Oh, the Merry Gentry series is just pr0n. The last two books dont' even bother to pretend that she actually investigates things. They're mostly a vehicle for Merry to have sex with as many hot faery men as possible.

Ah.

Exactly like the Anita Blake series, then?

I'm only reading them now because I want to see Richard realize he's truly in love with Jean-Claude. :)

That and she does still occasionally toss in really neat bits about vamp and furry politics and extrapolation on what it would mean to have legal vampires and such. And there's even a bit of a mystery now and again. Between the, you know. Sex. Which takes up 4/5 of the book.

Exactly like the Anita Blake series, then?

Essentially, although with less angst. Main character is all about the sexx0r (don't know why I"m typing like that today. Heh.) and makes no bones about it. And all the other characters don't really seem to mind boning each other. still some girl/girl "ew that's icky!" but less than AB books.

Oh man, have you made it to Incubus Dreams yet? The mystery "plot" isn't even a 1/5th of the book. It's like 30 pages of a 600 page book. However, I enjoyed it.

Richard/Jean-Claude has never really done it for me, but I'd be all about Jean-Claude/Micah. :)

Clarification: The "ew it's icky" is from the main character herself and, by extention, the author.

I think, though, she's starting to get into the pretty boys.

I hope so.

And Jean-Claude, Asher and Richard could live happily ever after.

Maybe invite Micah and Nathaniel and his hair. Which is a character all by itself.

I'm still hanging on through the Anita Blake series for Jean-Claude, Asher, Jason, the hope that Richard will stop acting like an asshole and be interesting again, and Nathaniel, who I think is a sweetheart. Anita makes me tired, though.

And the Merry Gentry books are over-the-top silly from page 1, I agree.

Where do you think I found the Mary Sue?

I just finished Incubus Dreams.

I often read pr0n during holidays, but most of it is slash. This was...weird.

And, yeah. I was being generous. Also, Incubus Dreams had *more* plot than Cerulean Dreams.

PWPs have more plot.

Cerulean Sins

Duh. I'm a dolt. :)

I don't know. He's letting Jean-Claude touch him now.

And Anita is starting to see the pretty.

Anita is the most powerful person *ever*. Didn't you know that? :)

And his hair.

It's definitely Mary Sue hair. But all the guys have gorgeous hair, and um.

I married a guy with a ponytail, and he knows I love it - so much that even though we live in a rather conservative religious community right now, and kids stare at him and there's one guy who thinks he's commiting a sin by having it so long and tells him so in Hebrew, he still has it. Even though he also knows I won't yell at him for cutting it off if he so desires - he still has it. It's as long as mine. So you know I have a thing for guys with long hair.

But. Every guy has gorgeous hair? And every guy has long hair except for Richard, and that's almost the worst thing he could have done?

We're living LKH's fantasy here, and it's slightly creepy.

OUch. OUch.

Yeah.

I was hysterical. Can you spork real books?

I don't know but you should be able to.

Why not?

I've never read the Anita Blake books, because Maureen O'Brien said that I'd like the first few, and then all the irresponsible sex would make my brain hurt and bring out the vitriol. There are, after all, ethics involved in non-standard sexual lifestyles, and apparently Anita ignores this...

Oh, yes. You would hate it, and the latest ones would have you screaming for her beta.

There is a canonsues LJ and Merry Gentry has made an appearance.

In fairness, though I'm not sure who I'm being fair to, so have many of my favorite characters... including Belldandy of Ah! My Goddess! and I believe my dear Stephanie Plum. (Hey, just because she gets Ranger and Morelli! And let me for once be the slasher and say those two should SO hook up with each other... in fact I'm writing it... but nevermind.)

Oh.

You've found the Merry Gentry series, I see. I have to give the MG books some credit...the author made no pretense towards reality with Merry. She's supposed to be a walking enigma sex-goddess with off-kilter morals. I mean, she got the 'Hand of Flesh' in the first book. The sex in this series doesn't bug as much as it does in the AB books...one of the central points of the storyline is basically a bedroom race to see who can somebody pregnant fastest. Since that's got to happen before there's any real in-depth look at the fae, we all get to play voyeur. (And why do all of LKH's main female characters all have mother issues?)

Anita, on the other hand...ai. Loved the first book, was 'eh' over the second, and I think she pretty much should've quit with Circus of the Damned. (As far as I'm concerned, "Bloody Bones" and "Burnt Offerings" were a pair of nightmares I was lucky enough to wake up from. I mean...I threw my copies out. And I'm a completist.)

I think LKH started to go off course when she started taking part in the "Out of this World" anthologies. Then, the books shifted from plot and enigmas to smut and purple-prose romance.

Don't even ask about the horror that is the LKH official homepage. Bleh.

Now, if you're looking for fun, sexy--but not too graphic--vampire fiction (same-sex friendly in parts, too), try Susan Sizemore's "Laws of Blood" series. (And I'm not just saying that because the lady's a Queensryche fan...but it helps!)

You know, I think I still have a romance novel that Susan Sizemore wrote that was Harlequin or that other line. Think I have a Forever Knight novel she wrote as well. I'll have to track down the "Law of Blood" series.

I keep hearing about this stuff... what I want to know: is it GOOD porn? Does it work? Compared to, say, what some of our better writers do?

Um.

*Blush*.

I don't read hetfic, you know? I skip it when I get to it in stories if I otherwise like the stories. It's just not my thing.

I didn't skip these scenes at all. Maybe because the guys are all such fantasies, or maybe because in the latest books, she seems to have decided to double up. And, well, two pretty men are always good, you know?

Take that as you will.

LKH's books basically read like a porn movie. Little plot used to hold together a lot of people having sex. And in Anitaverse, it's a lot of weird, oftimes kinky sex.

The S&M wasn't bad, but she ruins it too many times by having it turn into beastiality.

And the sex would probably be better if Anita didn't come across as being TOO mucha superhero and an egomaniacal bitch.

If you found a story where the main character was not *just* a female PI in Los Angeles but *also* a Fairie Princess, heiress to the throne of the Unseelie Court (and was a PI in LA because it was so much *less* dark and dangerous than her real home) - what would you think?

And if I told you it wasn't something I'd found in ff.net, but in the "read this new novel by this same author" of a book I'd just read?

Somewhere in that first paragraph I thought "oh, that's the other series by the Anita Blake author" and then I kept making mental check-marks as I continued *g*. I'd read all (or all-but-one) of the then available AB books before reading the first one of the other series, and I kept seeing similarities (in physical & personality characteristics) between the heroines of the two series.

Meredith Gentry is also petite and dark and superhumanly skilled with weapons and is just short of being a sociopathic killer?

Wow.

Oh, dear.

Though one of my favorite novels, Stealing the Elf King's Roses by Diane Duane, has a plot that's less totally unlike that than I'd be comfy with. And I don't think that main character is a Mary Sue at all. Same with Buffy, for that matter. It's a worrying premise, but it's all in how the premise is handled.