Okay, I've admitted in the past to my deep and possibly sick love for world that is Anita Blake Vampire Hunter. I just finished reading the latest in the series, Danse Macabre, and as a longtime fan I have to say it is some of Laurell K Hamilton's best writing. I know, I know, it's all sex (I mean a godawful ton of sex this time) but it's also all about the politics of this strange little group of vampires, lycanthropes, necromancers and hey - this time we've got merepeople!!! - who populate Hamilton's alternate universe. Anita kills vampires, except the ones she having some mind blowing sex with, and she also runs a wolf pack with a werewolf whose in therapy and she lives with a couple of guys who adore her and love her and just have issues once a month during the full moon (wereleopard and werewolf in case you're wondering).
But I digress.
While I was reading Danse I was still thinking about all of this Harry Potter business and will Rowling kill Harry or not - or will she kill Ron or Hermione or the Weasleys or Hagrid or someone else that is going to make fourth graders all over the world break into tears. I'm still on the side of the happily ever after and in response to everyone (and my cousin) who say you need the real world and the violence and death that we find in the real world against real evil to bring this whole saga home, well - I say take a lesson from Anita Blake!
Anita's life is all about life or death and she goes up against a big nasty practically every time she gets out of bed. Someone's always trying to kill her or someone close to her and she carries guns and knives for a reason - because she needs them. There is a lot of violence in this series, (we're talking tons of body ripping violence) and Hamilton goes out of her way to show that vampires might be sexy but a lot of them are just plain nasty and need to die. But - and this is a very big but - the core group soldiers on. They get banged up and bashed around and have a lot of bloody bruised moments but they still come back to fight again. In Danse Anita finally has a moment where she realizes just how nasty her world has become:
When I was younger, I'd wanted someone to promise me that things would work out and nothing bad would ever happen again. But I understood now that that was a child's wish. No one could promise that. No one. The grown-ups could try, but they couldn't promise, not and mean it. I stood there between the two of them, and knew that I would do whatever it took to keep them safe, to keep them happy. I'd been willing to kill for the people I loved for a very long time; now I had to start living for them.
The point is that she always fights for them - they always fight for each other and now they just have to learn to live in the middle of all that fighting. Hamilton sees that the living is crucial because she knows she has a good thing going with this crew and she always brings them back for more. Now, before everyone screams at me that the two series don't compare and that Hamilton is a hack (or something equally vicious), just consider that maybe I'm not totally insane. I read heavy stuff all the time (The Seven Pillars of Wisdom baby and it was harder than hell!) and I know that Israel is getting World War III going as we speak, while Iraq is going to hell and Afghanistan is becoming the war we should not have ignored. I know this. But Danse Macabre is great escapist fiction. Its got wonderful dialogue, grown-up sexy fun and plenty of satisfying humor and violence. It's candy in a world that needs candy. And Harry Potter is the same thing for a younger crowd. Anita dies and it ruins every book that came before because all you will be thinking about is that she is dead. Do that to Harry and you have the same problem - you can't go back because you know he is dead. I'm telling ya, it won't work and to avoid it, Harry needs to learn from the master just how he should fight the big bad and survive.
Harry Potter, I think it's time you got to know Anita Blake. One way or another, she will rock your world. I guarantee it.
Colleen Mondor is a reviewer for Booklist, Bookslut, Eclectica Magazine and the Voices of New Orleans. I also write fiction and listen to great music. This site is all about the literary world and my place within it.
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Colleen Mondor has really captured the feeling of Laurell K hamilton in this article. A special Thank You goes out to her for allowing me to use this article.
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