The Laughing Corpse

"Death didn't bother me much. Strong Christian and all that. Method of death did. Being eaten alive. One of my top three ways not to go out."

 -Anita Blake

Laurell K Hamilton's The Laughing Corpse is the second book in the Anita Blake series and it also has a comic book series based on it. Anita survived the events of the first books, but her troubles are far from over. She still has to deal with vampires that refuse to leave her alone, and now she has problems stemming from her job and animator abilities. To top off all of that, she's once more involved with a murder investigation that is hard to crack. Anita manages to juggle everything that comes her way and survive it with a mix of her wits, allies, and trusty guns. 

“I decided not to answer on the grounds that I might piss someone off.” 

-Anita Blake

Like the first book, Anita's humor and wry observations make the book for me. She is constantly quipping about the people around her and the situations she finds herself in no matter how bad it is. And Laurell K continues to build her world in interesting and engaging ways. Everything that had to do with zombies was awesomeness personified as she got the perfect mixture of creepy, horrifying, and sympathetic. The vampire issues were also great because Anita, unlike so many other heroines, refuses to just roll over and let Jean Claude, now the master vampire of the city, have his way with her and their back and forth play was fun to read. Anita also grows as a character in terms of abilities and views on the world.

 "Hope is a lying bitch."

-Anita Blake

Another great thing about this book is that it could be read as a stand alone. Yes, the experience would be richer if you read Guilty Pleasures first, but you don't have to in order to understand and enjoy The Laughing Corpse. And while it has the same elements as the first book, vampires and the crime case, it does not come across as formulaic like some series do. 

Overall, this book is one of my favorites of the series. The vaundun priestess Dominga Salvadore was an arresting character and great foreshadowing for Anita. Edward doesn't show up, but Anita is badass enough on her own, taking out people in a variety of ways. And although she tolerates Jean-Claude more than she did before, I loved the fact that never once did it seem to be a given that they would get together. Jean-Claude tries one of the typical 'force you into loving/belonging with me' type gesture which is very popular in urban fantasy and Anita does her best to get out of it. I supported this fully because Jean-Claude is one of my least favorite characters and I had no desire to see Anita end up with him.

This book just fanned the flames of my love for this series and for my own ideas about heroines, their love interests, and what they could be able to do.

“Stupidity isn't punishable by death. If it was, there would be a hell of a population drop.” 

-Anita Blake

Anita Blake

       I have to start out with one of the authors who did not just inspire me, but can also be considered the mother to an entire genre:

Laurell K. Hamilton

This woman’s Anita Blake series was one of my first inspirations for my original fiction. Reading her was a real treat because her heroine was a tough name-taking woman who wasn’t perfect but did her best and got the job done. 

 

 

"I know who and what I am. I am The Executioner, and I don't date Vampires. I kill them." –Anita Blake

  

The first book in the Anita Blake series was Guilty Pleasures. It brings us into the middle of the life of Anita. The novel is written in the first person so we experience everything that happens to her through her eyes with her often sarcastic and always humorous commentary.  The book starts quickly, taking you into a day in the life of Anita where the reader learns that she is animator, someone who raises zombies, that she is on retainer for St. Louis’s supernatural police, and that she is also now a legal vampire executioner. Anita ends up getting blackmailed by the current master vampire of the city, the forever pubescent  Nikolaos, into investigating vampire murders happening around the city. This investigation requires Anita to use her quick thinking and skill as she tries to avoid the advances of Jean-Claude, another master vampire, and face off with enemies who are stronger and faster than she is. Anita manages to triumph at the end, but her victory is not without consequences.

Besides the plot and Anita’s snarky comments, it was the little things in the book that made me love it:

1.       The World-Building- You learn very quickly that in this alternate universe so much like our own, vampires, werewolves, zombies, and all other manner of creatures that go bump in the night exist. And vampires have recently gained citizenship.  Necromancers, called animators, are paid to raise the dead for legal matters.  And that werewolves are victims of lycanthropy, a disease that is beyond their control.

2.       The Murder Investigation- The Anita Blake series is often put into horror section and this is one of the reasons why. Anita spares no detail when she’s investigating a crime scene; if she’s about to throw up or thinking about throwing up, you are going to know which piece of gore has caused it.

3.       Death- Not death the eventual mortal state, but Death the person. Edward was one of my favorite characters, an unapologetic sociopath willing to work on the side of ‘good’ for a price or challenge. 

Anita Blake came at the right time into my life. I had just finished reading the Night World series by L.J Smith(the predecessor of all things Twilight), and was looking for vampires. Anita Blake definitely filled my quota and then some. Since then, Guilty Pleasures and a few of Hamilton's other books have been made into comics.

 

"Guilty Pleasures treads a thin line between entertainment and the sadistic.  The Circus goes over the edge and down into the abyss.  And here I go inside.  Oh, joy in the morning." - Anita