Laurell K Hamilton likes to write porn-and judging from the format of her latest Anita Blake book, she must like watching it was well. The feel of Bullet is standard porn style, a bit of plot-sex scene-a bit of plot-sex scene-forget the plot add another sex scene-a bit of plot-sex scene.
For a change up from the porn plot she ends with a bit of good old fashioned Tell, Don’t Show exposition which wraps up a number of loose ends by telling us this happened, then this happened, then that happened. The End.
Laurell is kind of tired of people bitching and moaning about all the gratuitous sex in the Anita Blake books, so she adds a scene in Bullet where the choice is either everyone kills each other or everyone has sex with each other. In Anita Blake’s universe sex trumps all other powers-which is fine, if Laurell wasn’t so obsessed with giving us literal blow by blow sex scenes.
Anita also crosses that finial frontier and has sex with a woman, though I suppose in her countless orgies this may have happened before and I just don’t recall it. Which bring up the real problem with Laurell K Hamilton’s sex scenes-they are usually pretty boring and they bring the story, such as it is, to a screeching halt while we watch Anita’s eyes roll back in her head. It also continues to add more and more people to the never ending cast.
The world of Bullet is also a shrinking world-Anita and Company never leave the basement world of the Circus of The Damned-much of the action that does take place happens outside of the Batcave and we only see it via emails and phone messages. WTF?
Then there is problem with the action that takes place in The Circus of The Damned, Anita murders somebody. Anita Blake kills people left and right, but she rarely goes out of her way to commit outright cold blooded murder, which she does here. Anita is slipping toward to darkside a little bit more every book.
Sex has always been a big part of all vampire stories from Dracula on down-the problem with the Anita Blake books is that sex has become the dominate element. I watch House to see him solve the mystery and heal the patient-yes I would like him to hook up with Cuddy, but it really doesn’t matter if he never does. And I sure don’t need to see them do the deed.
Another major problem with Anita Blake is that she has no kryptonite. Superman has to have a weakness or he would just overpower anyone who challenges him and there would be no tension or suspense. Anita Blake just overpowers anyone who challenges her. Yes, she is the good guy so I expect her to win, but as she works her way to godhood, it is going to take a god to challenge her. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I remember Lestat biting Jesus and drinking his blood-I can easily image a similar scene with Jesus and Anita.
Laurell K Hamilton’s Bullet is much like the last few books, so if liked them, you’ll like Bullet as well. There is sex, violence, gnarly supernatural powers, more sex, more violence, and the ever present hint that Something Big is going to happen soon-not now, and maybe not in the next ten books, but soon. The big news in Bullet is that Richard agrees to have sex with Jean Claude and Asher and Anita has sex with women-so those last holdouts to that prudish old fashioned idea that having sex with anything that moves is a bad idea falls by the wayside. The pansexual Anita is proud of Richard for getting over his homophobia-the result is that one of the strongest characters in the series becomes a total and complete pussy in every sense of the word. Richard’s sudden change feels forced and is so out of character I couldn’t even think of him as the Richard I have come to know.
Since Anita Blake is immortal, being the human servant of Jean Claude-a Master Vampire, I would like to see a finial book some day set a few hundred years in the future. In his future world Anita and Jean Claude and Richard rule the world. There would be no evil left to fight and no one left to have sex with. They are rapidly approach that point already.
I still like the Anita Blake books and I keep reading them, waiting for the Big Event, waiting for the plot to reappear, or at least waiting for Laurell K Hamilton to write porn properly.
