Tendrils of Darkness — Epilogue
Epilogue With No Man’s Land finally behin...
The following is found at the back of Guilty Pleasures.
My name is Anita Blake. Vampires call me The Executioner. What I call them isn’t repeatable. Ever since the Supreme Court granted the undead equal rights, most people think vampires are just ordinary folks with fangs. I know better. I’ve seen their victims. I carry the scars…But now a serial killer is murdering vampires and the most powerful bloodsucker in town wants me to find the killer…
But seriously, why write a synopsis at the back of the book if it’s not really true? I’ve had two false claims before I even read the book. One, a friend said it was good and two, this synopsis told me it was a different book. I expected Buffy meets True Blood. The synopsis excited me but like an episode of ‘Lost’ I felt a little bit emptier after every episode. During this book it was after every chapter; this book has 47 of them.
However, what really lacks from Guilty Pleasures is depth; Depth of character, storyline and creativity.
At 294 pages (47 chapters in 294 pages?!?!), there isn’t a lot of room to do them all well, but why not attempt to do one of them well? Anita’s Blake’s character is not someone anyone could relate to, her character’s background story is only skimmed upon and she has zero personality; unless being scared all the time and still doing what she does counts. The storyline is so wishy washy, going back and forth with no real result, there is no build up. The premise is supposed to be a murder mystery, but I felt no suspense at all and when the killer is finally revealed there is nothing to be shocked about because I simply did not care.
Writing a vampire novel can be quite the balancing act. In my opinion there are two options, one, make up your own lore and mingle it with some of the previous lore; two, choose some of the already existing lore to fit your story. What you shouldn’t do is to have every single vampire lore that has existed in our space time continuum and stick it in your book. It makes them ridiculous and makes me think of you as uncreative and unimaginative. It’s like going out on a first date, you can’t decide on where to take him/her, so you go to an all you can eat pizza joint. “I loved how you took me to all you can eat pizza on our first date” said no one ever.
The ending to this book besides having a lame mystery killer is that there is no rhyme or reason for anything that happens. It just seemed so implausible that it just reeks of deus ex machina.
Look if you just want something that has something going on every 2 pages, by all means read this book. If you want something satisfying, go read Fevre Dream.
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