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morrigirlAfter finishing The Raw Shark Texts yesterday, (good book; kind of like "Momento," "The Matrix," House of Leaves, and "Jaws" all rolled into one), I picked up the copy of Dead Until Dark that has been sitting on the office book swap shelf for ages. I read three pages, and put it back.
I have an aversion to characters who tell me how drop dead gorgeous they are on the first page. A start like that tells me a lot about what is important within the narrative: beauty, sexiness, romance, and sex. They usually come hand in hand with cliches, unrealistic relationship development, shoddy writing, and cringe-worthy sex scenes. None of that interests me. I don't like reading about pretty people, particularly pretty people who bitch and moan about how they can't get a date. Three pages of Sookie Stackhouse was all I could take.
Having abandoned Charlaine Harris, I turned to one of the urban fantasy books I acquire through PaperBack Swap - Guilty Pleasures, the first book in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. Like the Southern Vampire Mysteries, I've never had any strong desire to read the Anita Blake books, but was willing to give them a go because 1) everyone loves them so much, and 2) they are basically considered urban fantasy "canon."
Laurell K. Hamilton pretty much invented contemporary urban fantasy. Guilty Pleasures was first published in 1993 when epic fantasy was still the industry norm. It came out four years before Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit television, and roughly ten years before urban fantasy became a driving force in fantasy literature.
I'm up to page fifty, and though I'm not impressed, now I know where every urban fantasy cliche originated: the generic, sassy, opinionated heroine; the sexy, yet sensitive and overly protective vampire lover; the ridiculous, comedic side-kicks. They're all there. Hamilton's writing is serviceable, but that's about it. Nothing dazzles on the page. Anita herself has virtually no personality. Fifty pages in all I know about her is what she does for a living and that she hates vampires. She has no interests, hobbies, quirks, or defining characteristics. She's a blank slate.
I think the urban fantasy novelists who have taken Hamilton's formula and run with it over the last ten years have improved upon it greatly. Writer's like Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Caine, and Richelle Mead give their characters actual personalities! They give their romantic subp-lots time to development in a realistic fashion. They come up with fleshed out secondary characters who are just as charming as the protagonists. They bring an improved awareness of craft and technique to their books. They have zeroed in on the problem areas of the urban fantasy formula and fixed them. So it's kind of sad that new urban fantasy writers still try to imitate Hamilton when they could be trying to imitate her successors, or better yet, coming up with something totally new.
Problems aside, I do plan to finish reading Guilty Pleasures. It's good enough and short enough, and it's not as off-putting as Dead Until Dark. But it's going to have to get A LOT better for me to move on the second book.
Thanks to PaperBack Swap I've accumulated a small library of urban fantasy books I was never interested in spending money on but am perfectly willing to sample for free. I've got the first book in Kim Harrison's Hollows series, Jenna Black's Morgan Kinglesy series, Vicki Pettersson's Sign of the Zodiac series, and Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville series. To be perfectly honest, I'm not optimistic about the quality of these books, but feel I should at least give them a chance because I'm fond of the genre. And, you know, I have been wrong in the past. I wasn't optimistic about the Georgina Kincaid books either and they turned out to be freaking awesome! So, who knows?
I have an aversion to characters who tell me how drop dead gorgeous they are on the first page. A start like that tells me a lot about what is important within the narrative: beauty, sexiness, romance, and sex. They usually come hand in hand with cliches, unrealistic relationship development, shoddy writing, and cringe-worthy sex scenes. None of that interests me. I don't like reading about pretty people, particularly pretty people who bitch and moan about how they can't get a date. Three pages of Sookie Stackhouse was all I could take.
Having abandoned Charlaine Harris, I turned to one of the urban fantasy books I acquire through PaperBack Swap - Guilty Pleasures, the first book in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. Like the Southern Vampire Mysteries, I've never had any strong desire to read the Anita Blake books, but was willing to give them a go because 1) everyone loves them so much, and 2) they are basically considered urban fantasy "canon."
Laurell K. Hamilton pretty much invented contemporary urban fantasy. Guilty Pleasures was first published in 1993 when epic fantasy was still the industry norm. It came out four years before Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit television, and roughly ten years before urban fantasy became a driving force in fantasy literature.
I'm up to page fifty, and though I'm not impressed, now I know where every urban fantasy cliche originated: the generic, sassy, opinionated heroine; the sexy, yet sensitive and overly protective vampire lover; the ridiculous, comedic side-kicks. They're all there. Hamilton's writing is serviceable, but that's about it. Nothing dazzles on the page. Anita herself has virtually no personality. Fifty pages in all I know about her is what she does for a living and that she hates vampires. She has no interests, hobbies, quirks, or defining characteristics. She's a blank slate.
I think the urban fantasy novelists who have taken Hamilton's formula and run with it over the last ten years have improved upon it greatly. Writer's like Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Caine, and Richelle Mead give their characters actual personalities! They give their romantic subp-lots time to development in a realistic fashion. They come up with fleshed out secondary characters who are just as charming as the protagonists. They bring an improved awareness of craft and technique to their books. They have zeroed in on the problem areas of the urban fantasy formula and fixed them. So it's kind of sad that new urban fantasy writers still try to imitate Hamilton when they could be trying to imitate her successors, or better yet, coming up with something totally new.
Problems aside, I do plan to finish reading Guilty Pleasures. It's good enough and short enough, and it's not as off-putting as Dead Until Dark. But it's going to have to get A LOT better for me to move on the second book.
Thanks to PaperBack Swap I've accumulated a small library of urban fantasy books I was never interested in spending money on but am perfectly willing to sample for free. I've got the first book in Kim Harrison's Hollows series, Jenna Black's Morgan Kinglesy series, Vicki Pettersson's Sign of the Zodiac series, and Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville series. To be perfectly honest, I'm not optimistic about the quality of these books, but feel I should at least give them a chance because I'm fond of the genre. And, you know, I have been wrong in the past. I wasn't optimistic about the Georgina Kincaid books either and they turned out to be freaking awesome! So, who knows?
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Date: 2010-06-14 12:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 08:06 am (UTC)Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-15 02:54 am (UTC)Gabrielle Union: aside from being a prime example of pure, smoking hotness, she's also a damn fine actress.
I think there was an episode of "Friends" where Ross and Rachel contemplated who would be on their "freebie list", a list of five celebrities they were each allowed to sleep with should the chance ever present itself.
Gabrielle Union would be at the top of my freebie list. The four remaining slots? I'm still kind of waffling on those.
Who would be on your freebie list?
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-15 09:31 am (UTC)"Who would be on your freebie list?"
Jennifer Tilly, Drew Barrymore, Jessica Beil...
Allison Hannigan would've USED to be on it, but she has a kid now! and that weirds me out!
I LOVE Joan Jett... so her, too. But she's SO awesome I'd feel unworthy!
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-16 03:45 am (UTC)Oh c'mon, we're talking sex not nesting. You can still do Alyson Hannigan even if she is a mom.
I can picture a religion springing up around Joan Jett - Her photograph placed upon an altar made out of a couple cinder blocks and a Gibson guitar.
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-16 08:08 am (UTC)uh huh! she's so ADORABLE.
"I can picture a religion springing up around Joan Jett"
YES!
her and Lemmy.
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-17 08:24 am (UTC)i could build one myself! I have like a half dozen of her posters! :D
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-19 09:45 am (UTC)and Nixon of the suicide girls:
http://suicidegirls.com/girls/Nixon/
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-19 09:20 pm (UTC)Okay, maybe you can explain to me the appeal of Zooey Deschanel. I don't get it. She just strikes me as so...generic. What makes her so hot in your opinion?
I think I'd put Ian Somerhalder on my list under Gabrielle Union. There was a time when I'd have put Vincent Kartheiser on but...I'm not so sure about that anymore.
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-19 09:36 pm (UTC)she's quirky, cute, AND she can sing!
"your limit of five."
I MAKE MY OWN RULES, MAN!
;)
"Ian Somerhalder"
who?
"Vincent Kartheiser"
I know who he is! didn't like his character on "Angel", but he's probably a good actor.
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-21 04:47 am (UTC)And, as you can see, I am using my Vincent Kartheiser icon. Yeah, his character on Angel was a total butt munch, be he's a really good actor. And he's kinda cute. Do you watch Mad Men? He's on Mad Men now.
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-21 07:53 am (UTC)no cable! but I've seen pics. certainly a different look for him!
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-22 02:06 am (UTC)Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-22 07:38 am (UTC)and the Sopranos is OVER, so's that western I wanted to see, so fuck it.
I'm generally tired of TV, aside from the shows I already like.
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-23 09:14 am (UTC)Eliza Dushku and Kirsten Dunst were in it, so I HAD to watch it!
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-06-24 07:51 pm (UTC)And, just for fun....
SPIRIT FINGERS!
Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-08-23 11:46 pm (UTC)Re: Click here for pure, smoking hotness!
Date: 2010-08-24 04:16 am (UTC)