Ok, so I've knocked off work opened a bottle of glorious, glorious booze then dusted off a book I haven't looked at since I was 17 or so.
Now, I've seen other flogs and snarks of this book and I have to admit my memory of the series is kind of foggy (at least the older ones, the newer ones still give me horrid nightmares)
As I stated in my first post I'm an aspiring writer in the urban fantasy series and was introduced to this and LKH other series Merry Gentry ironically by a high school teacher. Now the series had been out for awhile then so I figured she hadn't read past the first couple of Anita Blake because she at least gave me a heads up about the sexual content in the Merry Gentry series.
Anyways, enough back story for now. Lets begin the first book to this infamous series!
Gods, I regret doing this already...
Willie McCoy had been a jerk before he died. His being dead didn't change that.
Now that's what I call a good start off sentence to a book, it instantly drags you in and gives you a basic understanding of what the series will be about, at least to me that is.
Now after half a page of banter (Anita not letting Willie smoke in her office, him being able to smell her fear, being a new vampire means you still have some human traits etc)
We finally get to the point of him disturbing Anita's day, he wants to hire her to investigate a murder.
Ok, this is where I stop and scratch my head, right now we know more about Willie then we do about the main character, for example we know he's a vampire, wears tacky clothes and is a small fish in a big pond, Anita? Zip, at this point we're not even sure why he's sitting in her office, what her job is or why he would be going to her to investigate a murder.
Actually she does point out that she isn't a PI and needs to leave in 15min to go to the cemetery because people are waiting for her... Great?
I love a bit of secrecy involving the main character, but this is ridicules.
We find out that four vampires had been "wasted" with their hearts torn out and heads missing. So, how'd they know they were vampires then? I admit I'm fairly dusty with my vampire mythology but don't most species turn to dust once killed? Even then without their heads you can't look for their fangs so did they ID them by blood test?
FINALLY we're told why Willie would go to Anita for help with this mystery, apparently she's on retainer with a new police for that is undermanned, under budgeted and I'm assuming at this point that they deal with the supernatural.
"Maybe, but the cops feel like you do, Anita. What's one more dead vampire? No new laws are going to change that."
I'm just going to assume that Laurell doesn't understand how the police force works, being a bigot or someone who overlooks the laws generally find themselves arse first on the pavement. At least it does here in Australia, maybe it works differently in America but that sentence really bugs me for some reason.
Though, if she feels the same way as the bigoted cops, why is he going to her for help??
It had only been two years since Addison V. Clark. The court case gave us a revised version of what life was, and what death wasn't. Vampirism was legal in the good ol' U. S of A. We were one of the countries to acknowledge them.
Who was Addison V. Clark? Why did he care if vampires were legal or not? Why is vampirism the only thing here counted as legal? I remember there being were-animals in this series, why was no one fighting for their legal rights? Or were they already legal?
Why is she calling her country "the good ol' U.S of A"? in my experience people only use that in a sarcastic or insulting way.
It bugs just me that such a huge country changing (plot point) law is brushed over so lightly, I want more info on this!!
Instead we find out that two years on and people are still bickering over the small details like if your husband dies are you a widow and can you claim his inheritance. Which granted is very important, but it really took people 2 years to start worrying about this issue?
"If you believe I feel that way, why come to me at all?"
"Because you're the best at what you do. We need the best."
The best at what? Seriously? At this point I'm just getting annoyed at all the damn bush beating, and I know what she does as a living!
So Willie gets all shady and starts going on about how he knew she wouldn't go for the job after she refused to tell him what she told the police. Once he mentions that they will pay her three times her fee to look into these murders (Dude, you're already looking into the murders. Might as well cash in on it as you do) She starts bitching about how her boss "Bert" is a greedy son of a bitch since he dared to look at his business ventures over her dislike of vampires.
Well, I have four words for Anita in this case.
Suck it up princess, if your bigotry gets in the way of dealing with paying costumers then it's time to get a new job.
But since it states in her contract that she must at least meet with any client that pays a retainer she has no choice but to deal with it, hence why Willie is sitting in her office I guess.
She also vaguely threatens that she is going to have a 'talk' with her boss since he's so money focused or something. If I could get away with these talks with my boss, I'd constantly be on the damn phone.
Anita, finally tired of not staring Willie in the eye (something I overlooked previously, apparently looking vamps in the eye means its easier for them to put the ol' psychic lock on you) Asks him to leave, when he doesn't instantly get to his feet and rush out of the office she considers driving him our with a holy object before dismissing it as 'unprofessional'
The first thing that popped into my head when I read that was "Naw, ya' thunk?!"
He moved with a liquid quickness that Willie had never had, but I saw him move and was one step back from his reaching hand. "I'm not just another pretty face to fall for mind tricks"
"You saw me move"
"I heard you move. You're the new dead, Willie. Vampire or not, you've got a lot to learn."
"Maybe, but no human could a stepped outta reach like that."
Well, first up she's a liar. When he asks if she saw him move she denies it and says she heard him move. It might just be me but I always thought that hearing and seeing were counted as two different senses.
Right, so I now know that Anita is an alien who can't determine the difference between her basic senses and works on retainer with the police. The vivid description of Anita this book gives me makes Jim Butcher look like a hack!
Well after Willie getting all up Anita's grill, calling her no more then human then him and her standing her ground on some vague principle about knowing him when he was alive we now learn the company name she works at "animators inc"
So, what does computer animation have to do with murders and working for the police?
She also gives him her best 'professional' smile which is "empty of meaning as a light bulb, but dazzling" Uh... Brilliant, so she comes across as a ditz who can't smile in a convincing manner. I'd hire her.
So because Willie is more persistent then a drunk guy chatting to a hot girl he stops in the doorway and once again asks Anita why she won't work for the vampires which she hates for some undisclosed reason.
She pauses to muse that there seems to be what sounds like fear in his voice and if he'll be punished for telling him to take a hike. Apparently if you're a vampire you don't need to worry about getting in trouble as she "feels sorry for him" which is "stupid" since he was "undead"
"Tell them, whoever they are, that I don't work for vampires."
"A firm rule?" Again he made it sound like a question. The fact that there is a question mark makes it a question, we didn't need you to tell us this fact.
"Concrete."
So "the old Willie" peeks through since he gave her a look of pity and warns her that the people he works for doesn't like being told no, instead of taking this advice to her she goes on about how she doesn't like being threatened so he needs to get the hell out of her office.
After informing her that it wasn't a threat it was in fact a truth he leaves her office, allowing Anita to lean against the door since her knees are weak from the horror of a polite if not insistent vampire attempting to hire her for unknown reasons.
Someone called Mrs Grundick (For some reason there was a full stop after Mrs, I had to see it so I'm inflicting this knowledge on you my non-existent readers) is waiting for her in the cemetery, standing there with her little black purse and grown sons, waiting for me to raise her husband from the dead.
At least we now know what she does as a living, why this makes her less human or the best at solving murders are yet to be seen.
So here is where the gun porn starts, as I mentioned before I live in Australia and we have pretty strict gun laws. So unless you own a licence for either a job or farming reasons getting a gun is next to impossible. So I have little knowledge or care for the 9mm Browning Hi-power gun that she loves (the only knowledge of guns I have are from games, not exactly what I'd call research worthy) Blah blah apparently she has silver bullets, isn't silver an extremely soft metal? I could understand a bullet with a high silver content but a pure silver bullet? Really?
Anyways, silver doesn't kill vampires but makes them heal human slow... So a heart or head shot should kill them then? I've yet to hear about a human recovering from that sort of damage (outside of extremely rare cases)
Craig, our night secretary, was typing furiously at the computer keyboard. His eyes widened as I walked over the thick carpeting. Maybe it was the cross swinging on its long chain. Maybe it was the shoulder rig tight across my back, and the gun out in plain sight. He didn't mention either. Smart man.
First off, holy shit a cross! How dare she bare that stuff in public, and on such a long chain! She should be locked up for indecent exposure, the scandal!
Also, if I had a angry alien women stalking into my workspace wearing a gun I'd keep quiet and hope it vanished without shooting me too, smart man indeed!
So she slaps a jacket on and while she knows it doesn't lie flat enough to hide the gun she assumes that the grieving wife and her lawyers won't mind her showing up obviously armed.
And that is the end of the 5 page long chapter...
Chapter 2
So apparently we don't get to see Mrs Grundick and her lawyers freak out about her appearing at a cemetery with a gun, this chapter starts off with her bitching about how much she hates sunrises since it means 'they' have overscheduled her and she's worked all night. (I'm guessing that means 12hours)
Again, maybe this stuff works differently in America. But we have allocated shifts here, and get all kinds of bonuses and angry unions if we work outside of those hours constantly.
We now learn that Anita lives in St. Louis, this city apparently has more trees lining it's highways then any other city she's been to.
I live 20min out of a major city and have wallabies (think small kangaroo) chowing down on my grass in the mornings, most of our highways end up going through bushland after 10min of driving or so, so I'm having trouble imagining how many trees to see here, lining could mean anything from a tree every 2m to trees everywhere!
Now Anita is bitching that her apartment is always depressingly white and cheerful in the morning light, I'm just going to go ahead and assume that again she doesn't understand what she is talking about here since I'll probably break something if I start to think about it too much.
Also apparently Americans like having dog poop brown carpet, which Anita doesn't have so I'm not sure why this was mentioned at all.
According to Anita she has a nice view of a park but never see's it because she has heavy drapes that turns her unit into a twilight lit cave. Apparently she never has days off or time to chill before shifts.
She turns on her radio to a pretentious station, when she finally starts to drift off the phone rings. She lasts 5 rings before getting up and answering it, wimp.
Some female she doesn't know is on the other end, after proving how tough she is by threating violence if its a sales person (Again, don't you people have laws against these people ringing outside of work hours?)
So apparently she's actually gotten 2 hours sleep and the female on the other end of the phone is a friend of a friend who is organizing a hens party for that night, now I've organized a bucks party before and let me tell you short notice does you no favours at all. Also take in that I've spared you all about half a page of annoying dialogue as Monica (Friend of a friend) rambles about how Anita must want to shoot her for waking her and Anita not being rude enough to answer, but she comes across as a rude bitch as she thinks about how yelling at Monica would probably make her cry. It's riveting I assure you.
Since Anita doesn't drink they obviously want her to be the taxi for the night, we also find out that today is Friday and that Anita is a selfish bitch who doesn't want to give up her only night off (really, you don't have laws against this?) spending the night with this 'air-head'
Bitch, it's your best friends hens night, suck it up celebrate her clipping a ball and chain onto her man!
So after finding out that Monica works with Catherine (the future bride and apparent best friend) work together and are both lawyers Anita grudgingly agrees to pick them both up after work.
Switching on her answering machine she then curls back up under her blankets, before realizing that she could have just refused the invite, some best friend you are, she then bitches about watching them get drunk and have fun.
The chapter ends with her dreaming about a women she didn't know, coconut pie and Willie McCoy's funeral.
So, a two and a half page chapter... If these short chapters keep up this is going to take awhile.
No comments:
Post a Comment