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2.0étoiles sur 5
Once in a..., Juil 5 2009
Apparently the love triangle between Richard Zeeman, Anita Blake and Jean-Claude isn't QUITE over, despite Anita dumping the werewolf to boink the French vampire. Lovely.
But apparently the melodrama is not over yet in "Blue Moon," the eighth novel of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. Laurell K. Hamilton does succeed in creating some suspense and some intriguing supporting characters with their own woes and worries, but her writing alternates between choppy and painfully florid, and her heroine rapidly ascends the ladder of Mary-Suedom -- she's allegedly smarter, sexier, stronger and more powerful than anyone else.
Anita receives a call from Richard's brother -- Richard is now in jail in Tennessee, accused of raping a local woman. So Anita heads out to Tennessee with a band of vampires and weres, including Asher, Damian and Jason. They're all intent on proving Richard's innocence, and there are only a matter of days until the "blue moon" exposes him as a werewolf.
Oh yeah, and because of Anita's charming and polite personality, the Master of the City regards their arrival as an act of war. Can't blame him, considering what a reasonable, diplomatic person she is. Uh huh.
Unfortunately Richard's frame-up is at the center of a town-wide conspiracy, and a search for an ancient artifact using illegal means. And Colin (aforementioned Master) is determined to mess with the invading group, even to infecting one of the weres with a corrosive decay, while a werewolf first-one-to-catch-Anita-gets-to-rape-her jaunt in the woods leads to a new encounter with Richard. Unfortunately, his family has gotten drawn into this mess.
"Blue Moon" is one of those novels that is overflowing with promise, but only turns out mediocre. It actually is quite strong for the first half -- obviously-untrue rape charges, a sinister town conspiracy, and brewing tensions between two groups of werewolves and vampires. You can almost overlook Hamilton's obvious contempt for women, cops, and anyone who doesn't live in a major city (according to Hamilton, Tennessee is entirely populated by misogynist racist rednecks).
Unfortunately, halfway through everything comes unravelled -- instead we get an endless stream of absurd situations that emphasize one thing: "Anita is the awesomest most powerful person ever, and everyone wants to have sex with her." Rapist werewolves, sneering at her ex-boyfriend's new woman, being possessed by sex-mad werewolf ghosts, and magically fixing everything just by being so awesome and loving. It's actually pretty nauseating to read someone so spectacularly Mary Sueish.
And Hamilton's writing isn't up to saving the story either. The more hardboiled bits are pretty passable although rather choppily written. But when she tries to wrap that hardboiled prose in lush, sensual prose the results are laughable and appallingly awkward ("The two of us knelt bathed in power. A wind trailed Damian's hair across my face, and I knew the wind was us"). And it doesn't help that Anita constantly tosses off clunky fortune-cookie witticisms ("Love sucks. Sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it's just another way to bleed") and appalling similes (a vampire sucking blood is "like a feeding thing." Well, what else would it be?).
The biggest millstone is Anita: abrasive, arrogant, absurdly hypermacho, and pulls superpowers out of her butt at least twice a day. She's also as airheaded as a ping-pong ball. She causes all the plot's problems by howling verbal abuse at the Master of the City, but it never seems to occur to her that this trouble might be her fault. And it's hard to sympathize with someone who whines about how angry it makes her that her ex-boyfriend, whom she cheated on, is having sex with someone else.
The supporting characters are far more likable -- the fragile vampire Asher manages to be far more endearing than Anita ever does, and the werewolf Jason is quite charming at times. Unfortunately most of the vampires are either there to be ego buffs to Anita (Jean-Claude) or damsels in distress (Damian).
"Blue Moon" is a solid urban fantasy riddled with cracks -- and the Grand Canyon in the middle is the alleged heroine. It's a decent light read if you can focus on the supporting cast and the creepy noir moments, and ignore everything else.
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de Laurell Hamilton
de Laurell Hamilton
de Laurell Hamilton
de Laurell Hamilton
de Laurell Hamilton
