Incubus Dreams (Anita Blake/ Vampire)

Rating:
Summary: LKH Forgot the Cardinal Sin of Writing
Review: "It is a cardinal sin to bore your readers." - Larry Niven.

LKH seems to have forgotten this. Screwing everything in sight does not a plot make. It can be part of the plot but seriously, it's not a plot to explore how many different ways tab A can be inserted into slot B. And I also think it would be physically impossible for a woman to be...serviced by...so many men in such a short period of time (I think ID covers a grand total of 36-48 hours all told, maybe 72) without at least getting slightly raw.

The book could have been interesting if LKH hadn't subsituted merengue for meat. As it stands the book is empty and disappointing and no amount of gratuitous sex or angst can make up for it. I would prefer to wait longer between books and get an actual story worthy of the books prior to and including Obsidian Butterfly (by far the best, IMO) than to get the repetitive over-done erotica that's being released as "Anita Blake: Vampire Slayer" now.

Rating:
Summary: I never thought sex could get boring....
Review: ...but then I read this book.

I can say that I definitely not a prude. I find erotica entertaining, but I did not buy this book for erotica. I bought it for a good story with evil powers, vampire political intrigue, and a good ol' mystery plot. Instead, I got page after page of dull sex. It was complete overload. I found myself skipping chapters to find the plot (boy, you had to look hard to find it!)

I will not go into great detail on the book and my disappointment in it, because so many other reviewers have summed it all up nicely.... the one-dimensional characters, the aimless drawn-out sex, the lack of plot, the multitude of typographic errors, and the redundance of certain phrases.

In the book there was one single ray of hope for our beloved Anita.... there was an indication that she was gaining control of the ardeur. Maybe, just maybe, she will have control in the next book, and then there might actually be a plot instead of sex, sex, sex.

It used to be that I would pre-order any book by Ms. Hamilton.
This one, I waited for it to be in the Sci-Fi book club one a buy one book, get one free deal. After this one, I just may wait to find a beat-up paperback at a yard sale before I buy another one of her books.



Rating:
Summary: More Sue than Q
Review: I didn't believe it could happen, well don't bet on it, it has been done! At the fifth book the sueness started to show and by this last book it is nothing but. This book is bad, let me count the ways... nevermind I have a life and wasted several hours of it wading through the muck in this book. I'm a man so I can't be a prude, it's an oxymoron. I'm glad I'm a man too. If I were a woman I'd be raising hell about the downward spiral of morphing Anita Blake into the writers stand in from the roof tops. I don't care what writers do behind closed doors, but to advertise it in book form is disgusting and so is this so called novel. That's the only justification there seems to be why this book is what it is. Bad. I couldn't find the plot and it wasn't because I didn't try. This book is definitely not a stand alone and in comparison to the other twelve barely stands at all. Don't buy it, don't borrow it, don't even read it on a bet like me, you'll regret it.


Rating:
Summary: Unimpressed and left wondering
Review: I just started reading the Anita Blake series. I bought all of them and read them in a couple of weeks. My original impressions of the characters are still fresh. However, I don't know why she decided to butcher them.

I loved the series thru Blue Moon, after that I don't know what happened to the characters. I'm far from being a prude, I enjoy reading erotica I just would prefer a little romance with it. If that makes me a prude (seeing as we get lectured about views on sex thoughout the series) so be it.

Who is Anita now? She went from being modest about her nudity and wanting a relationship and monogomy to screwing every and anyone. Now she needs 2 men at a time to "flat to it for her". When she's not screwing everyone she is showing them she has the biggest "balls". I love the thought of a strong woman but she is now in the "god" status with all her new found power's.

I'm a romantic at heart and I actually thought Richard/Anita was a good love story. I could live with a Jean Claude/Richard/Anita traingle. Instead I had to live with Jean Claude/ Asher/ Anita, Nathaniel/Jason/ Anita, Nathaniel/ Damien/ Anita, let's not forget Micah or anyone else that may be sitting around. But she love's them all. No plot, no romance just boring sex scene after sex scene. I'm enjoying Christine's Feehan's Mind Games and Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series more than the last 3 installments of the Anita Blake series.
What a shame the series started out so interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Loved this book
Review: I really enjoyed the latest chronicle of Anita's life. To see how this amazing woman adapts to all challenges thrown at her and still maintains her personal integrity. LKH has introduced more fascinating characters and developed already established characters with surprising outcomes. To read these twelve books back to back is to see a master storyteller at work. Can't wait for the next installment in the lives of Anita, JC, Asher, Nathaniel etc

Rating:
Summary: All sex - no plot
Review: Not up to snuff. The plot twists, red herrings, and constant energy were missing from this episode. Yes, you learn more about the characters but at what price.
Let's hope Ms Hamilton has what ever this was out of her system and either kills Anita off or returns to what made her a crossover favorite.

Rating:
Summary: Power has its price
Review: Overall, LKH has done a wonderful job with this entire series. Her style of writing is unique and allows for a great deal of insight in to the prinicipal character of Anita Blake. She has a fine attention for detail and obviously carefully researches many of the elements in her novels. The amount of attention paid to accurately discribing locations and historical events which influence the stories is admirable.

Throughout the series, Anita has become more mature -- some may say jaded -- and has continued to grow as a character. Yes, Incubus Dreams contains a great deal more sex than the other books, but I can see where it is necessary for the overall development of the series. Power does not come without a price. We are given insights into the prices paid by the characters for their increased powers and how these powers affect those around them.

Also, there are several key questions in this book which are left unanswered -- possibly setting up for future showdowns between Anita, the Mother of All Darkness, and other preternatural beasties of unknown origin? Yeah, it's possible.

While the series, as a whole, as taken a turn to focus more on Anita's personal life and relationships -- as opposed to crime solving -- I still find the story to be compelling as a tale of one woman's fight to become comfortable in her own skin while balancing the demands of careers and ever increasingly complicated relationships and responsibilities.

Rating:
Summary: Oh My God I'm Such A Prude!!!!!!
Review: Thanks to all the reviews on Incubus Dreams that have informed me that because readers don't like the sex in this book, we're obviously prudes. That is so true! I had no idea, but now these helpful comments have made it clear to me that I am, in fact, freakishly conservative, hideously prudish, frigid, let's face it--I can't handle anything other than strictly vanilla missionary-style sex in my books between married people. Thank you for showing me the light!!!!

The sex in ID wasn't horribly written and mechanical--I'm just a big ole prude!

The sex in ID wasn't boring and repetitive--I'm just a silly ole prude!

The sex in ID wasn't gross and meaningless--I'm just a mean ole prude!

Snail trails are SEXY!

Rainmaker comments are SEXY!

Pleasuring a guy without throwing up is SEXY!

Not showering between sex-a-thons is SEXY!

Having sex with strangers in strip clubs and on the job is SEXY!

Ripping off all your fingernails while having sex with someone is SEXY!

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It's not the sex in the book that makes Incubus Dreams so awful. If Anita Blake, the protagonist, was even remotely likeable, was even remotely a reasonable character and not an obvious Mary Sue, then maybe the sex scenes wouldn't have been so offensive.

Unfortunately, Anita Blake really is unlikable, really is unreasonable and an obvious Mary Sue. She whines all the time. She complains about everything. She's a hypocrite. She blames others for her unhappiness. Why care about a person like this?

Other problems with Incubus Dreams:

1) No editing. Berkley ought to be ashamed of itself. This is supposed to be a professional product written by a professional writer and published by a professional house. It looks like something someone posted to the internet during their lunch break. Not good.

2) The characterization is atrocious. What happened to these people? Richard is a boot-licking, cringing apologist. Jean-Claude is weak and boring, and has some of the most embarrassing lines in the book. Jason is now a turncoat. Ronnie is now a jealous creep. Nathaniel... Lord only knows what Nathaniel is. And Micah continues to unimpress.

3) The sob stories! Listen to character after character reveal their terrible, terrible traumas to Anita Blake. Everyone has been abused! Sexually, emotionally, physically, it's all there. And the reader gets to slog through pages and pages of sob-stories, all of which (save one) are transparent manipulations to get the reader to sniffle into her Kleenex and pity the poor characters. Blah.

4) Talk, talk, talkity talk. People in the Anitaverse don't speak to each other like people in real life do. I'm not sure what this is, but it's not dialogue. It's more like page filler with quotations attached. Apparently, everyone in Incubus Dreams is an idiot, judging from the way they talk. And apparently everyone has to have long, tedious, dull discussions about having sex with each other BEFORE having sex with each other, WHILE having sex with each other, and AFTER having sex with each other. It's exhausting to read. Ugh.

5) Plot? Murder? No way! In Incubus Dreams, female strippers are being killed by wicked vampires, but Anita Blake is more upset over who she's going to have to have sex with than that people are dying in Saint Louis. Awful. Anita needs to get her priorities straight.

6) Sanctimonious nonsense. Oooh, look at the big bad stupid white male cops! Ooh, they're so sexist and racist! Oooh, look at the homophobic jerk! Oooh, he's so evil! Now, you know a book is truly bad when virtues like tolerance and diversity are annoying. Racism is horrible, sexism is horrible, homophobia is horrible--and yet, the way Incubus Dreams is written, these messages of love and tolerance are made cheap and trite, which is a true shame. Anita Blake doesn't sound like a good person, she sounds preachy, and even worse, phony. Horrible.

7) Oh wow. Everyone loves Anita. And if a character doesn't love Anita, they're either a bad, bad, stupid person or they're inconsequential. You know you've entered the land of Mary Sue when all of the characters love the protagonist and tell her over and over again how beautiful and desirable and wonderful and strong she is, and the few characters who don't like her or actively dislike her are turned into psychos and idiots. Very, very obvious. It's so obvious it's insulting. Yuck.

8) Anita Blake is all-powerful! She's like all of the X-Men rolled into one narcissistic jerk. She can't be defeated, and the book is filled with random plot devices that grant Anita even more pointless powers than before. Soon Anita will be able to shoot laser beams out of her eyes and dodge bullets. She'll be like Neo from the Matrix, only whinier. Can't wait.

*****************

If you like reading books because there is sex in them, then fine. This book might be cool. And people who have read this book and enjoyed it for the sex scenes are cool--that's good. There's nothing wrong with liking ID because it has sex in it.

However, there are many reasons why a book is good and why a book is bad, and there are many reasons for a person to like a book and for a person to dislike a book. There are also many different levels that a book can be read on. If you read Incubus Dreams on one level, the level that does not scrutinize the characters and just wants the sex scenes, then Incubus Dreams does its job. However, if you read a book on another (not necessarily better) level, the level that DOES examine the characters, the writing, and the purpose of the book, then Incubus Dreams fails at its job.

Incubus Dreams is not a "sex book." It is a novel. Judged by the criteria that make up a successful novel, this book fails on every account. It is, simply, a bad novel. A good sex book? Maybe. A good novel? No.

To those who haven't read Incubus Dreams yet, I strongly urge you not to read it. If you must read it, don't buy it. Borrow it. Then, if you like it enough to want to own a copy, by all means, buy one. Too many people are too angry with this book for too many reasons, though, for anyone to buy the book without having tried it first.

Rating:
Summary: An Increasingly Downward Spiral
Review: This book was an utter disappointment. I am a diehard Anita Blake fan and I suffered through Cerulean Sins and now this? The first books in the series were so much better. Anita was still a believeable fiction character. This is thinly veiled pornography with Anita as some sort of supernatural vixen who has to go to bed with practically every man she meets because of the ardeur. I won't part with the first novels through Blue Moon. I even liked Obsidian Butterfly, but this is to the point of ridiculous.

Don't bother buying one new. I can't believe I purchased this in advance. Check out one from your library or check out an online auction. My copy's on eBay and I really hope to part with it soon. I think I'll be moving on to another author. Promising authors are Kim Harrison and Kelley Armstrong.

Sorry, Laurell. I love your earlier books, but I can't handle Anita's current state. Can't we have her wake up from some really bad dream and find the last 2 books were non-existent?

Rating:
Summary: Oh . . . my . . . God!
Review: Well . . . what has happened here? I almost feel as if I have missed several books in the series before this one. I seem to recall that Anita was developing more and more supernatural powers. I guess that's not imporant anymore.

I completely agree that this book is a mess. Don't bother trying to clean it up. If you are a completest, as am I, you will, unfortunately, be unable to pass up the next Blake book no matter how bad we know it will be. We shall suffer together.

Beyond the abundance of errors, both editorial and the just plain "WHAT?" factor, the biggest error of all was the title of the book. Rather than Incubus Dreams, it should have been Succubus Dreams.

For those of you NOT paying attention in Sunday school, Incubus: male who feeds off female sexuallity. Succubus: female who feeds off male sexuality. Anita seems to have to feed off every male in the area, that makes her a SUCCUBUS. Get it, psuedo-editors? Where is the male nightmare in this . . . story?

Her need for sex has become boring in the extreme. I don't know, can we go perhaps six chapters without sex? Oooo-oooo, I know, how about a book about a vampire executioner named Anita Blake? You know, she could KILL VAMPIRES AND S**T !!??!!

I cannot even express how disappointed I am in the direction of this series. I read erotic novels, I even enjoy them, but I want to know what I'm reading. If I pick up an Anita Blake, Vampire Executioner, I expect to read blood and gore, not "c** shots" that last for 150 pages.

Can't wait for the next book. (She said with ever so obvious sarcasm.)