Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Novels by Laurell K Hamilton

I was given two of this series' books by a woman selling at the Sanford Flea Market.  The second in the series, The Laughing Corpse, and the twelfth in the series, Incubus Dreams.  Currently there are 26 novels in this series.  I read the Laughing corpse,  then tried to read Incubus Dreams.  It was a big mistake.  Sometimes you can read series novels independently and while Laurell Hamilton does enough background with each character during the novel for it to stand on its own, because I read already another book it was really hard to reconcile the two novels with all the differences in the main character's life between the second and twelfth book.  I decided to check them out of the library in order to read them in order and better understand the later books.
This series deals with Anita Blake, she is introduced in the first book, Guilty Pleasures, as an animator, which is someone who can raise the dead, basically Zombies.  The novel is set in St. Louis, but reads more like what you would expect New Orleans to feel like.  Constantly I think I am reading events happening in New Orleans simply because when you read about voodoo, I just automatically go to New Orleans.  In Anita Blake's world, Vampires, Zombies, and Were-anything, have rights.  They are allowed to live, if they don't break any laws.  Vampires even have their own subculture and district inside the city.
The name Guilty Pleasures is an actual night club where people can go to enjoy vampires in a 'safe' way.  Anita Blake offical job is with Animator's Inc. and gets paid to raise zombies for money.  The company is on retainer with the local police department and it is always Anita who helps them decipher supernatural cases.  The first book centers around a series of vampire killings.  As she works with the special task force inside the police department known officially as the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team or RPIT, and unofficially as "the spook squad", she also goes head to head with a master vampire of over a thousand years old in the form of a child who also wants to pay her to figure out the guilty party.  The book itself is constant action, The entire story takes place over just a few days in which too many things happen that the reader can hardly keep up and it leaves you so intrigued with not just the story but also the world and the background that you just want to pick up the next novel.
The second book, the Laughing Corpse, deals with a series of murders in which a family is eviscerated by some kind of supernatural creature and eaten.  The police ask Anita's help in figuring out who is doing it while she fends off a multimillionaire and the master vampire of the city, both wanting a different thing.  The master vampire wants her to become his human servant and the multimillionaire, Harold Gaynor wants her to raise a zombie who is over 300 years old.  Her problem with that is the older the zombie the bigger the death needs to be in order to raise the zombie.  Recent deaths can be raised by killing a chicken or other such animal.  But with a corpse over 300 years old, a human sacrifice is needed.  Anita refuses because her ethics wont allow her to kill innocents but Mr. Gaynor refuses to take 'no' for an answer and continues to raise the payout and when that doesn't work, resorts to other tactics that keeps Anita on her toes through the whole novel.
I am now reading Circus of the Damned which was the name of a club in the first novel that she had been taken to several times to meet the Master Vampire of then, which is not the same as the Master Vampire in the second book.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson`

I have to admit, when I first saw the previews for this movie, it did not strike me as a movie I wanted to see.  But when I saw the book in the local salvation army, I was looking for a new book to read and thought "what the hell".  After reading the series by Gene Wolfe, The Book of the New Sun, nothing would be as hellish to get through.  
The girl with the dragon tattoo (the first book in the Millennium series) is a novel set in Sweden and follows the co owner of Millennium magazine, Mikael Blomkvist, through his after conviction trial against a super corporation known as Wennerström.  He is hired by Henrik Vanger of the Vanger Corporation to look into the disappearance of his grand niece Harriet Vanger under the guise of chronicling Henrik Vanger's biography.  He is later assissted by a twenty-five year old 'hacker' who has legal and mental issues of her own, named Lisbeth Salander.  Together they delve into the mystery to uncover whatever secrets there may be among this large, prominent family.  
At first, the book moved slow for me.  It did bounce back and forth between Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander with a frequency that prevented boredom and long about half way through I ended up staying up all night cause I could not put the book down.  I liked the book, and loved how Lisbeth Salander handled her problem with her new appointed guardian after his sexual mistreatment of her.  If only every woman had the strength to handle their same issues likewise.  
The only issue I had with the novel was that it dragged on the ending after the action was surely over.  The length of the novel after the climax might be due to the fact that it was meant to be one of a series and there needed to be some extra padding between novels.  I am intrigued to read the next in the series but since I don't pay full price for any book (with the exception of Harry Potter 7, the Deathly Hallows) it will have to wait until I find the second book in a book shop.  
The next book for me now is Stephen King's Under the Dome.  Its a large print edition I found at the salvation army also and it feels like a brick in my hands!  But I am starting on it next.  Let you know how it goes.  

Keep of Fire (The Last Rune, Book 2) Mark Anthony

Just finished the second book in the "Last Rune" series by Mark Anthony.  I accidentally came across this series looking at Piers Anthony novels.  Mark Anthony's first book of this series is called "Beyond the Pale".  

This is an interesting series about a world called Eldh and it follows its two main characters, Grace Beckett and Travis Wilder, both of Earth.  In the first book they both got sucked into Eldh mysteriously, separately, by a strange character called Brother Cy.  Travis took up with two individuals, Falken Blackhand and Melia, and traveled with them as they searched for evidence that the "Pale King" was once again coming to power.
Travis had got sucked in after running for his life from shinning beings who killed his friend "Jack Greystone".  Jack had giving Travis a box and told him to run and then Jack's antique shop exploded.  Running for his life he came across Brother Cy and his 'circus' band which reminds you more of a revival church.  Brother Cy gave Travis half a strange silver coin and Travis walked through a billboard into Eldh.  

Grace was a doctor and accidently found herself in the path of a murderous undead man with an iron heart.  She was rescued from the jail house by a mysterious stranger.  He gave Grace his car and she fled, and finding herself outside Travis' hometown and Brother Cy, who gave her her own half silver coin.  She walked through a door and found herself in Eldh in the middle of a snow field.  A knight, Durge, rescued her and took her to the city where the king took her for nobility and given her every comfort a noble deserves.  

Travis and his group traveled to the same city where Grace found herself and together they uncovered the secrets of the "iron hearts" and resealed the gate that held the Pale King in stasis for centuries.  

In the second book, "Keep of Fire", Travis was led back to Eldh from Earth, having went back home at the end of the first book.  Brother Cy making another appearance as a mysterious grave keeper at the cemetery.  Grace, having remained on Eldh, had a strange vision of Travis in trouble and sought out to rescue him.  Grace and a group of her friends traveled across the country and ran into several of the "burning ones" who it was later learned was in search of 'the stone of fire'.  The first book dealing with the 'stone of twilight' which was in the box Travis' friend Jack gave him.  They rescued Travis just as he was about to burn as a heretic and with Falken and Melia again, all traveled in search of the 'stone of fire'.  They learned a Necromancer was still alive and had the stone and summoned the 'burning ones' to seek out the key to the stone so this Necromancer might return to his former God glory but with more power.  

A few points of these books were a bit confusing, Mark Anthony is a good writer.  Very imaginative, and knows how to hold onto secrets.  His relationships between characters are weak and more often than not, linked in sorrow.  However, the story is a good one and worth reading just for the imagination.  It was very fast paced and I didn't skip over too many of the descriptive paragraphs as I am most inclined to do while reading.  Eldh is a beautiful world and his majickal creatures are very interesting.         

Sword of Truth - Wizard's First Rule

My ipad is in need of repair so in order to read before bed I need to use something else.  I have a few books uploaded on my Kindle so I moved to the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind.  I love this series and first read the books cause of the television series (Legend of the Seeker) made from the books.  They are not exactly the same as the books (whatever is) but its close enough that a well-loved television show and changed to a well-loved series of novels.

This book is the first in a series of 13 novels centering around Richard Cypher and Kahlan Amnell.  The series takes them on a journey to save the Midlands from rule of tyranny in several forms through the series.  Both make transformations of character which cause them to evolve.  The thing I love the most about these novels is each one holds a moral or phrase at its heart that can be used by the reader in their own life.

The first book, Wizards First Rule, starts them on their journey.  Kahlan goes from the Midlands into Westland to find a old and wise wizard to help free the Midlands from the tyrannical rule of D'hara and Darken Rahl who leads D'Hara.  The remaining wizards in the Midlands helped Kahlan to cross the boundary between the Midlands and Westland, with the help of a night wisp, before killing themselves to protect Kahlan's mission and whereabouts.  Kahlan believes the wizard is in hiding in Westlan after abandoned the Midlands because of his students rejection of his advice. She needs his help to fight Darken Rahl who is out to collect the boxes of Orden which if put together and opened properly will make Darken Rahl too powerful to destroy.  

**************************Warning, reading below will reveal spoilers*********************

The story follows Richard for the most part as he meets Kahlan and protects her from a quad, a group of four men, sent to kill her by Darken Rahl.  He befriends her and takes her to his old friend Zedd who is revealed to be the old wizard she is looking for.  She asks Zedd to name a seeker, Zedd then named Richard seeker and tasks him with a final task and gives him the sword of truth which has magic.  The travel Westland for the pass to the Midlands and is accompanied by Chase, the leader of the boundary wardens.  Chase and Zedd are injured during an attack and Richard and Kahlan left them with a bone woman named Adie who told them of a pass in the mountains where the boundary has a gap in it.  Richard and Kahlan traveled through the boundary and sought the help of the mud people and their spirits to locate the third box of Orden.  The spirits told them to seek the witch woman Shota.  Shota did reveal where the third box was but also told Richard that both Zedd and Kahlan would attack Richard.  Zedd with wizards fire and Kahlan with her confessor magic.  Kahlan tried many times to kill herself because of what Shota said but ultimately agreed with Richard that nothing is set in stone. They traveled to Tamarang, where the third box was almost ready to be given to Darken Rahl as a token in a peace treaty with D'Hara.
The story does for a time follow a little girl named Rachel who lives in Tamarang as the princess' playmate.  She is treated horribly by the princess and ends up helping the wizard Giller to steal the last box before Darken Rahl gets ahold of it and she escapes the palace.  Giller gave his life in a wizard life force in an attempt to kill Darken Rahl who realizes the box in the vault was a fake and Giller was behind the switch.  Rachel was found by Richard and Kahlan after escaping but did not know she had the box and she did not tell them because she did not know they were friends.  Kahlan's long hair made her scary to Rachel and her comments about Giller made Rachel run away from them during the night. 
Richard and Kahlan, deciding one little girl was not as important as the box, prayed Rachel would be fine as the continued to Tamarang.  On the road the found Zedd and the three of them entered Tamarang to learn the box was gone, and then left after freeing all the prisoners.  They found Siddlin in the dungeons of Tamarang and rescued him.  After leaving Tamarang they ran into Chase who had found Rachel.  It was then revealed Rachel had the box.  They all decided to gather where Richard's brother had assembled an army in order to have plenty of men in case Darken Rahl came for the box. As they crossed a bridge, Richard was knocked from his horse due to hitting some kind of invisible wall.  Everyone else could walk through it except Richard.  Zedd told him it was a spell done by the court artist in Tamarang, James, as an attempt to capture or kill Richard.  Zedd told Richard where to find the cave James used to draw his spells.  The rest went off towards the army. 
Richard found the cave and altered the drawing with the tools Zedd gave him and released him from the spell and put James in his place.  Richard was then captured by Mord'Sith, who are a group of women with the power to inflict pain to a person who has used their magic on a Mord'Sith.  Deanna was the Mord'Sith that captured him under the command of Darken Rahl and she brought him to the dungeons of Tamarang for some "training" which is just the Mord'Sith's version of inflicting pain to bring certain behaviors.  She had captured Richard's magic of the sword as he used it to kill her to inflict pain.  Before leaving Tamarang, the princess visited the dungeons to return some humiliation she received while he visited with Kahlan earlier.  Richard managed to dull the pain long enough to kick the princess in the jaw, shattering her jaw and severing her tongue.  As Deana was leaving with Richard the queen demanded that Richard be released to her for execution for his crimes against the princess.  Deanna killed the queen with her Agiel, which is a short rod used to inflict pain.  Once they returned to D'Hara, Deanna continued the training and learned even through all the torture Richard had a special kind soul.  After one night of Darken Rahl beating Deanna for her softness on Richard, Richard showed compassion Deanna had never known before and this allowed him to kill Deanna by turning the sword of truth's blade white and kill with love which is a magic that had not be captured by the Mord'Sith.  Richard learned he could do this after a meeting with Darken Rahl in which Darken Rahl revealed that he wanted the Book of Counted Shadows which in an instruction book to the boxes of Orden.  Richard had memorized the book and burnt it with the help of his father before he had been killed by Darken Rahl. 
Richard was spelled by Darken Rahl that no friend would see Richard, they would only see an enemy.  He also told Richard a friend has betrayed him as he had the last box.  After killing Deanna and escaping the palace, Richard enlisted the help of a red dragon Darken Rahl had captured to find his friends who had left his brother on their way to rescue him.  He found his friends but they didn't recognize him and Zedd used wizards fire on him as Shota had said he would.  Richard, not being able to make his friends understand him, left to find his brother.  He found him but also learned his brother betrayed him.  Zedd, Chase, and Kahlan were then found by Darken Rahl's men and assaulted.  The men had been spelled to protect them from Kahlan and Zedd's magic.  When Kahlan was told Richard was dead she went into a rage known as the Con Dar, or blood rage, and sought revenge on Darken Rahl. 
Richard, Kahlan, Zedd, and Chase all arrived at the palace at about the same time.  Darken Rahl tricked Kahlan into using her power on Richard, imbolized Zedd and Chase, and demanded Richard recite the book of counted shadows.  Beleiveing Richard to be under the spell of Kahlan's magic, Darken Rahl believed Richard when he lied about which box would bring him power.  Darken Rahl claimed to have forknowledge on which box would instantly kill him, but dismissed it as true because he believed Richard could not lie.  Darken Rahl then opened the wrong box and died. 

Diary of Ellen Rimbauer

So in the middle of the second book to the Belgariad series I took a break and read The Diary Ellen Rimbauer Life: My Life at Rose Red is a 2001 novel by Ridley Pearson. The book is written as nonfiction accompaniment to the movie Rose Red.  Whereas the movie concentrates on the happenings of a group of psychics assembled by Dr. Joyce Reardon, the book is a editted copy of Ellen Rimbauer's diary which fuels Dr. Reardon's desire to enter Rose Red.  It answered a few questions I had when watching the movie and is an interesting read.  It definitely lacks the signature of Stephen King and noone who reads King and has read the Diary would be fooled into thinking King or his wife had anything to do with writing the novel itself.  The excerpts edited from the book by Dr. Reardon were indicated on being on the university website that Dr. Reardon worked but this also is a fictional website and no longer exists and those edited pages can no longer be viewed.  This is a bummer as I would have liked to read a few of those pages if for nothing more than interest at what they held. 

Pawn of Prophecy - The Belgariad - David Eddings

     So I started to reread The Belgariad by David Eddings.  I love this series of books and it generally keeps me busy for a few weeks since it doesn't keep me awake when I read in bed at night since I have read it so many times I could probably recite it.

     In this book Garion finds himself swept up in events that make no sense to him and his whole world is turned upside down with the knowledge that his Aunt, who raised him, isn't really his Aunt.  This is further exasperated by the fact that everyone around him seems to not only know things he doesn't know but also be someone that Garion didn't know.  The journey starts off when the old storyteller, who frequented the farm where Garion grew up on, shows up and whisks his Aunt, himself, and the blacksmith away to chase after a thief of a valuable object.  Noone talks about the object or the thief in this book.

     They are joined by a small man named Silk, and a rather large man named Barak.  They are attacked several times in their journey and eventually captured and delivered to the king of Sendaria.  There Garion learns the true identity of his companions including his Aunt who is not his Aunt Pol who he thought but actually Polgara who is a sorceress who has lived thousands of years and is only outlived by her father Belgarth who happens to be the old storyteller, whom Garion has been calling Mister Wolf.  Silk turns out to be the nephew of the king of Drasnia and called Prince Kheldar and Barak happens to be the Earl of Trellheim.  The king of Sendaria transports them to Cherek to meet with the kings of Aloria.  Once there Garion thwarts an assassination on the king of Cherek and gets a strange greeting by an old blind seer.  Aunt Pol shows her power for the first time producing a rose for the queen of Cherek and again when she restores the old blind seers' eyes.  This only further worries Garion that his Aunt may not be related to him which would make him alone in the world.

     Once the visit to Cherek is over the companions go on their way back to chasing the thief.  The books ends on the boat with Mister Wolf explaining the complex relationship to his Aunt and himself.  Garion is astonded to learn Mister Wolf is actually his grandfather and relieved his Aunt is really his Aunt, although several greats added on for both). This comforts him and then asks about his parents.  Belgarth explains they were murdered by an old enemy of Garion's family and Garion then swears revenge. Here the book closes and moves onto book two: Queen of Sorcery.  

His Dark Materials

So I just finished His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman.  It is a trilogy consisting of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. 

  I watched the movie The Golden Compass and because of the way they ended it, the movie always left me wanting to know what happened next so I decided to pick up the books.  Book number one went pretty good and gave me a bit more insight than the movie did.  One of the biggest things I found I had a hard time reconciling is Mrs Coulter's hair.  Belief it or not, the book was dark while Nicole Kidman's is almost a platinum blonde.  There were long periods of time where nothing interesting happened and I can not believe Mr Pullman put in so much dead space in his books.  He obviously saw how it all went together but I found alot of information that had really no purpose except word count.  As I moved into book two, The Subtle Knife, things got even more confusing and there were a bunch more places where I just could not see why he even put such a thing into his book.  At the end of book two, we had been introduced to three different worlds and many new things and still most did not seem to even connect to each other.  I mean, what is Mary Malone's purpose?  To be the snake?  I get the reference but really, did she really NEED to be in the book?  Or Citigaze, why do we need to go through Citigaze to get between Lyra's world and Will's world?  What is the purpose of that?  The biggest WTF moments was when John Parry died. What was the purpose of actually having a scorned witch lover murder him just as his son and him find each other?  Did it really need to happen so Will found him in the World of the Dead?  Moving onto Book three, The Amber Spyglass, what exactly is the reason Mary Malone fell into the world of these strange creatures called mulefa. Did she really need to understand the way Dust worked? Book three gave me all those "Aha" moments I was looking for to make all the odds and ends make sense but there were a few I still didn't understand.  What was the purpose of Father Gomez?  He ultimately did nothing to the story and speaking of wasteful purposes, how did Mary 'tempt' Lyra?  These books left me with more questions than explanations.  While it was very noble that Lyra's parents eventually learned love for not only themselves but for their only daughter it was way too late and by the end of the book did almost nothing obvious to help Lyra.  How was the death of Metatron helpful?  And, really why leave the book were it ended?  You had only one or two moments of love between children and they figured out how to fix the Dust issue.  There was a whole lot of crap in between and then the children live forever after apart.  There is no hope for love with them.  The books left me ultimately disappointed and I will not be reading them again anytime soon.  His Dark Materials by Pullman, Philip [Boxed Set] [3 Units] (Google Affiliate Ad)