Circus of the Damned
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| Amazon.com |
Kindle Edition
File Size: 604 KB
Print Length:336 pages
Publisher: Jove (September 24, 2002)
Berkley-Penguin USA (Paperback) January 2, 2007
Purchased Sept. 4, read Sept. 18 and 19
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. (Amazon.com) (BTW, Paretsky writes the V.I. Warshaski series)
In Circus of the Damned-now in trade paperback for the first time-a rogue master vampire hits town, and Anita gets caught in the middle of an undead turf war. Jean-Claude, the Master Vamp of the city, wants her for his own-but his enemies have other plans. And to make matters worse, Anita takes a hit to the heart when she meets a stunningly handsome junior high science teacher named Richard Zeeman. They're two humans caught in the crossfire-or so Anita thinks. (Penguin.com)
Here are a couple of alternate covers
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| Amazon.com, L Landy Virginia |
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| Penguin.com |
I have a hard time, having read a few books in this series that we would find a conscious Anita in Jean Louis arms. Maybe we did in some scenes of danger but it is so not Anita! Other than that what a pulpy, b-movie cover -- it should say VampireInvaders from Mars!
Anita is a complex character. She reanimates the dead for a living, a zombies. She is tough because of her job and her past makes her guarded. If she were any more emotionally on edge she would fall into the abyss; an image used in this story.
This is the first book where I felt that Anita was knowable, likable, more than two-dimensional. She lives in a paradox. She is learning that someone with her powers over the dead is a necromancer, and that she herself may not be quite human. Yet, she executes vampires without feeling remorse and makes judgments about other vampires based on the based on the baddies. But. there are plenty of bad humans and I don't believe she would so freely execute them. She sees them as dead but then dicusses heartbeat and pulse.
I see in the book that she is struggling with these ideas as she grows. She also meets a guy in this book who is actually interested in her as a woman and in a normal way. What's more she is interested in him, but first she has to save herself and some others including a new colleague, from a variety of supernatural menaces.
I do struggle with her religious nature. But that is my baggage and not necessarily that of the writer. I have a tendency to see all references to Christianity as recruitment propaganda. Much of the time it is my own hang-up. And, as the Meredith Gentry books by Ms. Hamilton are not Christian I imagine it is safe for me to say that Ms. Hamilton isn't trying to change my philosophy with subliminal messaging. That, and after several books I have had no desire to attend a church.
I also believe this is the tightest book action wise. So, discussing plot would be a spoiler fest! The atmosphere is at times weird, the characters seem languid as if the were being fed opium. I think it is part of the event then.
I was impressed enough, reading this in the middle of the night pull up Amazon and buy Lunatic Cafe.
The real story in these books isn't the big mystery. Although. I usually find mysteries predictable and she constantly throws me off-track. The real story is in the struggle to reconcile her "gift," her past, her issues with other species and just basically herself. While this is not suitable for kids because of the violence, it also not overtly sexual.
My recommendation is that it is a gripping read so grip one and read it!
Tips and Tricks I have been picking up along the way.
Make a button:
I am the web site administrator for my Junior League so I have had to learn just enough HTML to make me dangerous to the new league website. So when I began doing this I wanted all the buttons and such.
I looked at he code of buttons and found them to operate on a principal.
What a button does is link a graphic element to a url. Therefore what you need is a graphic element, ex. a logo, a picture whatever, a place on the web to store the picture, a bit of code for linking them and a web address to link to. The code makes the graphic become a way to actuate going to the address. Other people are going to take the button code to allow their readers to go to your site.
You need a place like flicker, photobucket or wherever to store the picture. You sign up to these pages, very often for free and store your graphic. Getting a graphic is another topic it should be something like a .png, .jpg, etc. And your blog name should be on it.. This new place, say photo bucket, gives your picture its own URL. The first section just makes the picture appear in your side bar the part in red is where you put the URL from the phto storage site, the second allows you to say whatever you want like "grab Me" and the third part is what ends up inside a scroll box that the person copies. The photo site may offer you several choices, pick the complete URL.
To use this, first store your picture at photobucket (or wherever) then cut and paste this into an html box substituting the parts in red for your information, It is not complex just get your information together and then plug it in. That is all I did. Some of this code is probably redundant. Let me know how it goes if you do it tonight and it fails. If one person reports an issue, I will edit it out fix and replace it. Then I won't feel like a total idiot. Just a partial one. I did test it but you never know...
<center><img style="border:none;" border="0" src="http://i000.photobucket.com/albums/ad000/useridd/picturename.jpg" /></center>
<center><span style="font-weight:bold;">grab the following code for your blog</span></center>
<center><textarea><center><center><a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com"><img style="border:none;" border="0" src="http://i000.photobucket.com/albums/ad000/useridd/picturename.jpg" /></a></center></center></textarea></center>
I thought your review was interesting. I actually like the earlier Anita books, but as the series has continued, haven't been liking them so much. Maybe I should revisit some of the first ones again. :)
ReplyDeleteShe leaves off the Christianity spiel before long. I believe the author is actually a practicing Pagan now. Did you know that Hamilton was going to kill off Jean-Claude in this book but by the time it had come for her to do so she couldn't because she was too fond of him?
ReplyDeleteI miss that bad cover. It reminds me of better times with LKH. For me the earlier ones were awesome! We broke up at Danse Macabre and I haven't seen her since.
ReplyDeleteI had to chuckle at you comments about the christianity as normally I feel the same. However I have never felt pushed by LKH's writing though it might help that I know she is a pagan.
ReplyDelete