Dead Until Dark, Living Dead in Dallas, Club Dead, Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

[lightreads]

Meet Sookie Stackhouse, waitress in small town Louisiana. She can (entirely inexplicably) read minds. Vampires have just “come out of the closet” into mainstream society, and Sookie’s talents and romances draw her into their world where she deals with weres, shifters, evil witches, and supernatural killers.

These books are of the new and flourishing urban fantasy/romance hybrid, and the best description I can come up with for them is “not unreadable.” The writing is unremarkable, Sookie is livable – she is at least very much a product of her geography, as she can be laughably provincial – and the vampire love interests have sex appeal and vampire angst cut from the same cardboard stock – which is to say they elicit the same distant bemusement in me. Sookie starts out as the overlooked virgin, but then becomes the sudden focus of lust for four or five men as the books progress; what? This is what women want to read about, right?

All of which is entirely unremarkable in its general dullness, except for the part where Sookie calls her telepathy her “disability.” And hey, it purportedly stunted her social interactions and made school difficult, and hurray for the social model of constructed disability. But it got seriously up my nose anyway, big time. Partly because it’s just so disingenuous and downright unlikely coming from someone so ignorant and unworldly (Sookie comments at one point that her local sheriff just got disabled bathrooms installed for the first time), and partly because it felt so deeply presumptuous to me personally (this response is both less valid and less analytical, but there you go).

Also, on the topic of things that made me go “erp!” let me describe this scene to you. Our heroine has just been deflowered by cardboard vampire lover number one. Predictably it hurt, followed by waves of shattering pleasure. After the fact, she asks when they can do it again, and cardboard vampire says a few days to give her a chance to heal. But, you see, vampire blood has healing properties, so Sookie is all “why don’t you just . . .” and cardboard vampire goes “oh!” and cuts his fingers open and – well. You've got an imagination.

You know something? There are times when someone’s kink comes whizzing past your ear and you just watch it go in vague bemusement because hey, whatever floats their boat. And there are other times where you just really did not want to know that about your author. Ick.

Anyway. You’ll note I did read a small stack of these books, because brainless really is a positive quality sometimes. But this genre has a lot better fare to offer – I strongly recommend Kim Harrison over these books, on every measure.

Comments

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

I think I read the first one of those, and my reaction was "meh". You know a story is bad when recent Laurell K Hamilton books are more interesting.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

**snicker**

I have a friend who's writing urban paranormal romance under a pseudonym because the market for hard SF has dried up and blown away. I'll let you know when her first book gets published; I'd be interested to know what you think and she probably would, too.

[nomadicwriter]

Yeah. You remember a while back I was muttering about having reached the point with urban fantasies where I ditched them as soon as the obligatory vampire boyfriend showed up? This would be one of the ones that triggered that reflex. Unfortunately for Ms. Harris, I took out a whole stack of urban fantasy books at the same time, and I picked up hers straight after slamming my previous read shut because I couldn't take any more of the vampire boyfriend. So it's good to know I didn't miss that much.

Have you encountered Carrie Vaughn's "Kitty and the Midnight Hour"? That was one I expected to be bad - female werewolf as a late night radio DJ - but was pleasantly surprised: some quite interesting stuff with the werewolf pack dynamics, and fairly understated handling of a bit of angsty backstory that I would have expected to be beaten over the head with. I liked it enough that I have the sequel sitting on my shelf, though I haven't got around to picking it up yet.

I'm also currently reading another urban fantasy that seems quite promising, "The Devil You Know" by Mike Carey. The lead character's an exorcist and so far it's quite intriguing, although right now I'm only about six chapters in.

[minnaleigh.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this! People keep encouraging me to read this series because I liked the Kim Harrison one so much and now you have saved me from it!

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

I still haven't gotten to the Hamilton, actually. I feel it's sort of my duty to at least start the vampire ones, and at this point I'm so raveningly curious. Vastly forewarned, though.

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

Please do, and best of luck to her! The paranormal romance market is a bit glutted these days, so props for publishing.

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I hadn't heard of either of those. *notes them down*

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

Oh, seriously, don't go there. Unless you just want a giggle, of course.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

She's a fabulous writer and actually this deal was presented to her, not the other way around. She wasn't even thinking about writing paranormal romance, but her agent told her that if she wants to publish right now, that's what she needs to write.

(She also teaches writing at MIT and does these fabulous glass art pieces... very creative woman.)