Fantasy (Horror Sub-Genre)

Among fantasy books, there are several sub-genres. The books here, by Laurell K. Hamilton are all from the "horror" sub-genre, meaning that there is a very definite flavor of horror, and in this case, vampires.

The lead character of these books is named Anita Blake, and she is a vampire executioner. The US Supreme Court have given vampires the label of being "alive", and they have rights as do other humans. However, vampires can be executed if there is a court order, and Anita is the best vampire executioner in the US. The vampires even call her, "The Executioner".

There are other "monsters" in these books, wareanimals of all types, zombies, and other things you'd find in a horror novel.

Anita, herself, is an "animator", meaning she can bring up corpses as zombies, and she works for Animators, Inc. Her boss, Bert, is a not very likeable fellow, but all the characters have been made to seem very three dimensional.

As with all these pages, clicking on the book's cover (or graphic if I don't have cover art) or the link at the end of the review will take you to that book's listing on Amazon.com.

So, let's get on with the reviews!

All reviews, except for Guilty Pleasures are by Amazon.com.

Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
Guilty Pleasures is the first book of the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. Anita Blake is a petite woman whose chosen profession is that of a "animator", a person with the ability to raise the dead as zombies.

That's only her "day" job. She is also the licensed vampire executioner, which means that with a court orderrd execution, she is able to hunt down said vampire. Anita is the type of heroine where you believe her when she does something, because she gets hurt, people die around her, and she is very believable. Because Anita is a licensed vampire executioner, and paranormal expert, she finds herself working with the local police on murders that may have a supernatural bent to them.

Anita lives in St. Louis, and someone is murdering vampires. The "Master of the City" wants the Executioner to find out who is dong the dirty deed. The Master of the City sends a master vampire, Jean Claude to "convince" Anita to help them find the killer. Guilty Pleasures is the vampire strip jont that Jean Claude owns, and it is here that we meet him after he uses one of Anita's friends to get Anita to meet with him.

Amazon.com: "Guilty Pleasures" (paperback)

The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton
Amazon.com Review: Harold Gaynor offers Anita Blake a million dollars to raise a 300-year-old zombie. Knowing it means a human sacrifice will be necessary, Anita turns him down. But when dead bodies start turning up, she realizes that someone else has raised Harold's zombie--and that the zombie is a killer. Anita pits her power against the zombie and the voodoo priestess who controls it. Notice to Hollywood: forget Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Anita Blake is the real thing.

Synopsis: Anita Blake takes on a rogue fellow animator who is using human sacrifices to raise the dead and discovers that her only hope of survival lies in depending upon the feared Jean Claude, Master Vampire of the City. Synopsis Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter for Animators, Inc., is offered a cool mil to raise a 283-year-old corpse. But she knows that "the older the zombie, the bigger the death needed to raise it." Only a human sacrifice is "big" enough to raise this old soul--and Anita's no murderer. Original.

Amazon.com: "The Laughing Corpse" (paperback)

Circus of the Damned by Laurell K. Hamilton
Amazon.com Reviews: The third novel of Hamilton's Anita Blake series has the petite necromancer fighting a giant cobra and a rogue vampire, Alejandro, who wants her for his human servant. Anita is still resisting the advances of Jean-Claude, St. Louis's master vampire, but she does need him on her side, if not in her bed. Anita's reluctant involvement in the odd goings-on at the supernatural Circus of the Damned introduces her to Richard, the werewolf of her dreams, and Larry, her powerful but nervous partner in zombie-raising. Mystery fans will love the tightly plotted, Paretsky-esque action, and horror fans will love just about everything in this unusual series.

Synopsis: Anita Blake is an expert on creatures of the night. She has dined with shapeshifters, danced with werewolves, and been wooed, but not won, by Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire of the city. Now there's a new vampire in town named Alejandro and he wants Anita for his servant. His attempts to win her lead to a war of the undead. Original.

Synopsis: When a dangerous vampire named Alejandro hits town and claims Anita Blake, an expert on creatures of the night, for his human servant, a war of the undead breaks out and puts Blake's life in jeopardy.

Amazon.com: "Circus of the Damned" (paperback)

The Lunatic Cafe by Laurell K. Hamilton
Amazon.com Review: The zombie-raising business gets slow in December, so Anita Blake is starting to see some oddball cases. She's got a neatly typed list of eight missing lycanthropes given to her by Marcus, the leader of the local werewolf pack, who wants her to find them. The trouble is, Anita's occasionally furry boyfriend Richard is locked in a power struggle with Marcus. Jean-Claude, master vampire of the city and Anita's other love interest, is getting jealous as well. To top it off, Anita has to solve some horrific murders and keep her bounty-hunting friend Edward from killing Richard and Jean-Claude. Hamilton alternates between funny and fearsome in this larky series about a monster hunter with a few dark secrets.

Synopsis: Preternatural expert Anita Blake meets an interesting array of monsters that includes jealous vampires and killer zombies, but her work with a group of besieged werewolves is threatened when she falls in love with its leader.

Amazon.com: "The Lunatic Cafe" (paperback)

Bloody Bones by Laurell K. Hamilton
Amazon.com Reviews: When Anita Blake's boss at Animators, Inc., informs her that she's expected to raise 300-year-old zombies from a field of jumbled bones just to settle a land dispute, she's understandably annoyed. But as soon as she arrives in Branson, Missouri, to do the deed, the job gets more interesting. A psychotic sword-wielding vampire starts committing multiple murders in the area, and Anita must call on Jean-Claude, her powerful fanged suitor, for help. As always, Anita prevails over the undead, keeping Jean-Claude at arm's length, clearing the cemetery land of an ancient enchantment, and nailing the vampiric killer in one fell swoop.

Synopsis: Hired to exhume two-hundred-year-old graves in the wake of a land dispute, Anita Blake becomes involved in local murders involving three dead teenagers and a bloodless corpse that makes her suspect that an evil force is preying upon the town.

Amazon.com: "Bloody Bones" (paperback)

Killing Dance by Laurell K. Hamilton
Amazon.com Reviews: Anita Blake, vampire hunter, is now herself a hunted woman. Who put the $500,000 price on her head--a man or a monster? It's not just her own skin she needs to save; the rivalry between her werewolf boyfriend, Richard, and Marcus, the other alpha werewolf in his pack, has come to full boil. And there's always Jean-Claude, the vampire who's been waiting for just the right moment to slip inside Anita's head and heart. Don't assume anything, though--Hamilton's probably got a few more surprises in store.

Synopsis: With a price on her head and professional hitmen on her trail, Anita Blake, vampire killer and expert on the supernatural, receives unexpected assistance from an alpha werewolf and a master vampire. Original."

Synopsis: With a price on her head and professional killers on her trail, Anita Blake, prenatural expert and vampire killer extraordinaire, turns to the men in her life for help. Which in her case, means an alpha werewolf and a master vampire. She needs as much protection as possible, human or otherwise. But Anita is beginning to wonder if two monsters are better than one.

Amazon.com: "Killing Dance" (paperback)

Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton
Amazon.com Reviews: Burnt Offerings is the seventh in Laurell K. Hamilton's genre-straddling Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. Anita carries a gun and an attitude: "Questions are great, but only if you know the answers. If you ask questions and the answers surprise you, you look silly. Hard to be threatening when you look ill-informed."

As Burnt Offerings unfolds, Anita agrees to help track down a possible psychic firestarter. She's also policing the local werewolf pack, though she's split up with their alpha, Richard. Then Jean-Claude, the vampire Master of the City and her lover, needs her help to confront a visiting delegation of the vampires' ruling council. They wonder how he got the power to destroy a council member and believe him dangerous to the hierarchy.

This fast-paced, urban fantasy includes gore, hardboiled mystery and a romantic triangle. The vampires and werewolves are as three-dimensional as the human characters, allowing us to join Anita in wondering who the real monsters are and to understand how her increased personal involvement with them is alienating her from her human colleagues. --Nona Vero

Synopsis: "You can't trust anyone who sleeps with monsters". That's what Anita Blake had always believed. But now she was sharing a bed with the Master Vampire of the city. So when an arsonist began to target vampire victims, the creatures of the night turned to their former enemy. For now only "The Executioner" could save them from the inferno.

Amazon.com: "Burnt Offerings" (paperback)

Blue Moon by Laurell K. Hamilton
Amazon.com Reviews: Anita Blake raises the dead, executes rogue vampires, and offs villainous werecreatures on the side in Blue Moon, the eighth book in Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. Anita is bound to her lover Jean-Claude (the master vampire of St. Louis) and her ex-fiancé, Richard (a powerful werewolf who's head of the local pack). She now shares some of their magic, and her own power over the dead keeps growing. But so does the body count and the situations where Anita is forced to bend or break her own rules.

In Blue Moon, Richard is in jail in Tennessee, accused of rape, and Anita's determined to rescue him. When she gets there with a lawyer and an entourage of vampires and werebeings supplied by Jean-Claude, it becomes clear that something is wrong on a larger scale. The local cops are corrupt and the trolls Richard was studying are threatened. But if Anita sticks around to investigate, the local master vampire will attack her and her friends--and the local werewolf clan isn't sure she's really one of them. Hamilton writes an action-packed, convincing story. Anita, Richard, Jean-Claude, and the regular secondary characters just keep getting more interesting. Read the whole series! --Nona Vero

Book Description: "Richard was an alpha werewolf. It was his only serious flaw. We'd broken up after I'd seen him eat somebody." Still, you never forget your ex-fiancé. And when Richard calls Anita Blake at three in the morning, she knows it won't be good news. It seems Richard had gotten himself thrown in jail on a rape charge. But Anita knows that though he is a monster, Richard's no rapist. And it's up to her to prove his innocence--before the blue moon creates even bigger problems for Richard...

Synopsis: One never forgets an ex-fiance. And when Richard calls Anita Blake at three in the morning, she knows it won't be good news. It seems Richard had gotten himself thrown in jail on a rape charge. But Anita knows that though he is a monster, Richard's no rapist. And it's up to her to prove his innocence--before the blue Moon creates even bigger problems for Richard.

Amazon.com: "Blue Moon" (paperback)

You are officer # to report to this site, since stardate 9809.12.