An extreme zombie and a kick-ass zombie hunter

Today, after what seems like an incredibly long time, I am able to get around to posting a new review, of a book I read for relaxation no less. I managed to sink my teeth into book 2 of the Anita Blake series, and here’s what I thought of it.

The Laughing Corpse

Laurell K Hamilton

‘The older the zombie, the bigger the death needed to raise it.’

After a few centuries, the only death ‘big enough’ is a human sacrifice.

I know because I’m an animator. My name is Anita Blake. Working for Animators, Inc. is just a job – like selling insurance. But all the money in the world wasn’t enough for me to take on the particular job Harold Gaynor was offering. Somebody else did, though – a rogue animator.

Now he’s not just raising the dead… he’s raising Hell. And it’s up to me to stop it.

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The plot of this book is different from the first, but there isn’t much else that is. Anita Blake continues to get into a number of scrapes fighting paranormal creatures and helping the police, all of which she survives through a combination of luck, her growing powers/experience in dealing with the monsters, and help from friends; occasionally it gets a little too much and you can’t help thinking that she should be dead many times over.

Laurell K Hamilton overcomes that by ensuring that her heroine gets injured and is affected by those injuries, leaving her with an ever increasing collection of scars, and a changing attitude about what is and isn’t a monster.

I like these books, but only because I like Anita Blade and Jean-Claude. If it wasn’t for the dynamic between the two of them I don’t think I would enjoy the books half as much.

On the up side, the writing is decent and the mythology/creature lore is well-researched, that counts for a lot because I’m a big fan of vampires/zombies and all manner of mythological creatures.

Guilty Pleasures

It’s the end of a busy day, and there’s just time for me to post up a new review before I head off to bed, so here it is.

Laurell K Hamilton

In a world where vampires and other paranormal creatures are openly acknowledged, and in some cases have legal rights and responsibilities, Anita Blake is an animator – she raises the dead for a living. When she’s not doing that she’s a consultant to the police on paranormal incidents, if someone gets attacked and the attacker isn’t human she gets asked to identify the creature and to help deal with it; she’s also the legal executioner of vampires that have gone rogue.

In the first book in this series Anita Blake is called in to help the police with a series of murders. The city’s vampire leader wants her help as well because some of the victims are vampires, and when the killer isn’t found quickly enough Anita finds herself caught between an impatient and angry master vampire and a killer with the strength to rip a person’s heart out.

This book is never going to be considered a masterpiece, or be considered a classic work of literature, but I found it a very enjoyable read. As a fan of mythology and the paranormal, I’m always interested by books about vampires, and in this case the vampires are characters in their own right with enough ambiguity about them to make it tough to say they are all evil and should be killed.

That’s the problem Anita has, she doesn’t really like vampires but the more she deals with them the more she realises that in many ways they’re as human as anyone else – not necessarily good but not necessarily evil either.

What really makes this book enjoyable is the character of Anita Blake; she’s small, has a bit of an attitude problem, and won’t back away from a fight – I like her.