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lunasarielMimi: Bad, bad Luna! *slap* No more cookies! What kind of fiery-eyed indignant revolutionary are you?!
This is Lunasariel. Sorry for the late introduction to my Muse, Mimi. Mimi is my secretary, my research department, my editor, my occasional bodyguard, and my frequently-ignored voice of reason. My latest transgression was to pick up a copy of Blood Noir, the sixteenth Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, and it literally brought me close to tears.
I cried not for what Anita is now, but for what she was, and for how far the mighty can fall. A bit of background: I *loved* Anita Blake. She was my introduction to vampire fiction and urban fantasy, two of my favorite genres. She was one tough, scrappy, angry little cookie. She didn't take any shit from anybody, even though she was up against vampires and weres (werewolves, wereleopards, etc.). With a cocky one-liner on the tip of her tongue her Browning (that's her gun, folks) in one hand, her cross in the other, she raised zombies, slew vampires, and generally defended the weak and slayed the bad guys. But most of all, she was *independent*. She flew solo, a glorious grown-up Buffy... I'm sitting here, trying to describe what she was, what happened to her, how it all went so terribly, terribly wrong.
Suffice to say, the series took a major turn for the worse. About the 10th book, she receives the first of her vampiric goodies, the ardeur. This lovely little plot device makes it utterly necessary for her to engage in... rather promiscuous sexual behavior several times a day. With several people at a time. And some of them have claws and/or fangs. In a horrid mixture of florid prose and medical-grade detail. All of a sudden, our scrappy little vampire hunter had become a succubus/necromancer/lupa/were-everything/nimir-ra/vampire servant/queen of the frickin' universe. Be it noted that she is the *only* succubus or necromancer alive. Both are basically minor goddesses. A lupa is a werewolf queen. A nimir-ra is a wereleopard queen. All the were and vampire groups she suddenly finds herself in control of are mostly populated by insanely gorgeous, vulnerable men in their early to mid-twenties, whose crippling emotional scars, although various in origin, all have the same cure: "healing" sex, whenever and wherever possible. And of course most of these guys are at least bi (of course she is now the only prominent female character), so the door is opened for enormous orgies, consisting of (I'm not kidding) up to seven people, maybe even more.
Aside from these plot changes, suddenly the plot is mostly about Anita's overall perfection and all-around specialness. Her flowing midnight hair, her deep brown eyes, her soft, heaving breasts (she has recently decided, after ten years of zero problems, that she needs a push-up bra to keep her enormous boobs out of the way when she shoots), and her gently despairing personality (she's allowed to sleep around as much as she wants, but if a guy wants her, he has to be monogamous. If he complains, she starts sighing to one of her other six boyfriends [still not kidding here] about how she feels so betrayed, nobody loves her, etc.).
The fanbase has widely accepted these changes to constitute a Canon Sue, an official version of the hated (and juvenile) glorified self-insert used by *very* immature, unskilled fanfiction writers, the reviled Mary Sue.
But I thought she was changing! I thought she was getting better. When she got *slaughtered* by both fans and official reviewers for her 14th novel, Danse Macabre, she eased off. It almost seemed as though, little by little, she whom the vampires used to call the Executioner was fighting her way back.
But today I realized it wasn't happening. There had been a flash of the old spirit, the old fire that caused her to yank the chains of chauvinistic Neanderthal bodyguards, and I got this happy fuzzy feeling. But then things went downhill fast.
The problem here is that the essence of the series has changed, irrefutably. The problems now run to the tune of: "I don't have enough people to have sex with!" "OMG I might be pregnant with the baby of a weretiger whose name I don't even know!" and "One of my six boyfriends wants rougher sex!" instead of "Evil vampire serial killer!" "A powerful ancient whatchamacallit kidnapped my best friend!" and "Somebody is sending zombies to try and kill me!"
I found it tragically amusing how she was getting into a snit (there's another thing: she used to get pissed, occasionally fly into a rage; now she gets her panties in a twist. Literally. Like as in a little twisted-up ball on the ground) about how nobody respects her as a big bad vampire hunter/zombie raiser, and they all just see her as a preternatural piece of ass. WELL, SHE IS. How long has it been since she raised a zombie? Or slayed a vamp? Two quotes from the previous book, The Harlequin, terrified me deeply:
"Next time I got so hurt I ended up unconscious in the hospital. I simply assumed there'd be a next time. Unless I changed jobs, there would be. The thought startled me. Was I thinking about giving up the vampire hunting? Was I really, truly considering it? Maybe, maybe I was," (pg. 347), and
"The looks on their faces said, clearly, that I wasn't one of them anymore," (pg. 368) (she's writing about her old cop buddies here. Dolph, Zerbrowski, Perry, all the old gang. Veteran fans can see why this is so deeply, deeply disturbing).
These two quotes, when combined, effectively destroy any enjoyment I could take in the series. These are the two things I *came* for! The big, bad vamps that our scrappy little underdog heroine manages to defeat despite all odds, and the odd mix of camaraderie and competition of R.P.I.T. Besides, what are they going to call it now? Anita Blake, Ex-Vampire Hunter? Anita Blake, Vampire Ho?
I just find it kind of depressing that the plot of Blood Noir seems to be to switched with the script of a soap opera, and she is in the most danger of having too much sex. Arrr.
I have decided to rebel! I am finding the *true* goings-on in St. Louis. On the off-chance that anyone read my post "Disney: A Dish Best Served Cold" on my Quizilla account of the same name (no, I'm not re-typing it here; yes, you should read it), I put forward the theory that stories are not pure fancy and fairy dust, but actual (semi-) parallel worlds. When an author starts writing, he or she creates a bridge from our world, the Hub, to theirs. The world in its pristine, untouched, natural (for lack of a better word) state is called Canon, and the author tries his or her best to adhere to that standard, to record facts as accurately as possible, and use their "godmodding" powers as little as possible. At least that's the idea.
But back to "Disney." As part of my most sprawling story to date, the characters of various books get to meet their authors. The theory is that the author does know the characters on a personal level, but when the author isn't present, the characters don't remember them, or indeed remember the fact that there is a world beyond what was written for them. Christopher Tolkien, the son and literary heir of the Grand Master himself, was universally adored and revered. He took this with characteristic quiet dignity and humility. Tamora Pierce immediately became her characters' best buddy. She joked with them, she teased them, she befriended them.
Hamilton, in her hubris, expected the devotion and honor granted to the Old Ones (Tolkien, Stoker, Jacques, Weis & Hickman). Instead, she was met with fear and outrage. It turns out that she knew full well what was actually happening in her version of St. Louis, and consciously chose to destroy reality and replace it with her own personal playground. Of course, Anita and Co. weren't exactly thrilled with being replaced by mewling, whining, sex-crazed parodies of themselves, so they decided to fight. For the first time in recorded history, a fandom had declared itself independent from its author, citing the multitude of distortions and degradations forced upon them by Ms. Hamilton.
Of course, she didn't like that one bit. Free thinking? Self-determination? Surely not! She had crowned her Canon Sue puppet queen of the universe, and intended to live out her twisted fantasies with her unfortunate characters reduced to marionettes for her to jerk about and position as she pleased. She cracked down brutally on those who lead the Revolution. We, the fans, can easily see what she turned Richard, the main leader and most outspoken rebel, into. Nathaniel, of all people, has been coming into his own as a dangerous commando and suicidally (or homicidally) brave spy, for which he has been taken and tortured by Hamilton and her hordes of Troo Fans several times.
Sadly, the fanbase has not only schismed into the Troo Fans and dissenters, but further crippled by infighting, betrayal (both real and perceived), and blind rage. Suffice to say, Hamilton holds the Troo Fans together by sheer charisma and brainwashing, but any help the fans could offer the characters would ultimately turn on, and destroy, itself.
Viva la Revolucion!
This is Lunasariel. Sorry for the late introduction to my Muse, Mimi. Mimi is my secretary, my research department, my editor, my occasional bodyguard, and my frequently-ignored voice of reason. My latest transgression was to pick up a copy of Blood Noir, the sixteenth Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, and it literally brought me close to tears.
I cried not for what Anita is now, but for what she was, and for how far the mighty can fall. A bit of background: I *loved* Anita Blake. She was my introduction to vampire fiction and urban fantasy, two of my favorite genres. She was one tough, scrappy, angry little cookie. She didn't take any shit from anybody, even though she was up against vampires and weres (werewolves, wereleopards, etc.). With a cocky one-liner on the tip of her tongue her Browning (that's her gun, folks) in one hand, her cross in the other, she raised zombies, slew vampires, and generally defended the weak and slayed the bad guys. But most of all, she was *independent*. She flew solo, a glorious grown-up Buffy... I'm sitting here, trying to describe what she was, what happened to her, how it all went so terribly, terribly wrong.
Suffice to say, the series took a major turn for the worse. About the 10th book, she receives the first of her vampiric goodies, the ardeur. This lovely little plot device makes it utterly necessary for her to engage in... rather promiscuous sexual behavior several times a day. With several people at a time. And some of them have claws and/or fangs. In a horrid mixture of florid prose and medical-grade detail. All of a sudden, our scrappy little vampire hunter had become a succubus/necromancer/lupa/were-everything/nimir-ra/vampire servant/queen of the frickin' universe. Be it noted that she is the *only* succubus or necromancer alive. Both are basically minor goddesses. A lupa is a werewolf queen. A nimir-ra is a wereleopard queen. All the were and vampire groups she suddenly finds herself in control of are mostly populated by insanely gorgeous, vulnerable men in their early to mid-twenties, whose crippling emotional scars, although various in origin, all have the same cure: "healing" sex, whenever and wherever possible. And of course most of these guys are at least bi (of course she is now the only prominent female character), so the door is opened for enormous orgies, consisting of (I'm not kidding) up to seven people, maybe even more.
Aside from these plot changes, suddenly the plot is mostly about Anita's overall perfection and all-around specialness. Her flowing midnight hair, her deep brown eyes, her soft, heaving breasts (she has recently decided, after ten years of zero problems, that she needs a push-up bra to keep her enormous boobs out of the way when she shoots), and her gently despairing personality (she's allowed to sleep around as much as she wants, but if a guy wants her, he has to be monogamous. If he complains, she starts sighing to one of her other six boyfriends [still not kidding here] about how she feels so betrayed, nobody loves her, etc.).
The fanbase has widely accepted these changes to constitute a Canon Sue, an official version of the hated (and juvenile) glorified self-insert used by *very* immature, unskilled fanfiction writers, the reviled Mary Sue.
But I thought she was changing! I thought she was getting better. When she got *slaughtered* by both fans and official reviewers for her 14th novel, Danse Macabre, she eased off. It almost seemed as though, little by little, she whom the vampires used to call the Executioner was fighting her way back.
But today I realized it wasn't happening. There had been a flash of the old spirit, the old fire that caused her to yank the chains of chauvinistic Neanderthal bodyguards, and I got this happy fuzzy feeling. But then things went downhill fast.
The problem here is that the essence of the series has changed, irrefutably. The problems now run to the tune of: "I don't have enough people to have sex with!" "OMG I might be pregnant with the baby of a weretiger whose name I don't even know!" and "One of my six boyfriends wants rougher sex!" instead of "Evil vampire serial killer!" "A powerful ancient whatchamacallit kidnapped my best friend!" and "Somebody is sending zombies to try and kill me!"
I found it tragically amusing how she was getting into a snit (there's another thing: she used to get pissed, occasionally fly into a rage; now she gets her panties in a twist. Literally. Like as in a little twisted-up ball on the ground) about how nobody respects her as a big bad vampire hunter/zombie raiser, and they all just see her as a preternatural piece of ass. WELL, SHE IS. How long has it been since she raised a zombie? Or slayed a vamp? Two quotes from the previous book, The Harlequin, terrified me deeply:
"Next time I got so hurt I ended up unconscious in the hospital. I simply assumed there'd be a next time. Unless I changed jobs, there would be. The thought startled me. Was I thinking about giving up the vampire hunting? Was I really, truly considering it? Maybe, maybe I was," (pg. 347), and
"The looks on their faces said, clearly, that I wasn't one of them anymore," (pg. 368) (she's writing about her old cop buddies here. Dolph, Zerbrowski, Perry, all the old gang. Veteran fans can see why this is so deeply, deeply disturbing).
These two quotes, when combined, effectively destroy any enjoyment I could take in the series. These are the two things I *came* for! The big, bad vamps that our scrappy little underdog heroine manages to defeat despite all odds, and the odd mix of camaraderie and competition of R.P.I.T. Besides, what are they going to call it now? Anita Blake, Ex-Vampire Hunter? Anita Blake, Vampire Ho?
I just find it kind of depressing that the plot of Blood Noir seems to be to switched with the script of a soap opera, and she is in the most danger of having too much sex. Arrr.
I have decided to rebel! I am finding the *true* goings-on in St. Louis. On the off-chance that anyone read my post "Disney: A Dish Best Served Cold" on my Quizilla account of the same name (no, I'm not re-typing it here; yes, you should read it), I put forward the theory that stories are not pure fancy and fairy dust, but actual (semi-) parallel worlds. When an author starts writing, he or she creates a bridge from our world, the Hub, to theirs. The world in its pristine, untouched, natural (for lack of a better word) state is called Canon, and the author tries his or her best to adhere to that standard, to record facts as accurately as possible, and use their "godmodding" powers as little as possible. At least that's the idea.
But back to "Disney." As part of my most sprawling story to date, the characters of various books get to meet their authors. The theory is that the author does know the characters on a personal level, but when the author isn't present, the characters don't remember them, or indeed remember the fact that there is a world beyond what was written for them. Christopher Tolkien, the son and literary heir of the Grand Master himself, was universally adored and revered. He took this with characteristic quiet dignity and humility. Tamora Pierce immediately became her characters' best buddy. She joked with them, she teased them, she befriended them.
Hamilton, in her hubris, expected the devotion and honor granted to the Old Ones (Tolkien, Stoker, Jacques, Weis & Hickman). Instead, she was met with fear and outrage. It turns out that she knew full well what was actually happening in her version of St. Louis, and consciously chose to destroy reality and replace it with her own personal playground. Of course, Anita and Co. weren't exactly thrilled with being replaced by mewling, whining, sex-crazed parodies of themselves, so they decided to fight. For the first time in recorded history, a fandom had declared itself independent from its author, citing the multitude of distortions and degradations forced upon them by Ms. Hamilton.
Of course, she didn't like that one bit. Free thinking? Self-determination? Surely not! She had crowned her Canon Sue puppet queen of the universe, and intended to live out her twisted fantasies with her unfortunate characters reduced to marionettes for her to jerk about and position as she pleased. She cracked down brutally on those who lead the Revolution. We, the fans, can easily see what she turned Richard, the main leader and most outspoken rebel, into. Nathaniel, of all people, has been coming into his own as a dangerous commando and suicidally (or homicidally) brave spy, for which he has been taken and tortured by Hamilton and her hordes of Troo Fans several times.
Sadly, the fanbase has not only schismed into the Troo Fans and dissenters, but further crippled by infighting, betrayal (both real and perceived), and blind rage. Suffice to say, Hamilton holds the Troo Fans together by sheer charisma and brainwashing, but any help the fans could offer the characters would ultimately turn on, and destroy, itself.
Viva la Revolucion!
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-21 06:31 am (UTC)I can't agree more with your post. The whole Anita Blake series and fandom has descended into mass chaos and it drives insane. Like you, I totally loved Anita Blake and the series introduced me to vampire and urban fantasy fiction too. I even had the entire series up to Narcissus in Chains before I started realizing that hey, there's something changing here and omg, this is not good. The fanfiction by the best writers of ABVH (on Pomme de Sang/Sourdre de Sang...not sure if you're familiar with the archives) were better than the LKH novels and instead of reviews for my stories, I was getting rants about how LKH screwed up the last novel that came out. I abandoned my stories, got out of the fandom a few months before it exploded, but kept reading in some vain hope that she would somehow "fix" the series.
I have to say, Danse Macabre almost made me homicidal. (One word: Mermaids.) Then I had slight hopes for The Harlequin, since she /seemed/ to tone it down a little, and then Blood Noir made me want to shoot myself for reading it, particularly since Jason was one of my favorites and I actually wrote fanfic on his character. (What character? LKH makes everyone a mass of wimpy, emasculated contradictions. Agggh.)
Based on your description of the fandom though, I'm very glad I got out of it early, although I kind of skipped out on my "selecting showcase fanfiction authors" duties. I actually haven't met any Troo fans, everyone's been a dissenter, and yes, pretty much everything awash in blind rage.
Your post makes me wonder though, has LKH changed her stance on fanfiction or something? I know she basically didn't bother with it, but that was before her writing descended to the level of crap fanfiction and people started saying that there are alternatives that are actually better than her. I can't imagine that she'd be too pleased.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-21 04:45 pm (UTC)Be very, very glad you got out of the fandom. If you want to see otherwise rational bibliophiles act like aggressive screaming lunatics, just visit some of the LKH forums at Amazon.
As far as fanfiction goes, LKH has forbidden it on FanFiction.net, which is why I ended up at Pomme de Sang/Sourdre de Sang. Good stuff over there. Speaking of fanfiction, what was the name of your LOTR fanfic that had Sariel in it? I just might want to read it...
no subject
Date: 2008-06-24 12:23 am (UTC)Anyway, I've seen my share of screaming lunatics. Once I was crossing my college campus and overheard this girl ranting to her boyfriend about an animater-vampire-hunter-turned-whore. It doesn't take much to figure out what she was talking about. It's just funny since I got into the fandom before it really got popular, and there's definitely a "new" fan and "old" fan divide.
As for my LOTR fanfic, I definitely don't recommend it - it's product of a thirteen year old mind ::sigh:: and defnitely reflects all the problems you would expect in a first fanfic, but you can find it here:
http://www.fanfiction.net/~elvendestiny
I'm curious, have you read the series by Karen Chance or Jennifer Armintrout? Or perhaps Maria V. Snyder's Study series?
no subject
Date: 2008-06-24 05:22 pm (UTC)Have you read Patricia Briggs? She's written a lot, on a wide range of fantasy-themed subjects, but she's written a vamp-hunter series that isn't half bad. Actually, it's based more on werewolves than vampires, but all the ghoulies and ghasties and long-legged beasties come out sooner or later.