Incubus Dreams (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 12) [Audiobook, CD, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Laurell K. Hamilton (Author), Cynthia Holloway (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2004

As consultant to the Regional Preternatural Crime Investigation Unit, Anita’s called in on what appears to be a case involving a serial killer - a vampire serial killer - who may be preying on strippers. She’s sure that none of the local vamps are responsible - but her judgment may be clouded by a conflict of interest. For she is, after all, the consort of Jean-Claude, the ever-intoxicating Master Vampire of the City - something that both her human friends and her ex, the alpha werewolf Richard, are quick to point out. Surrounded by suspicion, overwhelmed by her attempts to control the primal lusts that continue to wrack her as a result of her passionate contacts with vampire, werewolf, and the shapeshifter Micah, Anita does something unprecedented. She calls for help…

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As Incubus Dreams opens, Anita Blake may be America's most powerful vampire hunter and necromancer. So it's no surprise that the Regional Preternatural Crime Investigation Team seeks her assistance when a St. Louis stripper is murdered and the evidence points to unusual serial killers: a group of seven vampires. It appears a master vampire has gone rogue--and may prove too powerful for Anita Blake, even if she can gain help from not only her vampire consort, Master of the City Jean-Claude, but from the wereleopard king Micah, her other lover, and the alpha werewolf Richard, her bitter ex-lover.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Laurell K. Hamilton's Incubus Dreams is just one sex scene after another. This twelth novel in her bestselling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series presents a wedding, a murder, and a lot of relationship angst before getting down and dirty on page 89; and the sex scenes pause on page 377 to let the mystery plot resume. The series deftly blends elements of alternate history, horror, romance, erotica, and mystery, but anyone reading Incubus Dreams for the murder plot is going to be frustrated. However, Incubus Dreams is a considerably stronger and more interesting book than its talky predecessor, Cerulean Sins, and fans will enjoy the many new developments in Anita's complicated love life. --Cynthia Ward

Amazon.com Exclusive Content

Interview with the Vampire Writer
With two bestselling series featuring supernatural heroines under her belt, one has to wonder if Laurell K. Hamilton is truly in touch with a world beyond ours. Hamilton spoke with Amazon.com about her work, her characters, and her plans for the future. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Fans of bestseller Hamilton's vampire hunter Anita Blake will be thrilled with at least one aspect of this transitional 12th installment (after 2003's Cerulean Sins): Anita finally resolves her relationships with werewolf ex-boyfriend Richard Zeeman and vampire boyfriend Jean-Claude. They'll also be pleased to see Anita finally get comfortable with her own behavior, despite crossing many lines—sexual, psychological, professional, paranormal—that she previously thought uncrossable. In her role as vampire-executioner and preternatural-crime investigator, Anita pursues a band of serial-killing vampires who prey on female strippers, but much of the novel focuses on her responsibilities as a leader in St. Louis's vampiric-lycanthropic community. Those obligations are often intertwined with sex, the basic tool of her ever-growing magical powers. The ardeur that compels her to have sex in order to fuel her two "power triumvirates" must now be fed with increasing frequency. Old foes threaten as new enemies emerge. There's plenty of life (and undeath) left in this series, and Hamilton's imagination is apparently as inexhaustible as her heroine's supernatural capacity for coupling.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged Lib Ed; Unabridged edition (September 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590862740
• ISBN-13: 978-1590862742
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 7 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (792 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,056,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laurell K. Hamilton is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of two series that mix mystery, fantasy, magic, horror and romance. Her Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels from Berkley Books began with GUILTY PLEASURES (now a hugely successful graphic novel from Marvel - the first sexy paranormal comic ever!) and continues with the SKIN TRADE, number seventeen in the series, in which Anita's complex personal and professional relationships with a master vampire and an alpha werewolf continue to evolve. There are now more than 6 million copies of Anita in print worldwide, in 16 languages. Hamilton's Ballantine series features Fey princess and private investigator, Merry Gentry and there are now six novels exceeding one million copies in print. Divine Misdemeanors, the eighth in the series will debut Octobe 29, 2009. She lives in St. Louis County Missouri with her husband Jonathon Green, daughter, one pug dog and one boxer/pug dog.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

756 of 805 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This. Book. Blows., October 9, 2004

By 

JunkyardMessiah "jonkadane" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Incubus Dreams (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter) (Hardcover)

I hate to slam an author's hard work (658 pages can't have come easy) but MAN did this book suck. I have been an Anita fan since Guilty Pleasures, but found I REALLY enjoyed the series when it took a darker turn, around Obsidian Butterfly. Cerulean Sins was great, because when Anita really started to feed the ardeur, at least she was doing it (literally) with characters I had come to know and like. The pairings were interesting and compelling, and I couldn't WAIT to see how the delicious menage a trois between Anita, Asher and Jean Claude would play out, how they would battle the big Bad Mother of All Darkness, and what that would mean in their relationship with Belle Morte. So many delicious threads left dangling, and twelve excruciating months to wait....then finally the wait was over! Incubus Dreams was at last here!

Cut to 658 pages and 200 typos later, and here I sit horrified and dumbfounded. What the holy (insert Anita's favorite expletive here) was this?? It was as if Cerulean Sins never existed! All those threads I mentioned? Still dangling. No room to address them when you've got 500 pages of talky porn to write!

Yes, before Anita and her lovers (some of them strangers introduced a mere half a page before Anita goes all ardeur on them) have sex, they TALK ABOUT IT for at least TWO CHAPTERS beforehand. Perhaps Anita must feed the "talkeur" before the "ardeur". Though the sex is pretty hot, you'll be amazed that the lovers haven't talked themselves into a coma first. Like all die-hard Anita fans, I was expecting another great read. Instead, here's what I got.

100 pages of unresolved mystery story,

200 pages of psychoanalytical musings (of the "Richard loves to hate himself more than he loves to love me!" variety).

150 pages of sex with people you could care less about.

150 pages of sex with people you DID care about but now can't stand anymore.

The character work is repetitive, with only one spark of interest--Nathaniel. His character arc is nice, and is the only reason I'm giving this book two stars instead of one.

Jean Claude? morphs into an emasculated Machiavelli.

Richard? a spineless repressed prude, no matter how many three-ways he's in.

Asher? Missing in action.

Jason? Harmless brother-figure.

Micah? still a well-endowed yes man.

Nathaniel? Surprisingly still interesting.

Damian? Quickly-forgotten sextoy.

Requiem and Byron? ("Who?" you ask?) Two unknowns who get more action than poor Asher.

Save your time, your expectations and your twenty bucks. Donate it instead to Proofreaders of America, or any organization that could help LKH find a decent editor. Sorry to vent, but man am I pissed at spending hard-cover money on this! >:(

147 of 155 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Career Suicide?, April 5, 2005

By 

Eon (Rhode Island) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Incubus Dreams (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter) (Hardcover)

Before I begin, I have to say that this was the first Anita Blake book that I'd read in a long time. I had stopped at Obsidian Butterfly, which read like a frog that had been floating in the pool too long: dead, bloated, and gross. Since then I have had no desire to read one.

So here I am one day, browsing through my Amazon Recommendations, when I see Incubus Dreams with its rating: a whopping two and a half stars! Huh!? Well, Hamilton had never been a literary genius, not by far, but I knew she'd been really popular despite that. Curiosity got the better of me, as it tends to do. You know how they say curiosity kills the cat? They aren't kidding. Because after reading a majority of the 500 reviews here, I had to read for myself. After all, I thought, I'm an aspiring writer, I should know what not to do, right?

Well, I certainly got my money's worth in THAT respect. ID reads as though Hamilton went online and found A) the worst possible NC-17 Anita Blake fan fiction she possibly could and B) the most annoyingly whining personal Blog of some teenager and put them together as a book. It is just that bad. I tried to read the whole book, especially since my opinion kept changing, but I put it down when I hit the sex scene that literally spans five or six chapters. At that point, I no longer cared if they ever found out who killed the strippers.

As for the things most reviews are complaining about, these are my opinions:

1. The sex. There is NOT too much sex in this book. There is too much BORING sex in this book. If there's going to be a lot of sex it should at least be exciting, but this was not. Anita asking to be f----d when she's still "tight"...after the three other guys had already been in her pants that day, it's debatable whether she'd ever be tight again.

Aside from being boring, much of it was entirely gross. And well, what was with all the conversation? During the sex? Not just conversation between the participants, either. It seemed as though everyone and his brother had to stick in their two cents...or two grand, as the case might be. No one ever just walked in on the sex scene, said "Oops, sorry" and left. No, they had to stick around and make observations!

This book tries to be porn, erotica, and romance all at the same time, and fails to be any single one of them. It hasn't the follow through for porn (she does get out of a few of the sex situations, which you don't in porn). It hasn't the artistry for erotica. And this "love" Anita is claiming isn't romantic. I have nothing against alternative lifestyles, but I simply don't find it romantic, and the sex most certainly isn't, either.

2a. The characters. Hamilton doesn't have the ability to keep her characters organized to save her life. That many characters in a story CAN be done, and it can be done well, but not by this woman. Every time I thought I would start to like a character-Requiem for example-they would become another Anita worshipper, telling her how wonderful she is and how much they want to sleep with her.

There really is no honest character development here. Some people have cited Nathaniel, but I found his "development" entirely unbelievable. Somehow he goes from breaking down in tears when Anita won't sleep with him to getting angry and slamming cupboard doors when she bites Micah. It was as though Hamilton kept changing her mind how she wanted him to be.

And his hair! Now, look, I am all for guys with long hair, I really am. It's one of the things I liked about the Anita Blake books. But ANKLE-LENGTH!? Nuh. Just nuh. That's so stupid, it doesn't deserve the "uh" half of nuh uh. After awhile I began to develop the notion that Hamilton has been watching way too much anime.

2b. Original characters. Okay, I've always wished someone would kick Richard in the ass, so I don't much care what happens to him. Although I found him more tolerable in this book, but not by much. But most of her original characters have been ruined. It's really odd having Jason as the font of wisdom here, although it's more believable than Jean-Claude "I don't share you lightly, ma petite". Pfft, yeah! His jealous act would have been more convincing (maybe) if he hadn't just been urging her to sleep with Richard. Asher was absent, and we should probably be grateful for that, considering where her characters are going.

Even Ronnie was reduced to a pathetic excuse for a human being. And her conversation with Anita...hoo boy. That's rich, real rich. Anita "I'm-so-afraid-of-love" Blake giving her friend advice in the vein of "Give love a chance". Might have gone over better if she hadn't just been going on and on for several pages of inner monologue on how she always screws love up because it scares her.

2c. Anita. My god, the woman has become such a c--t. Aside from being a hypocrite, complaining a lot, and being judgmental of everyone and everything, she was in full on "offend everyone" mode. If, by about page 400, you haven't yet been offended by her attitude, you will be.

The set up: Anita goes to a STRIP club to investigate the death of a STRIPPER. She shows up in a white t-shirt with a black bra you can apparently see really well beneath it, a skirt so short she keeps complaining about it, thigh highs, and a pair of heeled, knee high boots. But the reason the cops think she's a stripper too MUST be (at least in her eyes) because they are male and therefore sexist jerks.

3. The errors. An editor did not see this manuscript. There is hands down no way an editor saw this manuscript. The publisher couldn't have seen it either. I'm having my doubts that the AUTHOR saw this manuscript.

Occasional errors are forgivable. It happens. But this...how on earth to you mispell the word "deity" wrong SIX times on ONE page!? And then proceed to spell it wrong throughout the rest of the book. Word processors know the word "deity". It's Latin derivative. There's no reason it should be mispelled, absolutely none. That, along with a host of other words that never should have been mispelled.

And the commas! Oh lord...here's a woman who can't use a comma to save her life. Now, she's always had trouble, but this was by far the worse. Commas where they don't belong, not where they do, commas in place of other proper punctuation...there were some sentences that were so chopped up by commas that I could not understand them no matter how many times I read them. There were also a lot of places where she put periods instead of question marks. NOT something you should be doing with 15+ books published.

4. Rampant Anita Worship. Okay, it's not entirely true that the characters never tell Anita when she's done something wrong. But it depends on your definition of wrong. It goes something like this: Micah and Jason scold Anita for refusing to sleep with Nathaniel; Micah and Nathaniel scold Anita for refusing to sleep with Damian; Jean-Claude scolds Anita for getting out of sleeping with Richard; and so on and so for.

What was really rich was Nathaniel's little speech, where he thanked Anita for allowing him to do all the cooking, cleaning, and grocery shopping. I think the phrase we're looking for here is "Ri-ight".

5. Ardeur/super powers. Okay, as if the ardeur isn't a dumb enough plot device to begin with, it just gets worse as the book goes on. Hamilton raises her fans hopes for a page or two, allowing them to believe that it will all be okay now, because Anita has control over the ardeur. Except control apparently makes it worse, not better. And here's this convienent triumverate that she'll kill (most especially Damian, apparently) if she doesn't feed the ardeur. Sexual Deus Ex Machina...who'd have thought?

And it's also true that Anita's powers grow constantly, especially towards the end of the book. Eventually she can raise a whole cemetary with the wave of her hand...no exageration. This reminds me of the Blade movies and why I never wanted to watch them: the phrase "All of their strengths, none of their weaknesses". That fits Anita well. She's got all the benefits of being a were and a vampire and none of the downsides. And although Hamilton tries to convince you that Anita thinks of the ardeur as a downside, if you're actually buying it, you won't be by the time you get to the scene with Jean-Claude in his office.

There were numerous other little things that made me wish someone would put me out of my misery. For example, having known a few witches, I can say with some confidence that none of them would want a Halloween themed wedding, not if it involved Jack O Latterns, paper skeletons, and bright orange bridesmaids dresses.

There was too much repetition, as well. Hamilton knows how to write a lot without really writing anything at all. Anita's constant circular ramblings had me rolling my eyes and laughing the whole way through.

I did laugh quite a bit, in fact. Of course, something tells me that about 99% of what I was laughing at wasn't meant to be funny. If "evil chocolate" didn't have you rolling on the floor, "accidental sex" will. When you're reduced to the phrase "accidental sex", it's time to quite.

Hamilton likes to spew excuses for this trash; she's doing it to be 'contrary', she had to scramble to meet her deadline, she didn't get to show it to her writer friends.

Well, Ms. Hamilton, you shouldn't need people to hold your hand through this anymore. You should be able to do it by yourself. And the deadline excuse is crap. A woman who makes as much money as you do doesn't have to worry about deadlines. If you publisher isn't going to drop you for the tripe you're writing, then they won't drop you for missing a deadline.

But if this is simply to be 'contrary' then I hope you lose every reader... Read more ›

146 of 154 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Another reader lost, August 12, 2005

By 

Kaley Watson (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Incubus Dreams (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter) (Hardcover)

Incubus Dreams represents a turning point, at least in this readers mind. I'm done with the series! A once interesting series has devolved into a chaotic mess where the author doesn't even bother trying to write a coherent plot or storyline any more.

What's touted as character growth reads more like character assignation. Anita Blake and the huge supporting cast of characters have been transformed into two-dimensional cardboard cutouts loosing all of their original uniqueness and appeal in the process.

And lastly, if the author chooses to write nothing but erotica that's fine, but market it as such and quit hiding behind the mystery and suspense elements dangled as bait in the dusk jacket.

This one time fan is done and moving on.