100 Books in One Year #32: Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris
Cannonball Read / Brian Prisco
Book Reviews | December 9, 2008 | Comments (5)
You know, as terrible as the “True Blood” series is on HBO — essentially bad Cajun accents, terrible “CSI: Baton Rogue” investigative stuff, and all the vampire porn you can stomach — the novels are a pleasant distraction. I mean, it’s a bouillebaise of supernatural materials: vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, fairies, witches, and one time someone got savaged by a menaed. They’ve even hinted at elves and goblins. She’s juggling a lot of balls, but she manages to keep the action and story flowing without getting too soupy in her love story. It was getting a little tragically Anita Blake at times, but now it sets up for a lovely depth of story. She’s got tons of people pining for her, and Sookie doesn’t know how to handle it.
POTENTIALLY SPOILERY FOR THOSE PLANNING ON READING THE SERIES:
This story is mighty complex. Jason has just started turning werepanther. Someone’s out there shooting the shapeshifters, and he’s being blamed. Meanwhile, the Weres in Shreveport are looking for a new lord and master. Harris gets a lot of play out of the old grudges from the earlier novels, setting up some interesting play among the characters. It’s one of the things I enjoy about reading deep into a series, when they capitalize on characters and events from the beginning of the series. It all adds up to a bad series of days for Sookie.
ENDETH SPOILERS.
I’ve been watching the television series, and while they sort of keep to the first novel, they’ve been setting up for the second novel — the lady who takes in Tara, the visit from the Fellowship of the Sun. They’ve even managed to dip into the events of this late in the series, setting up things that are going to follow. One things that’s disappointed me about the series — besides the godawful treatment of Tara’s character, and if this ever gets deep into a third or fourth season (not bloody likely) they’re going to be supremely fucked — is the decision to keep out the campy vampire Bubba. Who is actually the reanimated corpse of the King, Elvis Presley, only the drugs done made him retarded and able to drink cat’s blood. He plays in nicely with the series, and he’s a fun character. So I’m sad they decided he’d be too ridiculous to include. Of course, sparkling vampire sex isn’t silly. Or getting high on V (vampire blood) and having wild dream sequence sex is perfectly normal also. I hate HBO.
This review is part of the Cannonball Read series. Details are here and the growing number of participants and their blogs are here.
Comments
Posted by: Megan at December 9, 2008 8:57 AM
Meh. Seriously disinterested in vampires already. Honest, please stop - just no more vampires at all in any literature or mass media productions for the next six months. After that we negotiate, entirely based on what other ooh-everyone-likes-THAT-we'll-shove-two-in-the-plot, darkly sexy anti hero de jour takes over. Stoopid vampires.