TiggerBear wrote:
I think her more vehement detractors should wait until the Anita Blake cycle is finished before they start throwing her under the bus. As a huge fan of this series, I can also see it from the readers' perspective – in some of her recent releases, the overall story arc has slowly dramatically and I think there's a lot of readers out there who are just dying to push fast forward. Hopefully, in the end, both LKH and her fans will be more than satisfied at the saga's conclusion...
Paul
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Under a bus!?!(shaking head) Come on now.
Personally I judge each book as it is released. So I too am waiting for the resolution.
Although I have sentenced her to NEVER getting another hardcover price dime out of me. That doesn't mean I don't still have hopes for the overall result.
I don't want to "push fast forward". I want her to stop writing about things that are basically useless, plot wise, as so many and so detailed sex scenes that are not part of the story per se or have any impact on it. I want her to start to write plot again, as she used to do, and I don't mind if , writing real plot, she takes another seventy books to end the series, as long as there is STORY on them. When a book is 3/4 part (uncreative, boring, schematic) sex, and 1/4 plot, then the author has a problem.
It's either that her creativity has waned, and she doesn't know what to write anymore, or she has gotten greedy and want to stretch the series beyond its natural ending, so, she add fillers (these so boring sex scenes that adds NOTHING to the story arc).
She had a golden opportunity in Blood Noir. There were seeds of good, interesting plot there. But she lost time with all that whining, all that "lets fight again Richard", let's show again how Richard cannot live without her, etc. (Let's be clear about this, I don't like Richard, have never liked him, and personally, I would have liked him out of the picture since Burnt Offerings. Lately, he is even more pathetic, and I'd like him dead, once and for all, and yeah, I know, it's impossible for the damage he'd cause to the triumvirate, but I still harbor some hope).
For example, the whole ending in BN was rushed, while could have been an excellent subplot in itself. I mean, we have lots of pages devoted to dealing with bodyguards, old friends that don't add or subtract anything to the arc, and then, in a few pages, they are kidnapped by a human servant, and almost killed. Then she saves the day. I would have liked to see that angle developed.
There were many exciting things, that were just illusions of an interesting twist coming. A twist that never was, aborted almost from the moment it was on page.
Like always, she left hanging lots of threads that could have been explored and would have been great stuff, focusing instead of aspects that didn't add anything to the story arc. *shakes head* That's what makes me very sad. All that potential for good stories, wasted in the rush to deliver within the deadline of the editors.
There were things there that didn't need to be there at all, or that could have been solved with a lot less pages. Other parts should have been developed instead.
I didn't buy it, just read it, and as long as she is acting in this vein, I won't buy any more books from her. I'm still deciding if I will follow the series to its conclusion at all, I'm that frustrated.
It's her right to write the books as she wants to. But as a customer, if she doesn't deliver the product I expect, then it's my right to stop bothering with her books. I don't see any point in rewarding her by buying books that aren't good enough to be in my shelves. I have been patient and have given her the benefit of the doubt for several books now, and she disappointed me in a serious way.
There are lots of people like me, and there are lots of new readers that think her books are just cool the way they are. Kudos to them, and good for her to find a new readership, while the oldies leave her readers' ranks. I'm just sad that I invested so much on this series to finally find it so unappealing as of late.
