Hit List by LKH and Haven 2x02 Thoughts
Jul. 26th, 2011 01:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaHit List by Laurell K. Hamilton
Overall I found it a little boring. The book felt like it was just keeping Anita in a holding pattern. Mostly though I'm wondering why I'm still reading this series.
• The true death of The Mother of All Darkness was a letdown. There was no book long power struggle, no giant battle and it ended up being a sort of blink and you’ll miss it moment. Disappointing after all this build up about her.
• Pacing is a problem I’ve noticed before in this series but for whatever reason it was really noticeable in this book. We basically got 300 pages of build up and then twenty of denouement. We go from the end of the action to two pages of Anita telling us some of what happened afterwards. It all just feels very uneven.
• The beginning suffered from some serious exposition vomit. I understand the need for books to reiterate certain information at the start of the new book in a series but I wish that they’d make a prologue type chapter to throw it all into.
• I really do want more human politics and Anita meeting other marshal’s and cops and getting to see how they deal with her and how she deals with them. I usually love getting to see the but in this case I was left disappointed. We got a little of it but mostly it was one guy and his unreasonable dislike of her and it never really delved as deeply into Anita's changing relationship with the law like I was hoping.
• I did really liked Anita’s interactions with Laila Karlton. I hope we see her again.
• There was only one sex scene in the whole book! That was very unexpected but a pleasant surprise. I don’t mind the occasional sex scene but there is such a thing as too much and I am really glad that this series appears to moving away from half a book being made up of sex scenes.
• I really liked Anita acknowledging that she’s polyamorous.
• I liked Ethan well enough. He isn't a character that sticks out all that much but I did like how he ended up heading home with Anita. It wasn’t about her being the most alluring/amazing woman ever it was about him being lonely and unwanted and her reaching out to him. I liked that it’s laid out from the beginning that he’ll occasionally be someone she’ll sleep with and he’ll find a girlfriend and it will just be friendship between them.
• It was nice to see Edward again.
• In the last book Anita and Richard were planning to take Jean-Claude’s fourth mark to finally solidify their power base but then got distracted by shenanigans. I can’t imagine that LKH would have them do it ‘off screen’, and Anita never mentions it in this book, so why didn’t the three of them do it after everything was taking care? I can't remember if it was addressed in that book or not but it kept bugging me.
Haven 2x02 ‘Fear and Loathing’
• I am really happy that Audrey II is sticking around. I like her and I loved the interactions between her and Audrey. I love that they keep running into ways that they are the same (the drink) and talking about shared memories and then just kind of dealing with it with aplomb. Oh, having the same drink? Let’s make a joke and reminisce! I loved when they went back and forth in describing their shared clown fear to Nathan.
• Have we seen Audrey be so unaffected by a Trouble’s abilities before? Usually they aren’t directed at people like this but I never got the sense that Troubled abilities don’t affect her at all.
• Theory: ‘Audrey’ is just one life/personality in a long line of personalities. Dave saw a woman that looked like Audrey, but wasn’t Lucy, and who looked like she was came from a slightly older time. My guess is that she was whoever Audrey was before she was Lucy. Does Audrey move from one life to another? Is it something she does naturally – changing to a new personality once she’s no longer needed – or is it something certain residents of Haven are doing to her?
• I loved the Duke/Audrey/Nathan scene on the boat after Ian was shot. Duke was immediately all ‘so, this means Nathan’s cured, right :D?!’ And then the look Audrey and Duke exchanged after Nathan gave Jackie the gift instead and the way they both protested. Of course Nathan would do the right thing and give the cure up to someone who needed it more. I love these three.
• “Don’t forget you can feel pain now.” – Audrey. Hee. I loved Nathan’s little smile.
• What did Nathan see when he looked at Jackie?
Overall I found it a little boring. The book felt like it was just keeping Anita in a holding pattern. Mostly though I'm wondering why I'm still reading this series.
• The true death of The Mother of All Darkness was a letdown. There was no book long power struggle, no giant battle and it ended up being a sort of blink and you’ll miss it moment. Disappointing after all this build up about her.
• Pacing is a problem I’ve noticed before in this series but for whatever reason it was really noticeable in this book. We basically got 300 pages of build up and then twenty of denouement. We go from the end of the action to two pages of Anita telling us some of what happened afterwards. It all just feels very uneven.
• The beginning suffered from some serious exposition vomit. I understand the need for books to reiterate certain information at the start of the new book in a series but I wish that they’d make a prologue type chapter to throw it all into.
• I really do want more human politics and Anita meeting other marshal’s and cops and getting to see how they deal with her and how she deals with them. I usually love getting to see the but in this case I was left disappointed. We got a little of it but mostly it was one guy and his unreasonable dislike of her and it never really delved as deeply into Anita's changing relationship with the law like I was hoping.
• I did really liked Anita’s interactions with Laila Karlton. I hope we see her again.
• There was only one sex scene in the whole book! That was very unexpected but a pleasant surprise. I don’t mind the occasional sex scene but there is such a thing as too much and I am really glad that this series appears to moving away from half a book being made up of sex scenes.
• I really liked Anita acknowledging that she’s polyamorous.
• I liked Ethan well enough. He isn't a character that sticks out all that much but I did like how he ended up heading home with Anita. It wasn’t about her being the most alluring/amazing woman ever it was about him being lonely and unwanted and her reaching out to him. I liked that it’s laid out from the beginning that he’ll occasionally be someone she’ll sleep with and he’ll find a girlfriend and it will just be friendship between them.
• It was nice to see Edward again.
• In the last book Anita and Richard were planning to take Jean-Claude’s fourth mark to finally solidify their power base but then got distracted by shenanigans. I can’t imagine that LKH would have them do it ‘off screen’, and Anita never mentions it in this book, so why didn’t the three of them do it after everything was taking care? I can't remember if it was addressed in that book or not but it kept bugging me.
Haven 2x02 ‘Fear and Loathing’
• I am really happy that Audrey II is sticking around. I like her and I loved the interactions between her and Audrey. I love that they keep running into ways that they are the same (the drink) and talking about shared memories and then just kind of dealing with it with aplomb. Oh, having the same drink? Let’s make a joke and reminisce! I loved when they went back and forth in describing their shared clown fear to Nathan.
• Have we seen Audrey be so unaffected by a Trouble’s abilities before? Usually they aren’t directed at people like this but I never got the sense that Troubled abilities don’t affect her at all.
• Theory: ‘Audrey’ is just one life/personality in a long line of personalities. Dave saw a woman that looked like Audrey, but wasn’t Lucy, and who looked like she was came from a slightly older time. My guess is that she was whoever Audrey was before she was Lucy. Does Audrey move from one life to another? Is it something she does naturally – changing to a new personality once she’s no longer needed – or is it something certain residents of Haven are doing to her?
• I loved the Duke/Audrey/Nathan scene on the boat after Ian was shot. Duke was immediately all ‘so, this means Nathan’s cured, right :D?!’ And then the look Audrey and Duke exchanged after Nathan gave Jackie the gift instead and the way they both protested. Of course Nathan would do the right thing and give the cure up to someone who needed it more. I love these three.
• “Don’t forget you can feel pain now.” – Audrey. Hee. I loved Nathan’s little smile.
• What did Nathan see when he looked at Jackie?
