Customer Reviews

Danse Macabre (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 14)

5 star:		(92)
4 star:		(55)
3 star:		(81)
2 star:		(117)
1 star:		(304)

 

 

I remember when this series was great. Not just good, not just very good, but simply great. Sure the first two books were a little rough in character and writing style. However, the characters were interesting, the setup was clever, and the A-line police work plots made an excellent framework for the B-line character development. By book three, the series had hit its stride and was simply a great fantasy series. Then, it stumbled. The sex became a larger part of the books and the characters became less and less interesting. I don't mind the sex but, as a previous reviewer has said, it's poorly done sex. There's no erotica, no sensuality, just a detailed step by step list in prose form of the steps Anita takes to screw one of her many lovers. It's a sexual flowchart and bores me to tears.

Beyond that, the non-sex parts are beginning to feel tacked on to the rest of the story. The ballet here was occasionally mentioned but didn't happen until the end and frankly is a pretty thin A-line plot. Where are the detective stories that made the series interesting?

I used to like the personal relationships but that time has passed. Anita is so screwed up right now she's just boring and one gets the impression that if Ms. Hamilton could find a way to get rid of Richard without screwing up the trinity, she would. I would enthusiastically recommend that she do so and let Richard eat a bullet and stop bothering the reader (and Anita) with his constant whining.

What really has ruined the series for me is Anita, which is quite unfortunate as she is the main character! Where before she was a somewhat screwed up woman, always up against superior enemies but surviving because of her strength she is now an uber-powerful monster with a new major power appearing in every book. She has also become a completely selfish, rigid, and unattractive sociopath, which kind of hurts her appeal. What amuses me greatly is how all of these men fall in love with her on sight because she is (so we're constantly told) a wonderful woman who always cares about her lovers's happiness who also happens to be hot with a large chest. The physical attributes might be true, the mental ones certainly aren't. She will only accept a relationship with a man if he does exactly as he is told, never steps out of bounds, and serves whatever role Anita demands. In return, he gets great sex. That's it. The only thing that she offers is fantastic sex, which makes her into a parody of the stereotype where an attractive woman who "puts out" when needed can be completely self-involved and have men want her. She doesn't offer compassion (unless it involves some form of sex), understanding (unless it involves some form of sex), support (unless it involves some form of sex), compromise (unless on a rare occasion it involves some form of sex), or anything that raises love beyond the purely physical. In short, she better pray that the ardeur stays with her because if she ever loses the ability to bring men lots of pleasure, she'll be living in an apartment with 30 cats.

Having read and been disappointed with Laurell K. Hamilton's latest work, I swore I'd never buy any more of her books. Well, I checked this one out of the library, so I spent none of my money, but even so I feel as though I've been robbed from time I could have spent reading something better. Danse Macabre is a dismal excuse for a novel. You get the impression that the author has either given up on the series or is too lazy to conjure up a decent and cohesive plot. And why should she make the effort when people continue to buy her books? I often devote the first paragraph of my reviews to summarizing the plot, so here goes. Anita Blake, the so-called vampire executioner and animator, might be pregnant and has no idea who the father could be. There's also something about a dance ball involving some powerful vampire Masters of the City. Oh, and more fighting between Anita and Richard. There is a new powerful vampire in town and we meet some mermaids. And there's sex. Lots of (extremely boring) sex. The end.

All of that stuff is thrown into this book without any real sense of a story or pretty much a point to anything. There is no plot in this book. There is, however, variations of the same ol' same ol' sex scenes that make trashy, low-budget porn movies seem like works of art in comparison. Sometimes I think the author opens up a file containing a previously written sex scene and all she does is change the setting and its characters and voila! A book has been written! I had hoped to read about vampire politics and the Mother of all Darkness to see if Hamilton had developed what she'd started in Cerulean Sins, but all I read was graphic, acrobatic sex scenes involving a variety of different positions, as if Hamilton wants to impress her readers with her knowledge of the Kama Sutra. (Not impressed.) I don't just skim those endless sex-filled pages, I skip them altogether. I have no problems with sex in fiction. I am quite the avid erotica reader. I read the most wonderful and explicit novel not so long ago: All U Can Eat by Emma Holly. Holly wrote quite a delectable novel that had palatable sex scenes mixed in with a compelling plot -- something LKH has failed to do. But that's beside the point. I began to read this series because of its fantasy element, not for the erotica. There is also a lot of conversations in this novel. Everyone analyzes everything. The men discuss Anita's many complexities (please!). The talking and analyzing were so long, tedious and repetitive that I wanted to scream. Anyway, as for the other aspects of the novel, Hamilton had some interesting bits and pieces that could have made remarkable plot points, but I'm afraid that none of it was developed in a plausible way. The vampire ballet thing, though it reminded me of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, seemed interesting and promising, but I was sorely disappointed with the results. The mermaids also seemed like a fascinating new breed in this series, but again, they were underdeveloped. As for the characters, they are hardly worth mentioning. Hamilton has made some serious character assassinations that began with Narcissus in Chains. Jean-Claude, my once favorite vampire, is now a big bore, just another one in Anita's long string of effeminate, clingy and whiny lovers. Richard's inability to accept Anita's lifestyle and his own demons have been brought up again and again ad nauseam and I just don't care anymore. Nathaniel has become brazen in this book, telling Ronnie off when she makes a nasty remark. I had to wonder when he had suddenly grown a couple of you-know-whats because this behavior seemed very unlike the Nathaniel I'd read about in the other books. And it's just as well that Edward has been MIA since Obsidian Butterfly. Anita will probably screw him and turn him into another one of her devoted men in any event. Whatever. I can't muster the energy to care about this series anymore. Then why am I writing a review of it, you ask? Because I feel the need to snark to my heart's content after wasting time reading this train wreck. I will definitely check out the costumer reviews before I ever attempt to pick up another Anita Blake, Vampire Humper novel. I'll just reread her earlier stuff from now on.

Let me just start by saying, the first few books of this series were so good that Laurell K Hamilton became one of my favorite and most recommended authors. I quickly read through the entire Anita Blake series (and even began the Meredith Gentry series) but with each book I have grown more and more disappointed. With each of the last couple books, I vowed NOT to read the next one. Well, this is truly the end boys and girls.

Danse Macabre was so bad that I had to skim through the last 1/4 of the thing because I couldn't bare to read it all. I was closer than I've ever been to just tossing it, because even bad TV would be less excruciating.

There is no plot. No real sense of beginning, middle, or end. The entire book is a string of tedious, ususally inexplicable, and always overwrought discussions between the characters as they over-analyze their relationships with one another. (And as a drama queen myself, I'm not kidding when I say it's over the top). Every scene goes something like this: Anita is confused/angry/out of control while everyone around her seems to secretly know why she is confused or what's going on but they don't want to tell her. Then Anita goes on and on through her mental hamster wheel and teeth-pulling to get everyone to explain things to her, and when they finally do, it is something so simple and unimportant that you can't believe you had to read through all of that for nothing.

Since there is no plot, there is no real ending. Apparently, once Ms. Hamilton reached a certain number of pages she got tired and ended with a couple pages of Anita's narration as if she were wrapping up an entry in her diary... you know the kind: bland, totally unsatisfying and totally not resolving a darn thing. Ms. Hamilton broke the cardinal rule of writing: don't promise your readers something at the beginning of the book if you're not going to deliver on it. And if you're ambitious enough to write a series, have the imagination and follow-through for each book to stand on it's own.

Unfortunately, a lot of writers' work suffers with fame. The Publisher knows we'll buy the book whether it's good or not, so I doubt this book received much by way of any real editing. So, it's probably no wonder it's such a mess.

The bottom line is this book was bad enough that it made me angry, angry enough to write this review, which means I think the problems go far beyond a mere personal opinion. My advice: Bail out of this series now while you still have some small bit of goodwill toward the characters (& the author). Here's a brief synopsis of what happens in case you're worried you'll miss something: NOTHING.

I started reading the Vampire Hunter books when I picked up "The Laughing Corpse" on a whim. I was intrigued with the notion that this was our world, just that vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc. were an everyday fact to be dealt with. I enjoyed the "gumshoe" feel to the books. I loved the rich development and care that was given to flesh out the different preternatural genre highlighted in each of the early books. I couldn't wait for each new paperback to come out and would re-read the series prior to reading the latest in order to have plot details fresh in my head. I've recommended the series so many times and had friends hooked after lending them my copy of "Guilty Pleasures". I've had to buy multiple copies of many of her books because I couldn't remember to whom I lent this copy or that and I needed to have a complete collection. I was a huge fan! Um, not so much anymore.

I wanted to establish that I've been reading the Vampire Hunter books for quite a while. And that I fell in love with a series of books that were basically about a private detective who had to deal with a different self-contained mysterious happening in each story. They weren't perfect: dialog was repetitive from book to book, the climax would come suddenly and the story would slam into an ending that felt to me like an epilogue. But you know, the ride was worth it all. The last several books, however, have been a huge let-down for me. They have been all sex, all angst, all the time. I miss the days when Anita would need to track down some preternatural serial killer and fend off the advances of Jean Claude while dating (a sane!) Richard. Sigh.

So we were talking about "Danse Macabre". I had hopes that this was going to be a bit more "old school" Anita Blake when I read the preview at the end of "Micah" and Ronnie was back. A crazy, jealous Ronnie, but Ronnie none the less. My hopes were dashed when Ronnie left and sex, sex, sex entered the picture yet again. I'm no prude but I think there's a time and place for porn. The time is late at night and the place is in front of my computer. I enjoy reading about sex but if I want to read sex scenes that do little to progress a story, I'll find it for free on the internet.

The "plot" was supposedly about the pregnancy scare and the vampire ballet. Very little was about the plot, however, just how much sex Anita can have with how many different partners in how many different locations. And then feel bad about it afterwards. No wait. Let me correct that. She now feels conflicted about it afterwards. Once again, as in the last several books, the plot seems to exist solely to serve the sex and not the other way around.

My biggest beef with the book is in the characters. I'm all for characters evolving but come on. In the Anita Blake universe, hasn't something like only four years or so passed since the events in "Guilty Pleasures"? So many of the characters seemed to have changed so much in such a small amount of time that they seem the same characters in name only. Jean Claude? Neutured where he was once dangerous and mysterious. Richard? Insane and unreasonable. Ronnie? Jealous to the point of destroying a friendship. Nathaniel? I'm glad he's not just a victim anymore but I find it hard to believe that such a sub would now be so dominant. And the newer characters are boring me to tears. Micah is too perfect and understanding...and bland. The English vampires have promise but who are they again? Too many new names to try and remember and too many good characters that have fallen by the wayside. Come back to us RPIT...we're sorry we sleep with the "monsters" now but we're ready to work again. I'd even be happy to have the same old argument with Burt about clients.

Do I recommend "Danse Macabre"? I give you that shrug that means everything and nothing. The only people that seem to be enjoying this book started with the series when it became highly sexualized. That's fine for them but that's not what I signed up for. Will I continue reading her books? Probably, but I will never pay money to read them again (especially hard cover money...what a rip). I'll borrow it from someone less disillusioned than myself.

Having read a number of reviews prior to reading Danse Macabre, I was braced for something truly horrible. I was surprised to find that this book wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. That said, it is still a one-star book. I got my copy through my library and I recommend that anyone other than LKH's most devoted fans do the same so they can determine if it's worth laying out the cash for it.
The main problem with this book is its utter lack of plot. The thin frame of a plot involving a vampire ballet, vampire politics, and a pregnancy scare offer the suggestion of a plot, but nothing really emerges. LKH has covered vampire politics in numerous Anita Blake books already, so it's nothing new and she doesn't expand much on what is already known. LKH says she is focusing more on characters now than plot and that seems to be a literary trend of late, but it requires considerable skill for an author to pull this off well and LKH lacks those skills. Despite a claimed focus on character, there is little, if any growth among the assorted cast of characters.
Many reviewers say this book is almost entirely composed of sex scenes, but I agree with the reviewer who noted that the sex scenes actually take up only about 10% of the book. Yes, the sex scenes are dull, overly long and obnoxious, but they aren't the exception in an otherwise well written book. The entire novel shares those weaknesses. The long, complicated conversations were tedious and repetitive. It was like being stuck at the DMV or a hospital emergency room listening to people talk endlessly about their problems. The same ideas are hashed and re-hashed by the characters ulitmately leading nowhere. Just as soon as someone dicovers a deep revelation about their lives etc. it is forgotten and the whole process begins again in the next chapter. This isn't unique to this book, it's a trend with most of the books in this series, especially those following Obsidian Butterfly.
Anita Blake was an interesting character in the early books, a strong independent woman who made her own way in the world. Her successes came about from her wit and intelligence. Now she's been reduced to the typical, stereotype of how a woman is powerful: on her back. All of her previous good qualities have fallen away in the light of the all-powerful and truly annoying "Arduer".
All of the stories in this series are told from Anita's point of view, and she has grown more selfish, immature, and manipulative in every book. I find it hard to believe anything she says. The blatant Anita worship is gag worthy as is the character assination of Ronnie and Richard. Almost everyone wants Anita, and any who don't or dare to question her actions are painted as evil, jealous, or stupid. Whether you love Richard or hate him, it's hard not to grant him a few points. After all, the three-way with Auggie effected him as much as Anita and Jean Claude, but he didn't get a vote in the matter. I could just see Richard walking around his local grocery store shopping for dinner when *Wham* he's struck by a wave of power that includes the visuals and sensations of an act he finds horrible. Call him a homophobe, but it isn't really fair to drop that on him and expect him to be happy about it. Are we as readers expected to agree with Anita's assesment of Richard or is LKH trying to highlight Anita's arrogance and hypocrisy? I tend to think it's the former.
The most interesting part of the book takes place around page 400. The description of the ballet and the introduction of Merlin are the compeling aspects of the story, but they only take up few pages and feel tossed away. Even the pregnancy scare doesn't raise much interest. She lives with lycanthropes who serve her every whim, but for all their power and enhanced senses, they can't tell that she's missed her period? They don't know if she's pregnant or not? It doesn't seem like LKH thought that one through, but then again, nothing in this books feels thought through. It's as if she went back through various dialouge and scenes from her other books and added a few extra things here and there and said "this is a book". She'd be better off giving Anita a rest. She could come back to her at some later date when she feels ready to write a real story that doesn't make reading her books feel like a form of punishment.

Fifty pages into the new book I was jumping up and down and screaming yes, yes, yes, (like that shampoo commercial!) The publishers have done something about the horrible spelling errors, the writing was smoother and I thought It's BACK!

But then I kept reading. Sweet Baby Jesus, there is not a doubt in my mind that LKH needs a strong, STRONG editor to guide her away from career suicide. She is an amazingly imaginative and unique talent but there has never been a book written, nor will there ever be-- that isn't strenghthened by an equally talented editor. God knows someone needs to rein in Ms. Hamilton before it's too late and she has the mental and emotional breakdown she is so richly deserving by this point. Not only does she need a STRONG editor, she needs therapy. A lot of it. And frankly, I suggest an intervention before she is allowed to finally bore us all right to bloody death in one of her own saliva pools.

Ms. Hamilton? You did not invent oral sex. You aren't the first woman to leave a marriage and have a fling with a younger man who apparently is a tripod. And I don't want to hear another word about the state of your saliva. Your sex scenes are sickening, not erotic. You want to have sex with the seven dwarves? Fine. Go for it! But must you bore us senseless with each and every thought, feeling, sensibility, and moral dilemma that you and each and every dwarf has before something can happen that's interesting?

And moral dilemmas? What a joke. After all the things Anita has done and swallowed her squeamishness and squirming when the next candidate presents itself is just ridiculous. GET ON WITH IT! Have sex with the whole world if you need to power up. But quit boring us with all this drivel and squidge.

I see faint hints of good things to come. Some day maybe we'll get back to a plot and some exciting stuff. I couldn't finish Danse. I really tried. I didn't even read the ballet or festivities section. Frankly long before that I was tortured nearly to tears with all the TALKING, TALKING, TALKING. Remember SHOW, DON'T TELL? For the love of God, SHUT UP!

A good editor would resolve this mess and take the author under her wing and tell her some hard truths. Unfortunately LHK started making them enough money that she got to run the candy store. I've seen this ruin other writers and it looks like it's going to ruin her.

I won't be buying her books anymore or adding to her income during this period of insanity, thank God for the library. But the day I'm really going to hate is when I don't even bother to get her books from the library. LHK really created a fantastic world and a dynamite character. Because her publisher is weak and greedy she is going to destroy her career over her own hormones run amok. Hope you're enjoying yourself Laurel, because your fans sure aren't.

However, you've made it very clear that like the great Rhett Butler, You Don't Give A Damn. Careful you don't contrary yourself right back into anonymity. You're very close to making a laughing stock of yourself.

Yeah, now it's personal.

When I first started reading the Anita Blake series last summer, I ate the books up. I could read through the books in a day or less. It was refreshing to read an action/adventure/horror/dark fantasy series with a gutsy, strong female lead. I admired the character of Anita Blake and enjoyed the world Hamilton created and her fresh take on vampires and shapeshifters. However, the past few books have seen a great departure from the world that I admired and relished. They have gone from being exciting action/adventure novels to basically hardcore porn in a book.

While I know that I live in a society where sexuality is consitered taboo while people barely bat an eye at extreme violence, the sex and sexual relationships in the past few books have grown more and more sorded and unappealing. I respected Blake in the beginning for her desire to remain chaste, it added to her character and was admirable. Anita had moral boundaries, and the character was rich as she searched for her identity amongst the madness and violence of her life and work.

In the past few books Hamilton has thrown that dimention of Blake's character away. Now Anita Blake indulges in multi-partner/species sex over and over again with the lame "I had to it was the ardeur" excuse over and over again. There is no plot anymore, unless you count the scant 20 or 30 pages devoted to vampire murders from the last book. Hamilton couldn't even resolve the "plot" in the last book because of all the sex. I am 200 pages into Danse Macabre and I have already had to skim through about four or five sex scenes, with totally unnecessary and unappealing detail (if I have to read another description of what a character's "delicate member" looks like or how good she is at orally pleasuring one of her many male sex buddies I am going to puke). At this point I am drawing the line, or rather I have stepped way beyond the line and I am trying to get back. For me it is less painful to simply stop reading the books and allow myself to remember Anita Blake as she was in the first eight books than to read more and obliterate the character I admired. If you are looking for good, compelling writing with good plot and character development read the first seven or eight books in the series, but stop there.

RIP Anita Blake, shame on you Ms. Hamilton-- you may write for yourself, but you have some responsibility to your readers.

I have been a fan of the Anita Blake series for 4 - 5 years, and am eager to read each new book. But, I have to agree with most of the reviews written about Danse Macabre. Anita's job, personality, and interaction with her friends were the things that made these books so engaging. The passion and sex in the earlier books were part of the overall plot, and gave insights into Anita, her partner(s), and their relationship. Danse Macabre, however, is a number of sex scenes poorly held together with a very thin plot.

If you are a big Anita Blade fan, you will still probably want to read Danse Macabre, but borrow it or wait for the paperback.

I wonder if anyone has noticed that there are over 400 reviews of this book, mostly bad. Why, may I ask, are you all buying this trash and making a terrible writer rich? Oh, I know, you are hooked on the series because the first several books were great, and you are hoping that greatness rears its head in some future novel. But it has been so long since an even good Anita Blake story has come out that I wonder why you fail to realize that Hamilton is never bringing the Anita you knew and loved back into print. I have no problem with sex in novels, I love steamy sex scenes. But sex for the sake of sex without any depth or character development is boring and disgusting. I'm afraid that due to some personal problems that we may or may not be aware of, Hamilton has sex on the brain not Anita or Claude or Richard or any other character in this series. We are suffering and so is Anita, because Hamilton is having a life altering experience. I did not purchase this book, so don't point any fingers at me. I will never purchase another Hamilton book of any series. If we all stand together and refuse to buy these books, perhaps Hamilton will see the light and become the writer she once was. We will be doing her and the reading public a favor. Do you have the guts or are you all too hooked on this junk?

Contains spoilers.

I've been a fan of the Anita Blake books since Circus of the Damned way back when. LKH has usually been good about character development and plot forwarding. She's shown in her Merry Gentry series that she knows how to use sex to forward the plot without overriding it. She can do it, so why does she fail so miserably with this book?

I liked the fact that Anita seemed to be progressing, accepting that this is who she now is, this is what she has had to become in order to survive. In Cerulean Sins and Incubus Dreams, she seemed to be accepting that, seemed to be growing stronger and more secure as a character. I'm not entirely sure why LKH decided to have Anita go through a relapse and try to withdraw from everyone, where she's got so many shields up none of the trium members can feel her, but I for one am getting a little tired of characters who stagnate. It's been 14 books and Anita is still (on some level) putting forth the statement of "I was raised to think sex is dirty" as an excuse for her hiding from what she intellectually knows she needs to do, never mind that she should (and seemed to) have accepted it about eight lovers ago.

The single, most immediate thing that could have sparked any sort of a plot in this book was largely ignored, which I think was a huge mistake. Anita's pregnancy scare could have been so much more. I honestly would have preferred to see her pregnant because it would have been something more than reading a book about a girl who has more sex than anyone could possibly have in the space of 48 hours.

Danse Macabre was a book that was filled with thrown-together bits and pieces that could have been their own plots for future books: the pregnancy scare, Anita's beasts fighting each other over her, Merlin's presence in St. Louis, Requiem's and subsequently London's (and even Auggie's) addiction with her and the ardeur, Samuel and Thea's need for their children to be brought into their power... Any of these would have made a great plot for the book, but instead they're mixed into the sex scenes as afterthoughts.

I understand LKH is taking criticism on her books as personal attacks. If this is the case, perhaps she should consider another career. If you can't take bad reviews from your fans, you shouldn't be writing. You may think you're writing for yourself, but you're not. You're writing for us. We're the ones who buy the books and keep you popular enough for your publishing house to take risks like they did on Danse Macabre. If we wanted just sex, sex, sex and nothing else, we'd go buy issues of Penthouse Forum.

The sex is fine, Laurell. But the lack of plot and character forwarding is not. You did not give us enough to make us believe that the ardeur by itself was a plot worthy of an entire book, and everything else that may have been a twist was ignored, nullfied, or buried under 500 pages of nothing but sexual encounters.