Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A modern vampire story with a twist., 30 Dec 2007
Set in modern-day America, except with vampires legally recognised. You can't put a stake though just any vampire's heart, that would be murder -- you need a warrant first. Anita Blake's 'day'-job is as an Animator -- raising zombies from the dead for short periods of time, usually to settle legal disputes over wills. And she helps out the police department's Preternatural division. But she is also The Executioner: a Vampire Hunter who tracks down and kills rogue vampires. Now someone or something is murdering powerful vampires, and they want her to find and stop the killer. She would prefer to put a stake through her employer's heart.
This is a very successful cross between the vampire and detective genres. It is often difficult to write a successful science fiction or fantasy detective story, because of the danger of using techno babble as a plot device such as the plot being solved by "and so he got out of the locked room by using his sonic screwdriver". However, detective novels fall along a spectrum from "English country house who done it mysteries", where the reader and detective are swamped with clues and red herrings and have to puzzle out the solution, to `American hard-boiled gum-shoe noir', where the cynical and world-weary detective keeps poking sticks into holes and getting beaten up until the killer becomes obvious.
The latter style can translate well into fantasy, where the critters doing the beatings-up are a bit strange; and this is what we get here. Blake doesn't so much solve the mystery, as get everybody riled up enough that eventually the killer tries for her.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Anita Blake doesn't date vampires--she kills them, 6 Jul 2004
"Guilty Pleasures" is the first Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel by Laurell K. Hamilton, but when you read it you will wish that it was not. What I mean by that convoluted sentence is that Anita is well into her career as an Animator when this book opens and the more you find out about her backstory the more you want to learn. One of the most important things in this story is when the master vampire Jean-Claude puts the first two marks upon Anita, which links them psychically and makes her somewhat immune to the mental powers of the vampires. Obviously this will have long term repercussions in the series, but it is not as momentous a change since this is the first novel in the series; when it happens Anita has talked about killing vampires, but we have yet to see her ply her trade. If there had been a prequel to this story, in which Anita earned her reputation as "The Executioner" and we learned the rules of the game in terms of vampires and this brave new world they inhabit, then her transformation in "Guilty Pleasures" would have the weight it deserves. Similarly, the idea that the thousand-year-old Master Vampire of St. Louis wants to hire Anita to solve the sudden rash of vampire murders also has less impact than it would if this story was told further down the line. Hamilton comes up with some excellent ideas in this novel, but you can imagine how much more of an impact they would have if this was the third or fourth Anita Blake novel instead of the first. However, Hamilton gets high marks for giving us the feel that we have stepped into an ongoing story, always a laudable goal. You have to be quite optimistic about her ability to up the ante as the series continues. The world of Anita Blake is one in which the Supreme Court has granted the undead equal rights, so that you cannot kill a vampire without a warrant and you can just imagine the legal morass involving zombies, ghouls and were-beasts. Hamilton has created a world in which the undead are still creatures of the night but have become a part of society, which runs the spectrum from vampire strip clubs such as the Guilty Pleasures of the title to the Church of Eternal Life where becoming a vampire can help you achieve that particular goal. This is a thoughtful look at the "realities" of such a world and although you will recognize elements from Stoker and Rice in this world, Hamilton has constructed one that stands on its own. As for our heroine, she is also extremely realistic: Anita Blake has horrible scars on her body from her battles against the undead, her dreams are tormented by what she has seen and done, she is terrified by her current situation and does not know who she can trust or turn to for help. The fact that she feels fear, cries, gets sick to her stomach, add to her heroism because despite all these obstacles, she gets the job done. There is a much harder edge here than what you find with other vampire slayers. Anita Blake is not a two-dimension character, which is why once you read "Guilty Pleasures" you have to move on to the next novel in the series. All in all, this is an excellent start.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Vampires in the real world., 1 Nov 2002
Here's where it all starts.
Anita Blake is a necromancer, vampire slayer and old fashioned gal all rolled into one.
Don't come here looking for a Buffy clone because you won't find one. Anita is as hard as nails and the books don't hold back on the violence.
The story does have some traditional vampire storylines such as a childlike master vampire and the seductive french vampire but these stereotypes are what work for this genre. Mix with this the completely original humour and character the author has given our heroine and it makes for a very entertaining read.
It's a short book but is just the stepping stone for what follows later. Filled with vampires, zombies, wererats and heaps of magic all set in the real world you will not be able to put it down. Just be thankful that there are many that follow after this to keep you satisfied.... ....for a while at least.
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