Incubus Dreck

[redheadedfemme]

Laurell K. Hamilton has been one of my favorite writers (despite what I am going to say about her). She creates fascinating worlds and above-average characters. Her writing mechanics are, shall we say, spotty at best. She's far better in the early Anita Blake books, when she's trying to emulate the hard-boiled P.I. style. This juxtaposition of Anita's ruthless, hard-ass attitude, in an alternate world of werewolves, vampires and other mythical beasties come to life, sold the series for me. (Even in "Bloody Bones," where the continous use of the passive "was" drove me nuts. Hamilton seems to go through repetitive phases like that. Witness the endless flood of spilling hair in "Incubus," to the point where you think a dam has burst.)

However, her latest book, "Incubus Dreams," is the last straw for me. This is one of the hardest books I have ever tried to read. For the most part, it simply did not hold my interest, and I had to struggle to get through it. It's a far cry from the better Anita books, such as "Obsidian Butterfly" or "Burnt Offerings" (my favorite of the series, because of the emphasis on Asher and Jean-Claude). I read nearly all of the early books in one sitting, sometimes staying up until one or two o'clock in the morning, because I had to find out what happened. Not so with "Incubus Dreams." I didn't quite feel like I wanted to throw the book against the wall, but it took several days to force myself to finish it.

(And why do that, you ask? Out of misguided loyalty, perhaps. Laurell K. Hamilton has given me a lot of reading pleasure and excitement over the years, and it's hard for me to believe how much her quality has fallen off. I guess I keep looking for that old spark, and with a few exceptions, this time around I didn't find it.)

For my money, "Obsidian Butterfly" is the last good book in the series (although I have quite a few reservations about "Blue Moon," powered as it is by angsty, whiny-ass Richard). The last three--"Narcissus in Chains," "Cerulean Sins," and now "Incubus"--are borderline awful. The overwhelming reason for this?

Hamilton seems to think that sex equals story.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a prude. I like a good sex scene, and my definiton thereof is a sex scene that both advances the plot and reveals something about the characters. This is why the sex scene in "The Killing Dance" is so memorable. (This also might have something to do with the fact that it's the ONLY BLOODY ONE IN THE BOOK.) In this scene, Anita had a very real character revelation that drove her away from Richard and into Jean-Claude's arms. This plot twist and character intersection worked very well, and the scene advanced the overall story arc. I remember thinking after I read it that with two or three books' worth of titillation (a triangle! Jean-Claude or Richard, tee hee) Hamilton's audience was due for a little shagging. (No, I'm not British, but I love that phrase.)

Unfortunately, after "Obsidian Butterfly," the shagging overwhelmed everything else.

I'm not objecting to the sexual plotline as such. (I'm not going to explain everything here; if you're curious, read one of Amazon's reviews of Hamilton's books. Most of the time, they have hundreds of comments.) The ardeur fits in well with what's already been revealed about Jean-Claude's vampire line and powers. I don't even mind Anita inheriting the ardeur in and of itself; the triumvirate as proposed would necessitate such a sharing and mingling of powers. So, in other words, now that Anita is truly Jean-Claude's human servant, she has to screw somebody two--and later, four--times a day.

What gets me is Hamilton's insistence on describing every single said screwfest in appalling detail, down to the last thrust and moan.

I mean, it gets old after a while, you know? Particularly when it goes on for pages and pages. I would be willing to bet that two-thirds of "Incubus" is pure sex. When you've got 722 pages to start with, that's a mind-numbing amount of thrusting and moaning. (Plus--now that I think about it--Anita doesn't even mention friction or getting sore. The ardeur must provide some extra-special lubrication.) Put this together with the fact that Hamilton's editors have seemingly taken a permanent lunch--or maybe she doesn't even have any; on her blog, she's talking about editing the next Anita book, the horrifying thousand-page "Danse Macabre," and I'm getting the impression she's doing it all herself--and you're bound to end up with a bloated, meandering mess. (And, if "Danse" anything like "Incubus," full of dangling participles and run-on sentences.) This would be stifling for a normal book, much less one stuffed with deep-throating and swelling orgasms.

Having said that, there are a couple of sex scenes this book couldn't do without. The rolling desk-wall-floor impalement in Jean-Claude's office is one. The last scene with Micah in the tub is another. However, the former scene--besides making it crystal-clear (as if we didn't already know) that Anita likes her lovemaking rough; is this something inherent in so-called vampire hunters screwing their prey?--leads into a scene that is, for me, almost worth the price of admission. This is, of course, where Jean-Claude makes Anita promise she will take him out if he turns evil (or at least more evil than he already is). This is chapter 45 in the book, eight beautifully written pages. I'm tempted just to tear that chapter out of the book and keep it. It captures the essence of Jean-Claude's and Anita's admittedly twisted relationship, and does so in lean, spare, emotionally rich prose.

Damn it, Laurell, why couldn't the rest of the book be as good as that?

It is not. Don't mistake me on that. The "mystery" is not worth the paper it's written on--it isn't even solved, for crying out loud. I guess the villain's getting away is Hamilton's attempt to comment on the messiness of real life, when the bad guys aren't always caught. An admirable sentiment, but poorly conceived. However, I do very much like Nathaniel's character development. If everything else in the book could have been dispensed with, save for the aforementioned scenes, the "mystery" (although that entire storyline would have to be rewritten), and Nathanael's arc, we would have had ourselves an honest-to-God story, of manageable length.

As it is, all we have is self-indulgent dreck.

I'm sorry to say that, because I've enjoyed Anita Blake for quite a few years. But these last three books--"Incubus," "Cerulean," and "Narcissus"--will not be on my bookshelf any longer. If I read "Danse Macabre" at all--which I doubt--it will be either at the library or a very cheap second-hand copy from some Internet retailer.

It's Laurell's right to deal with her characters and worlds as she sees fit, of course. Just as it's my right not to waste my money.