Bullet
by Laurell K Hamilton
(Headline Publishing Group)
Urban fantasy is one of my favourite genres, and,while I kept hearing about the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novels, I had not had a chance to read any of them. Now that I have, I’ll be perfectly honest and say I wouldn’t read any more Blake books unless there was a gun held to my head.
Bullet is one of (too many) in this series, with a main character who has so many super powers and such creamy, yummy goodness – to paraphrase the author’s description – that no one can resist her and all fall to her dubious charms.
Curiosity drove me to Amazon. com to see what her die-hard fans say about her writing and the over-whelming response is that Hamilton has, literally, lost the plot.
Speaking of which, there isn’t much of a plot here. Hamilton opens the novel at a school musical evening, of all things, and by the time the next scene change occurs, almost a quarter of the book has passed. Then the characters spend the rest of the novel in a subterranean hideaway moping, gyming, fighting and engaging in one boinkfest after the other.
Sex in fiction doesn’t bother me, but when an erotic scene goes on and on – sometimes for chapters on end – and reads like a manual for changing a car tyre, you know the author has a problem.
A whole lot of nothing happens in Bullet, with Blake stepping in to save the day with all her special powers then spending far too much time whimpering about how she never wanted to be so powerful and have so many people at her mercy. Then, just when the story starts picking up, in the last 10 pages, and suggests there may even be some action, Hamilton employs a few paragraphs of narrative summary for the only bits of the plot that may have been worth reading, thereby robbing her readers of any real entertainment.
Another problem with Bullet is the vast menagerie of characters. This book should have been titled Anita’s Zoo because that is what it boils down to: a mind-boggling bestiary of every critter under the sun, from not just vampires to werewolves, but werelions to wererats and, to go beyond ridiculous, even wereswans. And yes, you’d be correct in assuming Blake’s slept with just about every species listed.
As for the writing, it’s formulaic and dull. Hamilton introduces a new character (or a dozen) in every chapter, but lists first their names, that they’re beautiful, when Blake slept with them, what they’re wearing and how their hair is styled. If I had a dollar for every time I read about leather trousers described as “so tight they looked painted on”, I could probably spend a night at a luxury hotel.
From what I hear, Hamilton’s earlier works were quite inventive and entertaining. She needs to review the direction she’s taking her career, because right now I’m gaining the impressions she’s just churning out slush to keep the dollars flowing in. – Nerine Dorman