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Urban Fantasy #1: Laurell K. Hamilton

Cover to Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
Did Hamilton know what a guilty pleasure her series would become? Also, what a terrible, terrible cover. Seriously.
As a hardcore F&SF addict, I love the fact that nowadays I can go into the grocery store, look at the rack that used to hold nothing but Regency and Harlequin romances, and see covers with vampires and were-wolves and djinn and selkies and goddess knows what else. It makes me happy. I’ve spent a lot of time reading urban fantasy and paranormal romance over the past couple of years, and I wanted to provide a reading map of sorts for fellow genre lovers. So I’ll be posting about my favorites (and some not-so-favorites) over the next couple of months.

You can argue about where it all started (or even what it is) but I’d rather take the tack of looking at the authors that shaped the genre. Let’s begin, accordingly, with Laurell K. Hamilton, who started so much with her heroine, Anita Blake. Necromancer and private investigator, Blake kicks ass and takes names, at least early on in the series, which begins with Guilty Pleasures. (did Hamilton know the direction she’d go in from the first? The title seems to hint in that direction.) In the early books, Anita is tough as nails and prone to smartassery. She’s got two love interests: Richard the werewolf and Jean-Claude the vampire and, unlike a lot of romances, you don’t know what will end up happening. It’s great stuff.

Certainly Hamilton wasn’t the first person to write about vampires. The writer who had moved them into popularity was Anne Rice with her vampire series, which began a couple of decades earlier with Interview with the Vampire. On one level a sexy, intriguing story, the series also spoke to an anxiety floating around in the American zeitgeist at that point: sex and blood had become problematic with the arrival of AIDs. Its popularity rose as did media mentions of the disease.

But Hamilton came along and created a very specific vampire mix. She added Anita Blake, a tough but reader-identifiable character who was a smart-ass, had love-life problems, and tried to solve mysteries. Honestly, how could the series not be a hit? Blake first appeared in 1993, while four years later the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer would teach vampire lore to a new generation of readers who would soon discover Anita and her rapidly increasing ilk.

Somewhere along the line, though, the Anita Blake series…turned. Was that Hamilton discovered that sex sells or that with success she was freer to write the sort of thing she wanted to? Soft core porn began to get sifted in with a heavy hand, and none of it was vanilla. I don’t mind that, though. It’s fascinating to get a well thought out take on what sex with supernatural beings would be like. There are, unfortunately, some moments where it overshadows everything else. I’m thinking of Micah in particular, and if she stuck to the pattern of that book, I’d be about done. Luckily, she doesn’t. I like the fact that Anita has multiple lovers, that she’s in control, and that she changes her attitudes over time. But the books have become a guilty pleasure – although still, let’s admit, pleasurable when she maintains the balance between sex and storyline, and I’m certainly still buying them and, on occasion, re-reading them too.

Hamilton’s other series, the Merry Gentry books, which begins with A Kiss of Shadows, follows the same pattern. It’s a fascinating world, but sometimes we don’t get to see it because we’ve spent so much time in the bedroom. The overarching story line is that of a Faerie princess who must get pregnant. In case you don’t understand the implications, here’s a hint: Fairies do not reproduce through mitosis, but rather through lots of hot sex.

Again, a fascinating world, with a rich mythology and a premise that paves the way for plenty of nifty little jokes and eyeball kicks. Sometimes we don’t see as much of it as we’d like because we’re watching Merry get merry between the sheets, but it’s well-written and steamy sex that sometimes transcends space and time and/or summons ancient elemental forces. I found the most recent one I read, Divine Misdemeanors, which featured a serial killer of demi-fay who was using the tiny bodies of the victims to stage elaborate tableaus, nicely creepy and memorable.

So tell me what you think. Is Hamilton a guilty pleasure for you too or are you on some other terms with her books?

And for those interested in the books, here’s the lists, in chronological order:

Anita Blake:

Merry Gentry

9 Responses

  1. I’m in the process of rereading the Anita Blake series again and I have to agree that there comes a point at which Anita loses a lot of the characteristics that make her so relatable and becomes rather whiny. The sex scenes are great but they to tend to dominate too much. There were points, like Mistral in the Meridith Gentry series, where I wished for more plot and less porn but I think there is a trend developing to go back the other direction and find that happy medium. I hope so at least. Laurell K Hamilton is one of my favorite authors and will be for a very long time.

  2. I gave up on the Blake series after #7 and only read the first book of the Gentry series. Gentry to me was sex with next to no plot and a pointless book. And the Blake books just became a mess and changed their focus too much for me.

    The first 6 or 7 though? Ate those up! Granted, they were more fun than college essays, but I also had never seen anything like them and LOVED the books themselves. I started noticing technical issues in book 4, then Anita ended up being totally different, and then sex seemed to become the primary purpose of the books. Once that happened, I was done.

  3. Alas, my first introduction to Laurell K. Hamilton, was “Micah.”

    One of my first encounters with Urban Fantasy stories, and the one that shaped my idea of the genre, was Emma Bull’s “War for the Oaks.”

    1. John – I love “War For the Oaks” – I’m planning on talking about that in a future entry. Such a good book! On Facebook Annie Bellet mentioned Robin McKinley’s “Sunshine” as another great urban fantasy.

  4. I loved Hamilton’s first half dozen blake novels. I can’t stand anything past that. I don’t mind a little sex thrown in, but not to the exclusion of a plot. I was told recently that the series was getting better, but I couldn’t tell it from Flirt. She has totally lost the voice of her charachter.

    1. That’s how I felt after Micah, which seemed to be entirely about the sex (or rather a specific aspect of it), with a couple of bullet shots here and there. Lately she’s seemed to be moving back towards actual plot – at least it felt that way to me in Obsidian Butterfly and Skin Trade.

      But it sure would be interesting to see a book set in that world (I presume it’s the same world in both series, but I may be entirely wrong on that) in which we got to wander around in places other than the bedrooms.

  5. My future husband introduced me to the Anita Blake books. I read through “Burnt Offerings” (though I somehow skipped “Bloody Bones”) and enjoyed the first novel through “Lunatic Cafe.” He stayed with the entire series through “Obsidian Butterfly.” I have no doubt the later books are also well-written, but the author is no longer writing for either of us. (Perhaps because he was a much more devoted fan than I ever was, my husband refers to the later books as “fanfic” and “PWP books.”)
    As a side note, I rather suspect Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s vampire romances in turn paved the way for Rice’s novels.

  6. Actually, I’m pretty sad that while I like a few a these series they’ve taken over *so* much. When I go to my local cheap-dept-store-that-carries-books, the entire shelf area that is labeled “Science Fiction” has 2 science fiction books and is chock-a-block with these series books. And guess what also fills the romance and “Popular Author” shelves?

    This is just a little too much for me, especially as I’m way more a fan of the War for the Oaks type urban fantasy than I am of Hamilton (I’ve bounced off Hamilton the couple of times I’ve tried).

  7. I am glad to hear you say that her books got better after Micah. I was a big fan until I picked that one up and than promptly threw it across the room at the midway point. Maybe I’ll have to give some of her post-Micah books a chance.

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nhntfrontHere’s something from the current piece. For fellow West Seattleites, the coffee shop in question is indeed the Admiral Bird. This is a sequel to “The Wizards of West Seattle,” which is available in Neither Here Nor There, just out this week!

“You need to stop holding a grudge about it,” Penny said.

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Albert didn’t say anything, but he was unconvinced. In the months since he’d become apprentice to May Huang, one of the wizards of West Seattle, he’d faced several tests, but none as harrowing as that long chase down Alaska Way towards Alki with a long-faced and eager Penny on his heels. Only his encounter and subsequent alliance with Mr. Gray had put a stop to that, and Albert was still unsure what the consequences of that would be.

Penny mocked him. She manifested as a bright-eyed woman of indeterminate age, her face sharp-featured. “Oh, Penny, you’re so scary, oh Penny I can never unsee what I have seen, oh Penny please don’t eat my soul.”

“I’m unclear why don’t eat my soul is an unreasonable demand.”

“I’m just saying, you don’t need to worry about it. Anyhow, Huang wants me to teach you about oracles.”

They were walking down California Ave, passing the Admiral Theater. They both saluted the Little Free Library there, Penny with a graceful curtsey, Albert’s bow slightly more awkward, as they passed.

“I know how oracles work,” Albert said smugly. “That’s how I knew you were something other than human. I found the Oracle, left a crayon in his path.”

“He’s powerful because of the limitations on his magic,” Penny said. “Being able to use only found objects is pretty severe. But there are other routes.” She pointed. “We’re headed to the Bird. I need coffee.”

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Each was a scene from West Seattle: the shore at Lincoln Park, the overlook near Huang’s house, the playground at Hiawatha, drawn in fine-nibbed pen and colored in jewel-colored inks that made each one, a summer’s day, come alive. They were as bright and lovely as the day outside, and he craved one of them instantly.

A little label by the cluster said, “Enquire at the register about the price.” He went back to where Penny was counting out her bills.

He waited till she was done and asked the woman at the counter, “Excuse me, how much are the pictures?”

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Opinion: Chan Culture and Good-Faith Arguments

photo of Cat Rambo
Getting ready for the New Year.
I wrote a piece, #PurpleSF, about feminism and SF for Clarkesworld. It was in part stirred up by the convulsions of the Gamergate controversy, which has continued to provide plenty of food for thought (and probably will continue to do so).

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The full piece, How imageboard culture shaped Gamergate, appeared on BoingBoing. Its author has produced a lot of interesting pieces about Gamergate, usually composed as Storify pieces, such as these: Gamergate, Sexism, and Tribalism; Why I Oppose #Gamergate

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These anonymous imageboards have their own idiosyncratic culture, despite the lack of permanent identity. Posters call themselves anons, or occasionally channers. While anonymity is a core part of this identity, merely being anonymous does not make you an anon. Rather, it’s about identifying as a larger whole. Capital-A Anonymous, such as the Project Chanology protestors and the hacking/activist groups like @youranonnews, are anons, but most anons don’t think of themselves as part of Anonymous.

Without identity, every anon is whoever they want to be at the moment. It’s freeing! Anons exalt these imageboards as the only place people can truly be themselves, without being burdened by their identity or consequences. This includes genuinely awful or hateful opinions. Anons have a broad, often absolutist view of free speech, sometimes extending that so far as to include threats of violence or extreme pornography. Anons are extremely protective of their culture and this very broad view of free speech, because of both great faith in their ability to self-police argument and an unconscious, internal reliance on irony.

The atmosphere is that of a paradoxically jovial angry mob. Almost everyone sees their own point of view as the consensus, assuming that most people most people agree with them. Any possibly contentious statement is presumed to be ironic, told as a joke or to rile up people who disagree. Since everyone assumes that anyone who disagrees is arguing in bad faith and doesn’t mean what they’re saying, anyone who disagrees is a fair target for apparently hateful mockery. This basic assumption of bad faith applies even when arguments are long-lasting and well-known: for example, the console war arguments in /v/, 4chan’s video games sub-board. However, this mockery is defanged by anonymity and irony.

Everyone’s anonymous, so a poster can just join the winning side of an argument, cheerfully mocking their own older posts. One poster can even play both sides from the start. Every anon can choose whatever opinion they want to have on a post-by-post basis, so everything flows smoothly even as people hatefully attack each other for having the wrong opinion. Anons believe in this free marketplace of ideas: good ones survive the firestorm, while bad ones burn to ash as everyone dogpiles on mocking them.

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At the same time, bad faith arguments are something I don’t practice and I find trolls kinda appalling, because the idea of getting enjoyment from making other people angry, upset, or otherwise unhappy seems something only a retrograde would relish. I blogged about arguing on the Internet a while back and said I’d follow up and talk about bad faith argument, but I never have, because I find its habitual practitioners antithetical to the way I try to think.

Don’t get me wrong. I like debate, and life with Wayne is a lively series of conversations in which one or the other will often take the role of devil’s advocate just to see how sound or defensible an idea is. But that seems different to me than taking on the Internet identity of someone who believes something just to see if you can get other people riled up enough to waste time on composing eight page replies to your argument rather than something, I dunno, actually productive or enjoyable.

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