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1.0étoiles sur 5
Cerulean sick, Juil 5 2008
With "Narcissus in Chains," Laurell K. Hamilton switched her format from blood'n'suspense to sex, blood and endless superpowers for her self-insert, Anita Blake.
And sadly "Cerulean Sins" only continues that tradition, couching a meager plot in endless supernatural sex and increasingly purple prose. But even that might be tolerable if Hamilton's idtastic heroine did not waft through the book, expecting all males to put up with her mood-swings, molestation and manipulation. Think the worst fanfiction Mary Sue ever written by a twelve-year-old Hot Topic shopper.
Anita has just finished a zombie raising when Asher arrives with a message: Belle Morte's emissary Musette has arrived unexpectedly. It turns out that she's come there to toy with Jean-Claude and torment Asher -- and even worse, she intends to use the scarred vampire for her sadistic pleasure. If he isn't the sex partner of a more powerful person, she's free to do it.
However will Anita fix this? By stabbing Musette and hopping in the sack with Asher, of course!
While Anita deals with her deteriorating relationship with the police -- it's their fault rather than hers, of course -- she also must deal with a series of murders, and strange men following her. But the main problem is Belle Morte, who has taken a person interest in Anita -- and whose emissary is still able to cause trouble for Anita's "people." And possibly death for Asher.
Some lip service is paid to a serial killer and a gang of secret agents who, of course, want to enlist Anita's oh-so-impressive services. But that's not where Laurell K. Hamilton's interests lie -- it's pretty clear she is focusing on the endless parade of "who's on top?" vampire politics and all its courtly trappings, and in writing maybe/maybe not sex scenes.
Problem is, she's not very good at it. The supposedly courtly etiquette of the vampires is staggeringly dull, with much hilarious talk of "American sex" (your basic sex) versus "European sex" (just about any kind of physical contact). And the sex scenes require endless before-during-after talking and ridiculous angst. At least two pages are required to get Asher out of his underwear. And her attempts at compelling, intense scenes -- such as the were rescue squad or the long-distance prods of Belle Morte -- end up laughably melodramatic.
Worst of all, no sense of humor -- despite Anita's oh-so-witty barbs, the funniest line in the whole book is Asher announcing that he's known saints and priests who did not have the self-control of a nymphomaniacal narcissist. Add Hamilton's endless descriptions of anime-style flowing hair and brightly-colored eyes, and you have a recipe for tedious, slow-moving slogging.
It's pretty evident that Anita is self-absorbed and not very bright, as well as a glaring Mary Sue with contrived angst and unreal sex powers. Everyone (including the villain and the government) wants her, because she's so tough and special, and despite the fact that she's utterly abrasive and a raging narcissist. Hamilton tries to cover this with protestations that she "loves" all the guys around her, but it's never convincing.
But over the course of "Cerulean Sins" she becomes truly loathsome: emotionally manipulating the vulnerable, endlessly sniping at Richard, and refusing to let Asher leave unless he has sex with her. And while she admits that it's massively hypocritical to insist that Jean-Claude be faithful to her alone while she has sex with anything that will hold still, she insists on it anyway.
Poor Asher. He gets put through the wringer in this one. After being stabbed by an old flame, he has to deal with Anita lying and manipulating him so he'll have "European sex" with her, and apparently not caring how distraught it makes him. The poor guy deserves better.
"Cerulean Sins" is a long, tedious slog of painfully boring sex, painfully boring dialogue, and painfully boring vampire politics that exists just to be talked about. A ghastly experience.
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1.0étoiles sur 5
Sinful read, Fév 23 2007
Laurell K. Hamilton is aging well, but her Anita Blake series is not. The eleventh volume of the fantasy-horror series is heavy on supernatural sex and light on plot. While Hamilton comes up with a handful of cool ideas for "Cerulean Sin," her book is sunk by an irritating heroine and a plot relegated to subplot status.
St. Louis is swarming with vampires, werecreatures, and who knows what else. And Anita Blake is in the thick of it, enmeshed with all of the above. Now with her personal life in an uproar, she still has to hunt down a very messy serial killer who can change his shape -- and unfortunately, she's not getting a lot of help from the more typical police authorities.
But things get even more difficult when a sadistic vampire, Musette, arrives and demands that the traumatized Asher come back with her to super-vampire Belle Morte. Since Belle Morte once tormented Asher, Anita ain't about to let him go. So now she has a mystery serial killer, and a very angry ancient vampire on her tail -- things are starting to get a lot worse.
Try reading this book while skipping over the erotica, as I did. I guarantee you'll be done in less than half an hour. Sex is the new supernatural in Hamilton's series, and the actual plot starts slipping into the shadows. Where does the plot go? It gets buried in Anita's many vaguely disturbing and very detailed sexual encounters. To thumb her nose at Belle Morte, is it necessary for Anita to bed Asher? Not really. But it still happens.
Hamilton seems to be on strong footing with some of the plot elements. Super-vampire Belle Morte is quite cool, as is the intricate vampire politics. But really, readers can only take so much of Anita's self-adoration before the narrative gets tiresome. The sex scenes -- it's impossible to miss every page -- are clinical and dull, and the climax is more of a sputter.
Anita herself is the biggest problem -- if she doesn't like someone, she offs them. And she apparently will do the wild thing with any guy who says yes. And everyone adores her, and never disagrees with her. Yeah, she's really easy to relate to -- she's more Mary Sue than Dirty Harry. Her new boyfriend Micah has big body parts but no personality. Richard is the only one of Hamilton's characters who acts like a real person. Despite Hamilton's efforts to convince us that he's crazy, it's hard not to sympathize with the poor guy.
"Cerulean Sins" is more of a sickly blue annoyance. Hamilton's eleventh Blake book is a collection of vague narcissism, riddled with weird sex and weirder characters. An exercise in mediocrity.
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4.0étoiles sur 5
Absolute amazement, Sep 5 2005
Okay, this is one book that I neglected (by mistake, I add) when I was buying up the rest of the series, so I actually finished the series and then came back to this one - and it's gorgeous. If you like the rest, this is only a continuation of the winding plot, adding in our favourite characters.And I for one am glad to see Asher/Anita/Jean-Claude happening. Asher is entirely too angsty for his own good *smiles*. I kind of wish that there was a little less plot and a little more romance, because at one stage the plot is buried in romance and so the last few chapters are mostly plot, which if the police work isn't what you read the books for, is a little odd. Richard (who okay, I never really liked anyway, having fallen in love with Jean-Claude) has become a wreck, but you find yourself wishing Anita would just get over him, because she's entirely too much in love with him, when he's far too moral for her - even though Anita still tries to keep her morals afloat. This is an excellent book - if you've not got the rest of the series, I'd say start collecting and if the rest of the series is your thing? Then so is this.
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