I bought the first Anita Blake book to see what all the fuss was about, and didn't get through it. I liked her, but I got bored. And then the thing with the rats really squicked me.

The only Anne Rice I enjoyed was The Witching Hour, and even that could have used some trimming. The family history was interesting, the New Orleans descriptions were great, and I got invested in Rowan and Michael getting together. But that series went downhill right away, too, with Lasher and Taltos, the third one (I think?), which I never finished.

I hated the Witching Hour. It made me swear to never read her again. I hated it so much that halfway through, I got a red pen and started editing it. I was going to go back and dothe first half, and then send it to her, but I couldn't bring myself to go through that again.

Hee! That would have been priceless. Yeah, she's definitely the self-indulgent type. Loves to just go on and on. So I just skimmed the boring/unnecessary parts to track the progress of the family, which I did enjoy.

Jilli, I enjoyed Romeky's first two Vampire books. They seemed to wacky to be taken seriously, but still not pure camp. I loved the melodramatic over-the-topness of the villian. And I loved the hero's mentor.

Of course, I read it years ago, and I still thought Anne Rice was a great writer. I've learned my lesson, but I still remember I, Vampire fondly.

Chiming in with the big agreement about LH's decline. What was fluffy, porny fun with a snarky heroine became "Oh dear Christ, another bestiality threesome with angst and handcuffs? Puh-leeze."

My favorite LH rant is "Americans don't think it's sex unless there's penetration, so the long, involved, groping session that involved multiple orgasms doesn't mean I've had sex with you, therefore I'm still pure."

LH needs to hang out in Bitches.

So is Anita still Catholic? That bit of her character was pretty tenuous last time I checked in.

I'm ok with almost all of that...except that Anita needs to be the only fuckable chick in town...I'm still gonna get some more at the library, one day.

Grrr... off to book club in a few minutes, but haven't even seen or touched the book- not for lack of trying either (tho' possibly for lack of money, since a new copy is 25 bucks and I'm broke). The first time I've ever not even read the book, and I heard it's good. Luckily the actual *book* part of book club takes 20 minutes, the rest is chit-chat and food. Maybe I'll talk about a book I have read since last book club, I just have to decide which one...

I actually like The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Dammed better than Interview.

Me, too. A lot. And although I've read the subsequent vampire books she wrote, I still believe that the vampire "series" ended with Queen of the Damned. Because the rest were so. fucking. execrable. (Merrick wasn't bad, but still meh.)

I *adore* The Witching Hour, and can even tolerate Lasher. Taltos was a joke, and what Rice did to the Mayfair family in Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle makes me want to beat her to death with a grammar book.