V - The Lunatic Cafe - PC
1 journaler for this copy...
V: Vampire genre
PC: Personal collection, not for release
Anita is dating a werewolf. That's right, one of the occasionally furry. In doing so, she gets to meet lots of other werewolves, and werethings of other sorts. The Lunatic Café is a bar patronized by the weres.
Some of the villains in this volume are pretty conventional ones: stupid and/or corrupt cops. And others are stranger - a werewolf who's making interspecies porno snuff films, for example.
And then there's Edward, who is a human, and at least nominally on Anita's side, but whose personality is such that we wonder whether human is necessarily an improvement over monster. But then, that's one of the themes that emerges throughout the series: is there really much of a clearcut line between humans and others, and is being on the human side of that line necessarily an improvement? We think about this a lot when we read about the behavior of the werewolf pack. Because real wolf packs don't get into nearly that much violence, ritual fighting, etc. - it's the human part of the were that make them act unpredictable, evil, argumentative, and violent, not the wolf part. This book is the first one in the series that makes us really face that problem - up till now, it's been fairly clear who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. But when the werewolves talk about "giving in to their beast" it's usually an excuse to do some fighting or violence only a human would think of.
I won't give away all of the ending, except to tell you that there's an unexpected villain and it's not one of the fierce, savage predators, either. Human pride is what motivates that villain.
This particular book is the fourth in a series, and it's a series best read in order. If you read one out of order first, you'll want to go back and start from the beginning - the first volume is _Guilty Pleasures_. Most authors of vampire novels approach from one of the main genres of genre fiction; thus their background may be primarily in romance, or in science fiction/fantasy, or in murder mysteries, or in horror. This series comes from the hard-boiled detective/thriller genres. There's a large cast of continuing characters - Anita Blake, who is NOT a vampire, she's a zombie animator and vampire executioner. The setting is St. Louis, but the specific city isn't integral to the plot the way being in Toronto is a very specific plot element in Huff's books, or Chicago in Elrod's. The other characters include the police on the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team, who are reasonably good guys - although the series also finds plenty of incompetent and/or corrupt cops along the way. Most of the vampire characters are involved in the entertainment biz - owning, working in, nightclubs. St. Louis in this universe has a very kinky nightclub district! The vampires have not only super strength and speed, but the power to cloud men's minds, and other powers that pop up unexpectedly and that differ from vampire to vampire. We have plenty of other supernatural characters: werewolves, wereleopards, wererats, and for all I know, werewombats; witches and voodoo priestesses, ghouls and zombies and ghosts. In other words, magic of all kinds. And most of them are Not Very Nice. Anita deals with them through a combination of violence and wisecracks; there is a strong dose of sarcasm and irony that runs through the books, and while the plots are serious, violent, and bloody, there are also funny moments; the characters have senses of humor, even some of the vampires!
PC: Personal collection, not for release
Anita is dating a werewolf. That's right, one of the occasionally furry. In doing so, she gets to meet lots of other werewolves, and werethings of other sorts. The Lunatic Café is a bar patronized by the weres.
Some of the villains in this volume are pretty conventional ones: stupid and/or corrupt cops. And others are stranger - a werewolf who's making interspecies porno snuff films, for example.
And then there's Edward, who is a human, and at least nominally on Anita's side, but whose personality is such that we wonder whether human is necessarily an improvement over monster. But then, that's one of the themes that emerges throughout the series: is there really much of a clearcut line between humans and others, and is being on the human side of that line necessarily an improvement? We think about this a lot when we read about the behavior of the werewolf pack. Because real wolf packs don't get into nearly that much violence, ritual fighting, etc. - it's the human part of the were that make them act unpredictable, evil, argumentative, and violent, not the wolf part. This book is the first one in the series that makes us really face that problem - up till now, it's been fairly clear who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. But when the werewolves talk about "giving in to their beast" it's usually an excuse to do some fighting or violence only a human would think of.
I won't give away all of the ending, except to tell you that there's an unexpected villain and it's not one of the fierce, savage predators, either. Human pride is what motivates that villain.
This particular book is the fourth in a series, and it's a series best read in order. If you read one out of order first, you'll want to go back and start from the beginning - the first volume is _Guilty Pleasures_. Most authors of vampire novels approach from one of the main genres of genre fiction; thus their background may be primarily in romance, or in science fiction/fantasy, or in murder mysteries, or in horror. This series comes from the hard-boiled detective/thriller genres. There's a large cast of continuing characters - Anita Blake, who is NOT a vampire, she's a zombie animator and vampire executioner. The setting is St. Louis, but the specific city isn't integral to the plot the way being in Toronto is a very specific plot element in Huff's books, or Chicago in Elrod's. The other characters include the police on the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team, who are reasonably good guys - although the series also finds plenty of incompetent and/or corrupt cops along the way. Most of the vampire characters are involved in the entertainment biz - owning, working in, nightclubs. St. Louis in this universe has a very kinky nightclub district! The vampires have not only super strength and speed, but the power to cloud men's minds, and other powers that pop up unexpectedly and that differ from vampire to vampire. We have plenty of other supernatural characters: werewolves, wereleopards, wererats, and for all I know, werewombats; witches and voodoo priestesses, ghouls and zombies and ghosts. In other words, magic of all kinds. And most of them are Not Very Nice. Anita deals with them through a combination of violence and wisecracks; there is a strong dose of sarcasm and irony that runs through the books, and while the plots are serious, violent, and bloody, there are also funny moments; the characters have senses of humor, even some of the vampires!
