll need to relax her "no vamps" rule -- and join forces with the mysterious, seductive Jean-Claude.

And in "The Laughing Corpse," Anita is called in to deal with a crime that seems to have been committed by zombies. So she starts investigating possible suspects -- including Dominga Salvador, a malevolent old vaudun priestess who has found a way to keep a zombie ensouled. Unfortunately some very nasty things -- both living and dead -- are trying to stop Anita's investigations, both into the zombie murders and the very sinister client who wants her to do a human sacrifice.

Then in "Circus of the Damned," people are being murdered by a rogue master vampire leading a pack of other rogue vampires. Additionally, Anita's investigations lead to an encounter with a very attractive werewolf alpha, Richard Zeeman, and a vampire-hating group is on the rise. But the rogue master turns out to be powerful enough to unleash beastly vampires on the hospital -- and it turns out that some of the evil vampires in town are not just strong, they are ancient and deadly. Plus they have a lamia.

"Blood Noir" leaps thirteen books ahead in the series, and sets Anita up with a storyline straight out of a bad sitcom -- her friend-with-benefits Jason wants her to come to his hometown and pose as his girlfriend, to prove to his dad that he isn't gay. Yes, I'm serious. Unfortunately, their little act not only causes problems for Jean-Claude's public image, but somehow inspires the local vampires to attack Jason (whenever he isn't having a tiger orgy with Anita).

This is a rather mismatched boxed collection of Laurell K. Hamilton's works -- the first three books shoot for the dark, grimy noir atmosphere with lots of gory deaths and nasty monsters. Then suddenly we're thrown into a weird supernatural soap opera, complete with contrived family strife, harems of characters who weren't in Book One through Book Three (Who's Asher? Who's Micah?) and a supervillain who just shows up to spark off orgies for Anita.

It's kind of bizarre, and very disorienting to jump from a dark, bloody urban fantasy into a sort of furry porn fantasy. And Hamilton's writing doesn't save the day, with plenty of clumsy writing ("Not resurrection. I'm not that good. I mean zombies. The shambling dead. Rotting corpses. Night of the living dead. That kind of zombie") and horrendous dialogue (" "I will make you mine, mortal. Mine!"). There are some signs of improvement in the third book, but by "Blood Noir" Hamilton is ranting about how having sex in a bed will kill your soul. Seriously.

The biggest Achilles heel of the series is Anita -- a twentysomething woman who seethes with bitterness and cynicism, despite apparently having a perfectly normal background. It feels like Hamilton wanted to create a Raymond Chandleresque anti-heroine, but tried too hard. As a result, Anita is obnoxious, rude, bitter, whiny, racist, vaguely misogynistic, and extremely violent.

And sometime between "Circus of the Damned" and "Blood Noir," she suddenly started collecting men like Pokemon cards, because she's simply so sexy and fascinating that they all fall in love with her. Blech. Jean-Claude and Richard undergo similar transformations -- the former spends three books as a clever, sexual Machievellian schemer, only to be turned into a whining wuss; the latter starts as a strong and moral werewolf, and then suddenly becomes an evil nasty rapist that everyone hates.

There are some fairly decent urban fantasy stories buried in here, but the "Laurell K. Hamilton Set" is bogged down by tepid prose, a detestable heroine, and a jump from one end of the series to the other. Give it a pass.

This is a great series. Easy read. I'd recommend them to anyone that likes mystery, sci-fi and romance. Two thumbs up!

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 5 reviews  3.6 out of 5 stars