4 of 4 members found this review helpful.
“I am apparently a glutton for punishment. My expectations keep getting lower and lower the more I read the Anita Blake series and I can’t say that I am shocked when the book meets or in some cases doesn’t meet even those lowered standards. So, why do I keep buying them? Because I love Anita and her men (not to be confused with random guys she magically hooks up with) and I love the world Hamilton has created and them summarily destroyed after Obsidian Moon (though I saw it coming after Killing Dance). I loved that Anita was strong, that she was a necromancer, that she was flawed. Now Anita is just a mess. The books have strayed from great urban fantasy where there is a decent plot, lots of action, and a smattering of smut to over described sex scenes that are too numerous and too boring and take precedence over any character development and plot.
That brings us to Blood Noir whose title has nothing to do with anything except that the cover and description makes it appear that Laurell K Hamilton may be trying to get back to old school Anita. Nope. There are no scares and decent concepts for plots go nowhere. For example, there could have been a great story with Jason being a lookalike for a wayward Presidential candidates son. There could have been great subplots concerning Anita’s notoriety in the press especially when it comes to Jean Claude and vampire politics. There even could have been a decent plot with Jean Claude and Anita’s connection being severed. Instead of everything is glossed over and the artificial drama and endless sexual angst fills up all the pages. In fact for the most part everything revolves around the plotless sex. I get that Anita is a human succubus but it is sex that propels everything forward. Girlfriend break up with you, let’s have sex. Dad’s dying, let’s have sex. Ooh look new supernatural characters, they’ll eventually show up for sex. Ooh ardeur’s kicking in, let’s have more sex. I get it already. Anita has sex, but why must every other chapter be another pointless orgy. It takes any sensuality or sexiness away to the point where it’s not even erotic anymore. It’s just boring because we’ve already read that scene three times earlier in the same book but with different partners and those same scenes were also in the last four books. Yeah, sex is fun. Yeah, its part of Anita’s life but do you need to devote most of the book to it?
Anita continues down that I just don’t like her anymore road and that makes me incredibly sad. She collects men (only supernatural need apply) for an ever expanding harem. As I said before the moment two characters were introduced, I knew we were going to see them in Anita’s bed before the book was done. It’s sad that things have gotten that predictable. And the other characters? I loved Jason. This was a perfect chance to develop his character. So what happened? Let’s ruin him too. Sigh.
So, no Blood Noir was not a good thing but it had potential in some of the ideas. Ideas that could have been used to make a good book. Unfortunately, the mistaken identity plot goes nowhere until the last 40 pages or so and then it is rushed clumsily. It shows where it could have gone and sadly didn’t. I miss old Anita. I miss the old Anitaverse. And I miss the good old fashioned paranormal mystery. I keep telling myself that this will be the last one. I think this may have been it. There are far too many better writers out there (Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, Simon R Green, Kim Harrison, Ilona Andrews, etc) for me to spend my money on.
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