Firstly, I must make an apology for the shameful Professor-Layton-induced lapse in updates. I’ve got quite a backlog of finished books to review and have written most of them to update automatically now. Also, as life seemed to get in the way a touch – and three books a week was ambitious, even for me – I’m planning on posting reviews on Tuesdays and Thursdays from here on.
And back to the review!
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Sookie Stackhouse is your ordinary, blue-collar, uneducated telepathic waitress in a bar in Bon Temps, a small town in Louisiana. She’s pretty and perky but doesn’t go on many dates because of her “disability” – who wants to hear when your date starts wondering whether the curtains and carpet match? Then she meets Bill, a vampire whose thoughts she can’t read, an oasis of calm amid the busy minds of the regular humans around her. Much to the disapproval of her boss, friends and brother, Bill and Sookie become involved – although what they don’t know is that through Bill, she has also been sucked into the world of weres, shape-shifters, maenads, faries and witches. (although most of those pop up in the later books. I read 8 of them in a week, so I’m a bit confused about what happened when…)
Sookie Stackhouse and the Southern Vampire Mysteries* was my introduction to the genre that Waterstones affectionately terms “Lady and the Vamp”. Most other bookshops lump it in with horror, which is strange and misleading. Sookie and that freakish clown from IT have no common ground. Lookit:
Nada.
The vamplit offerings have been getting more plentiful and interesting of late, with Anne Rice for traditionalists, Twilight for tweenies and a fair range between the two. I read a lot of the genre after finishing my degree, probably because it’s about as far away from Shakespeare as it’s possible to get, and Sookie remains one of my favourite characters to this day. The Southern Vampire universe has a few superficial parallels with that of the beldame of sexyvamp fiction, Laurell K Hamilton: the female protagonist with an uncommon power; the myriad of inhuman love interests; the traditional representations of werewolves and vampires (ie. most of the canonical myths are true – allergies to silver and the full moon for the former, explosive dislike of sunlight and garlic for the latter). But as a reader, Sookie has a lot more going for her than Anita (*spits*). 1) She isn’t annoying; 2) She doesn’t absorb every interesting power that everyone else has as the series progresses, to become the Most Powerful Being Ever; 3) She doesn’t have sex with absolutely everyone she meets. It’s been a while since I last read an Anita Blake book, there are probably more differences, but that should keep you going. In fact, if you’ve read the Anita Blake series and think that Sookie Stackhouse looks a bit wishywashy, give it a go, it’s like a breath of fresh air compared to LKH’s irritating prose! I’m not planning on reviewing anything by Ms Hamilton in the near future, suffice to say – avoid.
I’ve been watching the TV series and had ;l[ots t[o say ab[out it, but as y[ou may be ab;le t[o te;l;l I’m having a p9r[ob;lem with my keyb[oard after a rather unf[ortunate tea-#with-#h[oney incident and I can’t be dea;ling with reviewing b[o[oks with this g[oing [on! Suffice to[ say, I ;l[ove S[o[okie and intend t[o return t[o this theme at a ;later date/. Thursday’s review may be i;l;legib;le/.
*renamed True Blood. Guess why. Go on, guess.
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