Incubus Dreams (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter (Hardcover))

Rating:
Summary: I never thought sex could get boring....
Review: ...but then I read this book.

I can say that I definitely not a prude. I find erotica entertaining, but I did not buy this book for erotica. I bought it for a good story with evil powers, vampire political intrigue, and a good ol' mystery plot. Instead, I got page after page of dull sex. It was complete overload. I found myself skipping chapters to find the plot (boy, you had to look hard to find it!)

I will not go into great detail on the book and my disappointment in it, because so many other reviewers have summed it all up nicely.... the one-dimensional characters, the aimless drawn-out sex, the lack of plot, the multitude of typographic errors, and the redundance of certain phrases.

In the book there was one single ray of hope for our beloved Anita.... there was an indication that she was gaining control of the ardeur. Maybe, just maybe, she will have control in the next book, and then there might actually be a plot instead of sex, sex, sex.

It used to be that I would pre-order any book by Ms. Hamilton.
This one, I waited for it to be in the Sci-Fi book club one a buy one book, get one free deal. After this one, I just may wait to find a beat-up paperback at a yard sale before I buy another one of her books.



Rating:
Summary: Beyond Disappointing......
Review: After having finished the latest installment of the Anita Blake series, I have to wonder if Hamilton has been researching "Letters to Penthouse" for material.

What happened to the creative story telling that put her on the New York Times Best Seller List? About a fourth of the way through "Incubus Dreams" and I'm begining to wonder if there is going to be any type of story or if it is simply going to page after page of Hamilton's fantasies in vivid detail.

I think I'll pass on future installments.

Rating:
Summary: Just don't understand what all the hoopla is about
Review: I just finished reading this book and it was out-f'ing-standing! Honestly, I don't understand where all the negativity is coming from toward this book. I was introduced to this series only a about a month ago, and I've managed to read all twelve books in the past several weeks. Maybe it's from reading the entire series in a short span of time, but honestly, I find LKH's writing to be some of the best among the vampire genre to date.

Sure, there is a great deal more sex in this book than the rest of the series, but if you actually stop to *comprehend* what you are reading, instead of reacting to something that may offend some prudish sensibility buried deep in your psyche, then it all makes sense. I've read all the comments here, and on other sites, and simply don't understand all the negativity. Some have said that Anita no longer spend time investigating crimes -- not true. From what I have read, she spent the same amount of time solving crimes in this book as she did in all the others. The only thing I can think of to explain the negativity is either 1) some outdated sense of morality that doesn't belong in vampire fiction or 2) some reader's fear of change in a beloved character.

Considering several people have complained and stated that they want the "old Anita" back, I would say that reason #2 is leading the pack at the moment. Personally, I don't think the Anita of "Guilty Pleasures" coming back, and I'm happy with that fact. It's called "character development" and is essential for a novel to be successful, especially for a series. Besides, I think I'm liking the "new Anita" better than the whiny, overly self-righteous Anita of old. Somehow, she seems more "real" as a character now. She's faced several very large challenges and survived them. It's going to change a person...fictional or not...sometimes for the better and sometimes not. Either way, its growth and an essential element for good writing.

Overall, LKH has done a wonderful job with this entire series. Her style of writing is unique and allows for a great deal of insight in to the prinicipal character of Anita Blake. She has a fine attention for detail and obviously carefully researches many of the elements in her novels. A great take on the vampire genre and I look forward to the next Anita Blake novel.

Rating:
Summary: All sex - no plot
Review: Not up to snuff. The plot twists, red herrings, and constant energy were missing from this episode. Yes, you learn more about the characters but at what price.
Let's hope Ms Hamilton has what ever this was out of her system and either kills Anita off or returns to what made her a crossover favorite.

Rating:
Summary: Oh My God I'm Such A Prude!!!!!!
Review: Thanks to all the reviews on Incubus Dreams that have informed me that because readers don't like the sex in this book, we're obviously prudes. That is so true! I had no idea, but now these helpful comments have made it clear to me that I am, in fact, freakishly conservative, hideously prudish, frigid, let's face it--I can't handle anything other than strictly vanilla missionary-style sex in my books between married people. Thank you for showing me the light!!!!

The sex in ID wasn't horribly written and mechanical--I'm just a big ole prude!

The sex in ID wasn't boring and repetitive--I'm just a silly ole prude!

The sex in ID wasn't gross and meaningless--I'm just a mean ole prude!

Snail trails are SEXY!

Rainmaker comments are SEXY!

Pleasuring a guy without throwing up is SEXY!

Not showering between sex-a-thons is SEXY!

Having sex with strangers in strip clubs and on the job is SEXY!

Ripping off all your fingernails while having sex with someone is SEXY!

**************************

It's not the sex in the book that makes Incubus Dreams so awful. If Anita Blake, the protagonist, was even remotely likeable, was even remotely a reasonable character and not an obvious Mary Sue, then maybe the sex scenes wouldn't have been so offensive.

Unfortunately, Anita Blake really is unlikable, really is unreasonable and an obvious Mary Sue. She whines all the time. She complains about everything. She's a hypocrite. She blames others for her unhappiness. Why care about a person like this?

Other problems with Incubus Dreams:

1) No editing. Berkley ought to be ashamed of itself. This is supposed to be a professional product written by a professional writer and published by a professional house. It looks like something someone posted to the internet during their lunch break. Not good.

2) The characterization is atrocious. What happened to these people? Richard is a boot-licking, cringing apologist. Jean-Claude is weak and boring, and has some of the most embarrassing lines in the book. Jason is now a turncoat. Ronnie is now a jealous creep. Nathaniel... Lord only knows what Nathaniel is. And Micah continues to unimpress.

3) The sob stories! Listen to character after character reveal their terrible, terrible traumas to Anita Blake. Everyone has been abused! Sexually, emotionally, physically, it's all there. And the reader gets to slog through pages and pages of sob-stories, all of which (save one) are transparent manipulations to get the reader to sniffle into her Kleenex and pity the poor characters. Blah.

4) Talk, talk, talkity talk. People in the Anitaverse don't speak to each other like people in real life do. I'm not sure what this is, but it's not dialogue. It's more like page filler with quotations attached. Apparently, everyone in Incubus Dreams is an idiot, judging from the way they talk. And apparently everyone has to have long, tedious, dull discussions about having sex with each other BEFORE having sex with each other, WHILE having sex with each other, and AFTER having sex with each other. It's exhausting to read. Ugh.

5) Plot? Murder? No way! In Incubus Dreams, female strippers are being killed by wicked vampires, but Anita Blake is more upset over who she's going to have to have sex with than that people are dying in Saint Louis. Awful. Anita needs to get her priorities straight.

6) Sanctimonious nonsense. Oooh, look at the big bad stupid white male cops! Ooh, they're so sexist and racist! Oooh, look at the homophobic jerk! Oooh, he's so evil! Now, you know a book is truly bad when virtues like tolerance and diversity are annoying. Racism is horrible, sexism is horrible, homophobia is horrible--and yet, the way Incubus Dreams is written, these messages of love and tolerance are made cheap and trite, which is a true shame. Anita Blake doesn't sound like a good person, she sounds preachy, and even worse, phony. Horrible.

7) Oh wow. Everyone loves Anita. And if a character doesn't love Anita, they're either a bad, bad, stupid person or they're inconsequential. You know you've entered the land of Mary Sue when all of the characters love the protagonist and tell her over and over again how beautiful and desirable and wonderful and strong she is, and the few characters who don't like her or actively dislike her are turned into psychos and idiots. Very, very obvious. It's so obvious it's insulting. Yuck.

8) Anita Blake is all-powerful! She's like all of the X-Men rolled into one narcissistic jerk. She can't be defeated, and the book is filled with random plot devices that grant Anita even more pointless powers than before. Soon Anita will be able to shoot laser beams out of her eyes and dodge bullets. She'll be like Neo from the Matrix, only whinier. Can't wait.

*****************

If you like reading books because there is sex in them, then fine. This book might be cool. And people who have read this book and enjoyed it for the sex scenes are cool--that's good. There's nothing wrong with liking ID because it has sex in it.

However, there are many reasons why a book is good and why a book is bad, and there are many reasons for a person to like a book and for a person to dislike a book. There are also many different levels that a book can be read on. If you read Incubus Dreams on one level, the level that does not scrutinize the characters and just wants the sex scenes, then Incubus Dreams does its job. However, if you read a book on another (not necessarily better) level, the level that DOES examine the characters, the writing, and the purpose of the book, then Incubus Dreams fails at its job.

Incubus Dreams is not a "sex book." It is a novel. Judged by the criteria that make up a successful novel, this book fails on every account. It is, simply, a bad novel. A good sex book? Maybe. A good novel? No.

To those who haven't read Incubus Dreams yet, I strongly urge you not to read it. If you must read it, don't buy it. Borrow it. Then, if you like it enough to want to own a copy, by all means, buy one. Too many people are too angry with this book for too many reasons, though, for anyone to buy the book without having tried it first.

Rating:
Summary: Wow. Just...wow.
Review: The Anita Blake series started of SOOO strongly. The author presented an great heroine in a well crafted alternate modern day earth where vampires, werewolves, magic, etc. were all very real. The first several books were well written, interesting, and, well, just plain good.

Then Laurell Hamilton decided to introduce the arduer, and succeeded in DESTROYING the series.

I guess she got tired of writing good mystery-action-adventure-horror stories, and decided that porn was just easier. Because each book in the series since the ardeur has steadly decended into porn. Bad porn.

And with this monstrosity of a rag, she's hit rock bottom. The first 150 pages are sex, talking about sex, talking about wanting sex, touching until there's sex, or just touching talking about how much it makes you want sex.

I don't mind sex in the books I read. I'm no ultra conservative prude. But in this thing, there's absolutely nothing INTERESTING about it. I reads like a bad porn movie. Anita walks into room. Enter actors a and b. Sex. Pan to next seen. Enter actor c. Sex. Pan to next seen. Enter actor d....

The sex she presents IS the story. Everything else is tertiary. Who's Anita gonna have sex with now? That's what the series has become. It's no longer "Anita Blake..Vampire Executioner." It's now "Anita Blake....horny chick."

I've officially given up on the series. I hung in there til page 150, but the book is so mind-numbingly BAD, that I felt compelled to sign onto Amazon.com and write a review!

Rating:
Summary: Getting bored.
Review: This book was a LITTLE more interesting than all of the other's but they pretty much all have the same story line. She's with a vampire (or is it 2 or 3), and anything else that hits her fancy. She kills the bad guys. The only thing that saves this book is that the Hamilton had A LOT more pages to build up to the few sexual content scenes and this one has only one more than the rest of the books. The first HALF of the series she's trying to decide to sleep with and who to kill and by this book she's "sleeping" with just about anything that moves and killing it, too. I hope that this series doesn't have to many more books left. Eventhough, I'll have to read them just to see if she ends up with any certain being...I like Hamilton's other series the "Meredith Gentry" series a lot better. If your looking for a series to read, read that one instead.

Rating:
Summary: An Increasingly Downward Spiral
Review: This book was an utter disappointment. I am a diehard Anita Blake fan and I suffered through Cerulean Sins and now this? The first books in the series were so much better. Anita was still a believeable fiction character. This is thinly veiled pornography with Anita as some sort of supernatural vixen who has to go to bed with practically every man she meets because of the ardeur. I won't part with the first novels through Blue Moon. I even liked Obsidian Butterfly, but this is to the point of ridiculous.

Don't bother buying one new. I can't believe I purchased this in advance. Check out one from your library or check out an online auction. My copy's on eBay and I really hope to part with it soon. I think I'll be moving on to another author. Promising authors are Kim Harrison and Kelley Armstrong.

Sorry, Laurell. I love your earlier books, but I can't handle Anita's current state. Can't we have her wake up from some really bad dream and find the last 2 books were non-existent?

Rating:
Summary: Anita Blake has gone porn
Review: This is a truely pathetic book in (what started off as) one of the best series I have read in a long time. The book is almost 700 pages and roughly 550 of it is sex. Anita cares about little else anymore.

I learned almost nothing new about the characters or the political situation going on with Jean Claude. I can, however, tell you how Anita likes to give head. An average sex scene (with foreplay) lasted up to 3 chapters. Compare that to the actual scene where she takes out the bad guy which is a short chapter. WHAT HAPPENED TO LKH?!?!?!

Like many of the reviews here I also think she is just plain running out of good catch lines and feels the need to reuse them over and over again. In previous novels I laughed out loud at the conversations. Now I just roll my eyes.

Richard, Jean Claude, Nathaniel etc. have become one dimensional characters who roll over whenever Anita wants them to. Yes we get the point that Anita is a hard ass but once upon a time the men in this novel also had a spine.

I use to wait in anticipation for the next novel of the series but now I'd rather read something else.

Hey if you like oversexed novels with little to no plot this is for you. But if you're like me and loved watching Anita out of the bedroom on her feet instead of her back stick to the earlier books.

Rating:
Summary: Oh . . . my . . . God!
Review: Well . . . what has happened here? I almost feel as if I have missed several books in the series before this one. I seem to recall that Anita was developing more and more supernatural powers. I guess that's not imporant anymore.

I completely agree that this book is a mess. Don't bother trying to clean it up. If you are a completest, as am I, you will, unfortunately, be unable to pass up the next Blake book no matter how bad we know it will be. We shall suffer together.

Beyond the abundance of errors, both editorial and the just plain "WHAT?" factor, the biggest error of all was the title of the book. Rather than Incubus Dreams, it should have been Succubus Dreams.

For those of you NOT paying attention in Sunday school, Incubus: male who feeds off female sexuallity. Succubus: female who feeds off male sexuality. Anita seems to have to feed off every male in the area, that makes her a SUCCUBUS. Get it, psuedo-editors? Where is the male nightmare in this . . . story?

Her need for sex has become boring in the extreme. I don't know, can we go perhaps six chapters without sex? Oooo-oooo, I know, how about a book about a vampire executioner named Anita Blake? You know, she could KILL VAMPIRES AND S**T !!??!!

I cannot even express how disappointed I am in the direction of this series. I read erotic novels, I even enjoy them, but I want to know what I'm reading. If I pick up an Anita Blake, Vampire Executioner, I expect to read blood and gore, not "c** shots" that last for 150 pages.

Can't wait for the next book. (She said with ever so obvious sarcasm.)