Review: Barbecue blues
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 09 20, 2013
Take away the sex and violence, and this novella shows what the Anita Blake series is now all about -- complaining, posturing, and hating people who are different from you.Aside from those things, there's not really much of a reason for "Dancing: An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Novella" to exist. I can only assume that Laurell K. Hamilton and her husband went to a barbecue that they didn't enjoy, and that she subsequently turned that mundane activity into a short story where Anita whines, picks fights and makes out with her boytoys."Dancing" is difficult to summarize because... nothing really happens. Yep, no attacking zombies, vampires, weres, ghouls or anything else. Instead, the Zerbrowskis have invited Anita, Micah and Nathaniel to their annual summer barbecue -- and naturally, they tailor the guest list to Anita's comfort. After all, a sullen, violent, antisocial, aggressive woman is a MUST at any party.Anita doesn't want to go because there will be heterosexual monogamous people there ("not our people"), but Nathaniel and Micah drag her there, along with four-year-old Matthew. And during the barbecue, she gets into fights with jealous husbands, fends off annoying blonde women who want her precious Nathaniel, and lectures everyone on homophobia after the kids gets into fights."Dancing" confirms an important fact about Laurell K. Hamilton -- she is apparently a clueless space alien who does not understand the hoo-mahn emotions. There is no other explanation for the depiction of human beings in this novella, from the creepy robot child Matthew to the cop who is just fine with Nathaniel molesting his wife when she was passed out.But to read THAT, you have to slog through dozens of pages of Anita describing EVERYTHING in detail, from the veggie tray to the Zerbrowskis' home renovations. Hamilton also adds to the creepy, bizarre subplot wherein Nathaniel seems to be grooming a pre-schooler to be Anita's "type" -- especially when it's revealed that Anita and her boytoys' sexual behavior is causing him to act inappropriately around other children. Ew.As usual, her writing is ghastly (Anita and Nathaniel's "lush" thighs and "lavender eyes, not blue...") and the dialogue is horrendously written ("I can do it, you talk cop stuff"). And, of course, several pages are devoted to every detail about her favorite boytoys' appearances, as well as her usual naked misogyny, heterophobia, cop cliches and hatred of monogamists (all married people are depicted as shallow cheaters).It also reveals an interesting fact about Hamilton's alter ego: she now quakes in fear at the idea of spending time around people who aren't brainwashed slaves. Even though the other partygoers are perfectly pleasant for most of the party, Anita is reduced to sniveling and whining pathetically because she has to be civil around people who aren't "our people." It sounds like Hamilton wants to live in a blanket fort with her stuffed animals forever."Dancing: An Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Novella" has no vampires, no hunting, and nothing happening except a lot of whining and contrived friction at a barbecue. It sounds like it could be cute, but instead it's another monument to Hamilton's many personal issues.