Dark confession time

[yakalskovich]

I actually like 'Micah'.

Yes.

After the ongoing train wreck that is the Anita Blake series, and the incorrigible whingy nonsense that is Laurell K. Hamilton's writing, something seems to have happened.

That book doesn't meander aimlessly, it has a plot. There is the job Anita has to do, and her relationship with Micah, and the book deals with those two in a clean and to-the-point fashion. It isn't an endless paade of one superfluous BDSM scene after the next sexual interlude, with short bursts of pointless violence, there is an actual story line. And it's not bloated to the point where you can kill gerbils by throwing it at them, it's just a nice crime novel you can put in your handbag and read over a pint of white wine spritzer, watching the world go by.

Why not always like this, Ms. Hamilton?? Is this the one time you were forced to listen to your editor?

Comments

[moons-storm.livejournal.com]

I think she managed to keep it pretty streamlined because she didn't have all the other characters there to play with. Anita was out of town, with only Micah in tow, and no one else. Just them and a crime to solve. Without the vampires and the shifters and all the over-the-top drama Hamilton has made of Anita's life, Micah could be a decent piece of fiction.

It's also massively shorter than everything before it, so that could also have had something do with the tightness of the piece.

[yakalskovich]

Yes, it works very well that way. I am enjoying a book by LKH -- who would have thunk??

I'm not in favour of making every book 500 pages or more. Sometimes, a feature-class story can be told in 245, as in this case.-

P.S.: Love your icon!!

[ashen_key]

That's similar to why I adore Obsidion Butterfly to the extent that I do - Anita's out of town. She's with Edward, there is a crime, and it's wonderful.

[yakalskovich]

It is actually a good thing if there is a crime in a crime novel, yes. Or if there is plot in a novel, at all.-