Narcissus in Chains (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 10) (Hardcover)

by Laurell K. Hamilton (Author) "JUNE HAD COME in like its usual hot, sweaty self, but a freak cold front had moved in during the night and the car radio..." (more)
Key Phrases: swan king, vampire marks, master vampire, Bobby Lee, Master of the City, Belle Morte (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Hamilton's Anita Blake, police consultant, executioner, necromancer, private eye and wereleopard protector, returns in her amorous 10th adventure, driven more by conflicting desires for the lovers she neglected in her last outing, Obsidian Butterfly (2000), than by the urge to solve any mystery. Once again, in a world where vampires and werecreatures are protected by law, Blake attempts to resolve her libido's constant crisis. Plunged into the netherworld of a leather D/S (dominant/submissive) bar, Narcissus in Chains, by the abduction of one of her inherited wereleopards, Blake finds herself deep into shapeshifter politics and a were creature power struggle that is all a metaphor for her own inner struggle. Whom should she choose werewolf Richard or vampire Jean-Claude? Or should she take a new lover? Who cares? Blake is eventually infected by the "ardeur" from the vampire clan and tinged with shapeshifting abilities from the were clan. As she becomes more like the fantastic creatures she protects or kills, she, alas, doesn't get any more interesting as a character. Her obsessions with lust serve mainly to overwhelm a rickety plot. Blake needs to put her clothes back on and get back to work. Too much flesh and not enough plot leads to the old but so true saying, "Less is more." (Oct. 9) Forecast: With a 15-city author tour and 100,000 first printing, this should be as successful saleswise as previous books in the series.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Hamilton's vampire-hunting Anita Blake faces a plethora of foes in her tenth outing. Just returned to St. Louis after six months away, Anita is still no closer to choosing between her lovers--Jean-Claude, a vampire, and Richard, a werewolf. But she has to rely on both for help after two of the wereleopards that she has been watching are abducted at a seedy club called Narcissus in Chains. Anita and her boyfriends rescue the wereleopards from the sinister people holding them, but Anita is wounded in the fight and put at risk of becoming a wereleopard herself. Richard angrily captures the wereleopard he believes is responsible and threatens to execute him. Anita must now rescue that wereleopard from Richard and the werewolves he leads, even as she mourns the apparent end of her relationship with him. Then she realizes that those who kidnapped the first two wereleopards are targeting other lycanthropes. Maybe she will be next. With plenty of steamy sex and graphic violence, this is engaging reading for vampire cultists. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Hardcover; 1 edition (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425181685
• ISBN-13: 978-0425181683
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (574 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #52,854 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 10 in The Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

228 of 260 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The last straw, October 22, 2001

By	G. Richardson "Doctor Mellow" (Rome, GA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book represents, for me, just about the final nail in the coffin of what began as one of the neatest series ever. All the things that made me love the series to being with, and kept me buying them (with increasing reluctance) as they came out, are now pretty much dead.

Great plots/suspense/humor? There almost isn't any. All of the fascinating and funny stuff in the early books, attempting to integrate monsters into modern American life with all the questions about the legal rights of the undead, etc.., have been pretty much forgotten.

Great action? What made the early books so tense and exciting was watching the gutsy little human woman go up against awesome evil creatures with vast superhuman powers, and somehow come out on top. Now Anita is the mighty Queen of werewolves AND wereleopards, Master of Vampires, the greatest necromancer of all time, always right, all-powerful, and everybody, but everybody wants her hot bod <yawn>! I find myself almost rooting for her poor victims/enemies, especially now that the distinction between Anita and the "bad monsters" isn't that clear anymore.

Great support characters? The terrific Jean-Claude is now Anita's faithful little pet; merely one of her many lovers, he dutifully shows up to explain stuff and help out a little when needed, and then scampers back to his coffin at daybreak with a pat on his head. What a waste! Richard, who showed signs in Blue Moon of finally coming to grips with his bad furry self, is once again the self-loathing bleeding-heart trapped in a predator's body.... another waste! The only thing left to wish for, for those of us who cared about the Richard character, is to see him get the first cure for lycanthropy, marry the nice scientist from Blue Moon, and get the heck away from the Executioner. Our brand-new "hero", the new man in Anita's life, Micah? His only relevant characteristic is a you-know-what even bigger than Richard's, but he adds nothing, since "he doesn't mind bodies lying all around" -- that is, he automatically agrees with everything Anita does. Oh, he IS something of a rapist who doesn't take "no" for an answer, however -- but that's ok, since Anita really "wanted it", right? <gag>

Great heroine? Worst of all is what Hamilton has done to Anita herself -- fearless in fights, but nervous and insecure in her "dating" life (which used not to necessarily mean "sex" -- now that's the only thing it means). Over the last few volumes, she stopped being likeable -- now she's not even that interesting. In Blue Moon, we found her worrying whether a magical ward against evil beings would work against her; at the end of Obsidian Butterfly, she was horrified to find out that a certain psychopathic serial killer saw her as his kindred spirit or even "soulmate". All of these interesting concerns about the direction her life was heading seem to have suddenly disappeared, replaced by her smug contempt for Richard and HIS self-doubts. And, of course, the shy, "good Catholic", girl who was flustered by her attraction to Jean-Claude is long gone, replaced by something of a, well, slut. The downward moral slide, which began when she violated her own most important rule -- uncompromising loyalty to the people she cares about -- by betraying Richard (her fiance at the time!) in the most cruel way possible, has just about hit rock-bottom now.

Great romance/passion? In the meantime, the amazingly well-written eroticism of the early books has crossed the line into something more like porn: lots of graphic sex for its own sake. Judging from the new racy covers (even for the new printings of the older books in the series), this represents a deliberate marketing decision on Hamilton's part.

As I said, what a waste...

56 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing drivel, November 3, 2001

By	"kate_qotn" (Alameda, CA United States) - See all my reviews

I was one of the fans waiting anxiously to read NIC. I heard the opening chapters read in Dallas, and, if I remember correctly, asked for a cigarette when it was over. It was that viscerally gripping.

The drivel that it devolved into in the finished work was a complete disappointment. I found it barely readable.

A few of the highlights (or would that be lowlights?):

1) The atrocious grammar, spelling and foreign language errors that have plagued the series from Day 1 were SO pronounced that, unlike in most of the earlier books (which also abounded with sloppy mechanics/editing), I couldn't ignore them. There was no story going on to distract me from them

2) Major characters exhibited illogical and contradictory behavior reeking of plot device (not only contradictory to their behavior in previous books, but from chapter to chapter in this book).

3) A new major character was introduced, apparently as a continuing romantic interest for Our Heroine. However, this is one of the creepiest "romantic" characters (if he can be dignified by the term character) I have ever encountered. From his description, he sounds more like a sideshow attraction than a romantic leading man. And I DON'T mean tentacles! (Now THEY were sexy.)

4) The endless tedious, joyless, loveless carnal acts.

5) The Anita-who-isn't-really-Anita. Plot device, again. It has been maintained, in various discussion fora, that, in NIC, Anita has "come to terms" with her sexuality. This is not in evidence on the page, as she continues to indulge in juvenile "THAT wasn't sex" arguments throughout the book. The fact that Anita simply accepts certain plot devices thrust upon her is SO far outside the scope of the character's evolution over the course of the series, that it might as well be a series about another person entirely.

6) Beloved supporting characters' mouths are filled with "Anita is the most wonderfullest being on the planet" pap. Virtually all the characters in this book exist to validate Anita as the best, baddest, most intriguing, alluring, etc. One that ever was. Including the bad guys.

7) There is no context for the events in this book. What made the series gripping and entertaining was the juxtaposition of the preternatural world with the mundane one. I remember the feeling I got reading the first couple of books that I, PERSONALLY, had been awake for days, living on coffee and adrenalin, as Anita shuttled from zombie raising to crime scene to preternatural face off, with an hour's sleep snatched here and there. I felt that THAT world truly lurked around the edges of ours. NIC lacked that spice of normalcy.

This is an ill-crafted work that does a disservice to a writer with a marvelous imagination.

69 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What's happening to this series?, February 4, 2002

By	R. Kelly Wagner "[e-mail]" (MD, United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Normally, I write long detailed reviews of vampire books. I like the genre, and I like all the previous books in this series. But this one, well... If you want to see why I like the rest of the series, you can read my reviews of all of them, starting with _Guilty Pleasures_ and going through _Obsidian Butterfly_. That would give you a comparison for how I feel about this one. Let's start by saying I'm disappointed. At best.

Up to now, Anita has been feisty, moral, conflicted, and busy with her regular work as well as her love life. In this book, she appears to not be doing anything with her job at all - we never even hear about it, never hear from her boss, her co-workers. While for the past 6 months, and in the whole previous book, she was studying with a witch to learn to control her powers, in this book, although she refers to her time with the witch, despite all the problems she has controlling things, she never once thinks of picking up the phone and calling her mentor. And she appears to have abandoned her entire sense of moral conflict. This book brings in a new character, the male Nimir-Raj of another were-leopard pack, with whom Anita immediately has sex. And there's mental sex, virtual sex, interspecies sex... it gets downright tiresome. You never knew sex could be this boring.

Even the plot elements, such as they are, are inconsistent, both with the rest of the series and with each other. At one and the same time, we have a tribe of snake men who apparently aren't weres, they are something we never knew about before, nor had anyone in the book. And then there's a pan-were, who can turn into any species - likewise, something that's never been hinted at before in the series, and is inconsistent with what we've learned about before. And then, for reasons never very clear, the snake men who aren't weres decide as a tribe to follow the pan-were - and all of them are bad guys. Sheesh. Talk about contrived.

What I would really like to do is believe that Hamilton wrote this book as a parody; that now that she's got it out of her system, in the next book we will go back to where _Obsidian Butterfly_ ended, and start from there as though _Narcissus in Chains_ had never occurred. From the end of _OB_ she could take a different, more logical direction for the series, one which wouldn't change the character of Anita Blake to something unrecognizable, one which wouldn't include so much gratuitous sex that it offends even regular readers who are expecting the normal sexual content of the series. I will look forward to the next book in hopes it will meet this challenge - that's my hope for the series.