Rating: 
Summary: First in a WONDERFUL series!
Review: I'm not clear on how I ended up buying this book, but I will be glad I did for as long as I live and breathe! Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series has it all: action, humor, sex appeal...you name it. This is Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the intellectual adult!What a concept -- the U.S. is the same, but for one teensy fact, vampires are legal. The political issues alone -- whether to maintain their legality, whether to grant them the vote, etiquette for patrons of vampire-owned businesses -- are cleverly wrought. When you have legal vampires (lycanthropes are legal too, but lycanthropy is classified as a disease) mixing with the human population, you get some really interesting situations...especially since legality doesn't instantly confer harmlessness on the monsters, and there are people out there who would do anything to rid the world of the monsters, nice or nasty, doesn't matter. In this first installment of the so-far 9-book series, Anita is "hired" by (more or less threatened into) the Master Vampire of St. Louis, Nikolaus, to discover the identity of a serial killer who has been preying on vampires. Anita is a great heroine, intelligent, fast on her feet (she has to be, with the beasties that are after her!), brave, and not remotely squeamish. In this book, we also meet some recurring characters, but the most important of these (to me, anyway) is Jean-Claude, the second most powerful vampire in the city, who has a thing for Anita -- lucky girl! JC is the first vampire I've encountered in fiction that I wish were real -- Anne Rice's vampires are interesting, sure, but I'd only offer my neck to JC! Suffice to say, once I tried GUILTY PLEASURES, I ran right out and got the rest of the series! A word of advice -- these are books you DEFINITELY must read in order. If you're anything like me, you'll be waiting (im)patiently for the next installment, and hoping it never ends!
Rating:
Summary: Guilty Pleasures
Review: To begin with, I'm a big fan of the Anita Blake series. Anita is a heroine anybody can relate to. She's a very young person who has already seen the darkness in the world and is doing everything in her power to fight it. She's willing to play by the bad guy's rules if it means saving innocent people, which makes her character all the more intriguing. Guilty Pleasures isn't my favorite book in the series but it does a nice job of setting up Hamilton's world. It introduces you to most of the main players--including Jean-Claud who could make anybody want to believe in vampires. One of the things that I like about the series is that the good guys aren't always that good and they don't always do what's right. Her world is well imagined and consistant. A friend of mine who read them at my suggestion called them candy. The series is kind of like a bag of dark chocolate; once you taste one you keep having to have just one more bite; and, before you know it, the whole bag is gone.
Rating:
Summary: Wondrously Entertaining for the Imagination!
Review: While not a classic (yet?), Guilty Pleasures offers a world in which the creatures of fantasy and reality co-exist. The novel is wondrously entertaining for the imagination. At the same time, it offers a unique version behind the history of vampires (including a Supreme Court ruling that legalized vampires and provided them equal rights) and a hierarchy/organization for the supernatural creatures that makes the world believable. The heroine of the novel is Anita Blake, a strong-willed,... necromancer and animator (she raises zombies for a living) who is also known as "The Executioner" because she has 14 sanctioned vampire kills to her name. She is enlisted by the local Master (Vampire) of the City of St. Louis to solve a series of vampire murders. What ensues is a mystery and a battle for power that sweeps the reader along at a quick pace. Hamilton's style of writing is in your face as opposed to smooth or mellifluous and if it's a style you enjoy or can learn to enjoy, you can find yourself absorbed into Anita's thoughts and the world Hamilton creates. Throughout the book and the series in general, we as readers observe and delight in the development of Anita's strength and sexuality, as well as her questioning of her once accepted beliefs regarding monsters and her own morality and spirituality. The Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series can inspire the imagination, can stimulate questions about good and evil, and can empower readers by presenting a strong heroine to root for.
Rating:
Summary: The best books I have ever read.
Review: I read like crazy in school until high school when nothing seemed to catch my attention for long enough. I picked up Guilty Pleasures after receiving a phone call from my sister about 14 hours away from me. She convinced me I had to read this book. I had stopped reading about 8 years ago. I picked up the first book to the Anita Blake series and didn't put it down until I had finished it. It had everything I ever wanted in a book. A tough female central character, a little action, a little romance, gorgeous men, humor, and of course vampires and supernatural creepies. I love the darker stuff. If you like vamps or any other supernatural reading you should definitly read this series. After I read the first I bought them two at a time until I finished the series. (about 4 weeks) I don't want to tell any of the story because I just couldn't do it justice.
Rating: 
Summary: Anita Blake Rates Thumbs-Up from Vampire Collector
Review: As a serious collector (600+ books) of vampire literature, I'd say the series that begins with "Guilty Pleasures" distinguishes itself by seeding the detective genre with convincing supernatural elements. The courts have redefined what it means to be alive, so vampires now have many civil rights... but zombies don't yet. Hamilton's writing style is not as light as Sue Grafton but not quite as dense as Jonathan Kellerman (if that helps). The heroine is hard-boiled and there's plenty of action PLUS philosophical and political musings. Excellent!
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: Excellent introduction to an alternate universe. Lively, witty and keeps your attention.
Rating:
Summary: I'm hooked on Anita Blake
Review: I do not normally enjoy sci fi/fantasy or vampire/monster novels, but I decided to try this book and was immediately hooked. I ended up reading all of the books in this series within a two week period. I'm on the last, "Obsidian Butterfly", right now, and don't know how I'll survive until the next one comes out in 2001. The characters are interesting, the plots are intricate and exciting, and the prose is well written. The way that Anita and the other recurring characters change and deepen as the series progresses makes the series even more compelling. My only complaint is, why did Ms. Hamilton change the spelling of Dolph's name to "Dolf" in "Obsidian Butterfly"? Just wondering...
Rating:
Summary: Actually, pretty darn good...
Review: ...or so says someone who thinks that vampires make fun hunting subjects in Werewolf: The Apocalypse games. And, I watch Buffy, too, and really don't see what people like about leeches. But that's beside the point. It doesn't hurt that Anita Blake is the area's licensed vampire executioner, though, at 24, she's a *tad* young for that, I'd think. It also doesn't hurt that the viewpoint character thinks *all* vampires are monsters...some less than others, but all are bad, just the same. For all intents and purposes, this is a great start to a series. The writing and characterization are consistently high-grade, and the plots are fairly well-thought-out. The heroine, who isn't a high-octane walking death machine, has to use her wits and tools to achieve her objectives, which is usually fodder for better stories. The alternate history is also quite good; she doesn't tell us, she shows us, in seamlessly dropped-in references: "Wait, I thought lamiae were extinct!" (from a later book, mind you). The only thing I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about is the sexuality; I tend towards prudishness in my reading, and while there's nothing particularly bad in this book, as the series goes along, I keep getting the feeling I'm not the target audience. Yet, I still keep buying additional books. It's that good.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!!!
Review: What a brilliant start to a series. When we meet Anita Blake, she's already got a reputation as the Executioner, someone who legally kills vampires. In the world ms. Hamilton has created, the undead have some legal rights in the US, and one can't just kill them at will. Not surprisingly, most of them know of, and can't wait to get their hands on Anita Blake. When the master Vampire of the city (a deceptively angelic-looking child) wants Anita to investigate vampire murders, Anita balks, but the master threatens and nearly kills Anita before Anita gives in and agrees. Also embroiled in this is flirtatious Philip, who learns what happens when someone defies the master, and vampire Jean Claude, who keeps hitting on Anita, hoping she will become more than his human servant. This is a brutal book, filled with violence and gore, and yet, with the innocence and hope that remains in Anita's soul. Sure, she is tired of having to constantly watch her back, but she is no bitter, jaded woman. She is funny, too clever for her own good sometimes, and always ready to battle evil no matter what the cost. I loved this book and went out and bought Ms. Hamilton's backlist as soon as I finished it.
Rating:
Summary: Hide, Dracula! Anita has a stake with your name on it.
Review: I admit that when I saw the title I thought the book more of a dark romance than of a vampire story. It was nice to be proven wrong. Anita Blake almost leaps off the page, and is easily one of the best characters in a vampire novel. Her words, and her actions which speak louder, are as believable as the world around us. Don't let the title fool you. This is a good book. And each part is better and better.
|
