Circus Of The Damned

Rating:
Summary: Anita Blake is a marked Vampire Hunter/Animator/Necromancer
Review: After her great success in "The Laughing Corpse," one of the finest horror novels I have ever read, Laurell K. Hamilton tries to reach the same heights again in "Circus of the Damned," the third volume in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. For the first time the focus is primarily on the vampires, although Anita's job as an Animator has always been more accurate a description than Vampire Hunter. Once again she is the target of every character in the novel: Jean-Claude the Master Vampire of St. Louis wants to put his final two marks on Anita to make her his human servant, but so does Alejandro, an even older vampire who wants to take Jean-Claude's spot. On top of that there are two other master vampires in town this time around: Yasmeen, who simply wants to rip Anita's heart out, and Oliver, who wants to slaughter humans so that this nonsense about vampires having legal rights will come to an end. Meanwhile, over on the human side of the equation, the leaders of Humans First want to take out Anita for not helping them slay the Master, Edward is back wanting the name from Anita so he can do the same thing, Dolph wants her help in tracking down a pack of vampires that are killing humans, Bert wants her to train Larry Kinkaid the college student turned animator, and just to make things really interesting, Richard, the middle-school teacher who hangs out with Jean-Claude at the Circus of the Damned, wants to go out on a date with Anita where they spend the day spelunking.

While we do find out a bit more about Anita's discovery that she is a necromancer and the issue of her being the human servant of a vampire is finally (?) resolved, the conclusion of "Circus of the Damned" is a bit too reminiscent of the climax of the previous Anita Blake novel. However, Hamilton scores points by continuing the exploring the "real world" implications of her America where vampires have legal rights and the characterization of Anita Blake continues to develop nicely. There is plenty of action and the book is not as gory as its predecessor, but is still one of those "may be too intent for younger children" type reads. Do not come here expecting Buffy.

Rating:
Summary: Will the real Master of the City please stand up?
Review: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Zombie Queen, Necromancer, really didn't love Jean-Claude. At least, that's what she kept telling herself. But soon Jean-Claude is not the only vampire trying to make her his servant. There seems to be a bunch of Master Vampires and they ALL want to become Master of the City. To do that they have to find and kill Jean-Claude. Which means they need Anita to tell them where he is, whether she wants to or not!
The undead battle is about to begin, with vampires, werewolves and even an immortal tossed in for the fun of it. Add Edward (and his lovely flamethrower) and you have the fight of the century. Winner take all. The only problem Anita has with all this is she seems to be First Prize.
Lets get ready to rumble!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This is Laurell Hamilton's third book from her amazing vampire series (be warned after about book 5 the storyline becomes a soap opera). Also, in my opinion the later novels are just plain awful.

Still, as this is the third book in the series, in terms of great vampire fiction, this can't be beat. Meet Ms. Anita Blake, necromancer (she raises zombies) and vampire executioner. She is 5"3", packs all different types of weapons, and is pretty darn tough. She is also caring and very loyal. She works part-time for her money hungry boss raising zombies and is also on loan to the police department helping them solve murders. Anita's world is becoming difficult. First, she has Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire of the City, who wants to make Anita his human servant (even though Anita hates monsters and has no intention of becoming a human servant to anyone). What's worse is that even though Jean Claude drives her crazy, she is attracted to him. You are also introduced to Richard, a very handsome man that Anita is attracted to, but she has no idea why he would want to hang out with Jean-Claude.

Anita gets pulled into a new case by the police dept. There has been a murder, with a body drained dry by as many as five vampires at one time. The problem with this is that vampires don't hunt together unless a master vampire is involved. As Jean Claude is the only master in town next to another vampire that owns a church, Anita has her work cut out in trying to determine who the killer is, why still trying to remain alive.
This is an excellent excellent story. Very highly recommended.