redbrunja | Oh, Bite Me Sookie

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Oh, Bite Me Sookie

Okay, so I have a rocky relationship with the Sookie Stackhouse series.

They've never been ohmygod great but I've keep up with them. I really liked the first one, Dead Until Dark, and the next couple. However, imho, the books took a dive when around when Quinn was introduced. They seemed to fall into the classic urban fantasy pit of the books being about the heroine and her harem, but the last couple books pulled themselves out of that, with stuff about the vampire courts. And then we had Dead and Gone, which I set aside right after Eric and Sookie banged. Again.

Honestly, the last book was just way to much on Sookie's love life. It's become clear to me that Eric had fucked her emotions up good (which is textually explicit, but I'm not interested enough to hang around and see if the author does something interesting with that. There are more interesting consent issues going on over at Legend of the Seeker.)

Also, the whole passage about Sookie thinking about drinking vamp blood and how she'd never ever pay for it... but damn, has it made her hot! What with her getting it fresh and straight from the vein of one of her harem! was so thick with hypocrisy I wanted to slap Sookie.

That said, I can't wait for the next Harper Connelly book, which is a series that is much darker and more entertaining than the Stackhouse books - it has a more realistic set-up, I really like the heroine's power and it has a romance that is so epically twisted and delicious I would expect it to only exist in fanfic, much less be canon in a published book. I saw the subtext for Harper and Tolliver in the first book, and I wanted to get other people to read it so that I could check if my subtext meter was in tune or it I was out to lunch (I wasn't).

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And that is exactly why I stopped reading the Sookie Stackhouse stuff, too. I'm really, really, REALLY hating this trend where the heroines come out with a whole damn harem of undead/supernatural hotties. And the excuse that the addition of a new fuck buddy is "character growth" is such bullshit... I mean, I know Sookie books have always leaned a little more toward the romance aspect anyway, but come ON. It's gotten to the point where you can't have an urban fantasy heroine without at least six guys fucking her.

Also, I noticed you've mentioned Legend of the Seeker a couple times. Have you read the books that series is based upon yet? I've not watched the show all that much, mostly because I'm scare to see what they've done to the characters and the story, and I ended up quitting that series too for a couple reasons. So... just curious.

I'm really, really, REALLY hating this trend where the heroines come out with a whole damn harem of undead/supernatural hotties.

Same here. And slutification ≠ character development. On that subject, you HAVE to read the Kitty Norville series. It's tied with The Dresden Files for my favorite UF series, has a heroine with legitimate character growth unrelated to who's in her pants, and a grand total of TWO love interests, one of which she has never even kissed, much less swapped blood with.

I have not read the Legend of the Seeker books. I heard that they were not very good LoTR rip-offs, and while I checked out the first book once, I returned it immediately when I realized that it was about 500 pages and had a billion sequels. I'm really, really picky about the classic fantasy I pick up after having been burned too many times before.

Honestly, I think my standards are lower with fantasy tv (so little of it) than fantasy books (such an investment of time, so little good stuff).

On that subject, the pilot of the tv series was so predictable that it hugely plot bunnied me for a fantasy novel/series that would be nontraditional and which is now fighting against the YA sci-fi novel for what gets to be written next.

*writes down rec* I trust your judgment on this. And that sounds like a VERY promising series to get into, especially if it's as good as Dresden Files... which, come to think of it, is the only UF series I follow anymore either. Unless you count Vampire Hunter D. Which I guess sort of WOULD fall in that category were it written by someone in the States rather than in Japan. *sighs*

The first fove or six books of the Seeker series I thought were actually very good. And I think it's incredibly unfair to judge and action/adventure series to the standard of LOTRs. Tolkien was a genius with words and REALLY pushed the bar high as far as fantasy story telling is concerned. I'd say the Seeker series is more closely related to the Wheel of Time series, only a little more watered down.

But, like I said, I stopped reading the series when it became nothing but Richard and Kahlan "I love you!" "No I love you more" fest. *rolls eyes*

I don't know if you've checked out this fantasy series yet, but George R.R. Martin's work is phenomenal. There are four books so far, they're all HUGE and there are soooo many characters that sometimes keeping up with plot lines can be tricky. But my god, does the man know how to write! Soooo many plot twists and blind wtf's... and he's SO GOOD at making characters you can really, REALLY hate or love. Plus, the gender distribution is probably one of the most even I've ever come across. He has some scary, cunning women. Like Daeneris? I love her. She basically went from being this trophy girl her brother wanted to sell off to being a serious political and military threat to the main land. And it's LEGITIMATE character growth. She earns everything she has. It's been worth every penny I've spent on it so far.

The Kitty Norville series is great. Fantastic covers to boot.

Tolkien was a genius with words and REALLY pushed the bar high as far as fantasy story telling is concerned. I'd say the Seeker series is more closely related to the Wheel of Time series, only a little more watered down.

WoT was also a huge reason I didn't pick up the SOT series. I consider myself lucky I quit that before the author died.

But, like I said, I stopped reading the series when it became nothing but Richard and Kahlan "I love you!" "No I love you more" fest. *rolls eyes*

*rolls eyes as well* Because that is just SO INTERESTING to the reader.

And I've heard good things about the Song of Ice and Fire. I might give it a try sometime.

Alright. I'm picking up the first Kitty Norville book tonight. And I'll let you know what I thought of it.

Hell, maybe I should make my own book rec/review post, seeing as everyone else on the flist is doing it.

It's sad that he died though, and without finishing the last book. I heard that his widow is trying to compile his notes and such to finish it though, in his memory. That'd be very cool if she could.

Oh, I know! I mean, the ONE thing I look for in a book is an argument over who adores who the most. Because when you're basically trying to rebuild the world, THAT is the most important thing to establish first.

Song of Ice and Fire is incredible. You definitely should give it a try sometime. Martin knows EXACTLY how to pace a story, and you can tell he's reeeeally thought everything out very carefully.

Alright. I'm picking up the first Kitty Norville book tonight. And I'll let you know what I thought of it.

Hell, maybe I should make my own book rec/review post, seeing as everyone else on the flist is doing it.

Please do! There is one thing about the first book I loathe but it has one of the best first meetings of a ship ever and then a hilarious lampshade hanging about how 'meet cute' (for UF value) their first meeting was.

I think you'll like it.

I got it. Will probably start reading it tomorrow afternoon. So far, the summary sounds promising... Forgive me if I hold my breath a bit, but I've been severely burned the last few times someone's recommended UF series to me. Like the last one I got half way through and didn't finish because she ended up fucking a guy four chapters in with no apparent reason other than he was her ex and she still had a thing for him. I mean, the guy was JUST INTRODUCED about three pages prior, damn it! All I know about him is he's a cop and he has a twitchy cock. That's it.

All I know about him is he's a cop and he has a twitchy cock. That's it.

What more do you need to know, really?

And I totally understand being wary.

I read Dead Until Dark, but I don't know, it was okay. I couldn't see myself reading another book in the series. A lot of UF bounces off of me though. I've liked the Weather Warden books by Rachel Caine, so far, through book four.

I really liked the Weather Warden books, although honestly, I think she should have only written one book.

Quinn was about the time I stopped reading them too, though I liked the one he was introduced in, with the Queen of Lousinana.

Yeah, I think Quinn was a sign for all of those smart enough to read the writing on the wall.

I really enjoy True Blood, but I haven't read the books. What you're talking about doesn't seem like the Sookie Ive seen at all, and I'm glad. Id heard the show was better than the books (a rarity) and very different...but wow. No thanks. Sounds like they run in the vein of the Anita Blake novels, which Ive deliberately avoided.

I haven't read the Sword of Truth books either, but I'm about halfway through Legend of the Seeker. Its just getting to the conflict of why Richard and Kahlen cant act on their feelings. Should be interesting to see that resolve.

See, I agree with you on True Blood. The accents can be reeeeally grating at times, but the show is SO much better than the books. Such a rare, rare thing to find.

And Anita Blake... *scowls* You ever see the movie 'Sweetest Thing"? Funny movie. The grandpa in that movie hated his wife, so every time someone mentiones grandma he growls,"Grandma... fuck grandma!"

That's me and Anita Blake now. I'm the grandpa.

The series was incredible and did a LOT to promote having a female lead in the UF genre... but then LKH either got massively laid after many moons of celibacy or else cashed in on the whole "sex sells" bollocks, because Anita goes from being someone cautious about her relationships to a total whore. And the logic behind it is that she's absorbed the sex vibes from her vamp boyfriend.

It's not just the copious amounts of repetitive, uncreative sex that pisses me off about the series. It's the fact that LKH feels that character development is directly related to how much supernatural power Anita absorbs from everyone around her. She's got like five million werebeasts she can control/summon, she's in two different power triads and apparently she's got a magic healing vagina. Oh, and she summons the dead. And she can gain power by feeding off of sex vibes from others.

So... yeah. I actually stuck through it to about book 10 before I got so pissed off with the awfulness that I stopped. And then I sold everything after book 7 and got some money to spend on other things.

but then LKH either got massively laid after many moons of celibacy

Given things she's said, I've voting for this.

Aww, remember when Anita raised the dead? And she was badass because of raising the dead AND HER FREAKING GUNS?

That was nice.

*blinks* I don't remember an Anita who raised the dead and shot people up like swiss cheese... oh, WAIT! You mean that character who actually SOLVED murders and did police work? Naw, that wasn't Anita Blake! That was her much cooler doppelganger. The REAL Anita Blake is the sex craving, human sponge for all forms of metaphysical and supernatural power that can't walk through a room without having at LEAST 10 guys and 4 women come on to her, out of which half will fuck her before she makes it out the other side of the room. *rolls eyes* Please... that shallow shell you were referring to earlier is NOTHING compared to Nympho Anita.

Honestly, for a second there I thought you were actually talking about an UF heroine having some REAL character development and substance.

And we all know that will never happen.

MINE will, TYVM. ;)

Same here.

And TYVM?

thank you very much. XD

Id heard the show was better than the books (a rarity) and very different...but wow. No thanks. Sounds like they run in the vein of the Anita Blake novels, which Ive deliberately avoided.

Well... I don't know if I'd say the show was better. The Sookie books are much sweeter than both the TV show and Anita Blake, and like the latter, it starts good and gets worse.

Honestly, the parts of the show I loved weren't even in the books (mainly Tara) and the parts that I hated (graphic, incredibly unsexy sex) weren't in the books either.

The opening of True Blood is is the best thing since sliced bread, though.

Edited 2009-08-06 01:17 (UTC)

I thought the first love scene between Bill and Sookie was good, but everything else after that (especially season 2) is very unappealing. Maybe the scenes between Hoyt and Jessica will retain some genuine sensuality.

That show does indeed have the best opening ever. XD

Yep, the first scene with Suki and Bill (when he was almost drained) was good. I didn't watch after the first couple of episodes, though.

Oh, I am so glad that I found this journal :D

Naruto, books and wirting, my favorite topics :)

It's good to know that Sookie's series are not really very good books. Some months ago, I had a thing like uhm.. a reader block?
Yeah, I read good critiques about a series, I bought the first 2 books... I dislike them so much that I couldn't even finish the first one....

It was the first time that that ever happened to me. I always finish the books I buy, myabe I was a lucky reader until that point...

Some weeks ago, a friend of mine told me that maybe, because my temper, I would like "Pride and prejudice" by Jane Austen, and I loved it.

The way she mocks social stereotypes, the way I felt it so romantic eventhough the charaters didn't even hold hands...
It ended my block...

And I was thinking of buying Sookie books, but I don't think I'll do it.

Do you know some good modern romance/supernatural books, that are not corny and stupid, and not the paper twin of Twilight?

Maybe I am paranoid, but I have noticed that a lot of supernatural series that came out after Twilight (or half before Twilight, and half after), tend to turn into it...

Maybe it's a bit like with the regency genre, after a point, a lot of them just use the same plot and just change the heroes names :(

Or maybe I don't know how to look for books.....

Well, welcome!

It was the first time that that ever happened to me. I always finish the books I buy, myabe I was a lucky reader until that point..

I'd say so. I've lost track of the number of books I've returned to the library half-read, and I don't usually buy books unless I've already read them or like the author previously.

Actually, out of disgust at Twilight, I wrote a rec post for vampire books with actually scary vampires:

http://redbrunja.livejournal.com/237070.html

to which I would add The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher and the Kitty Norville series as supernatural without vamps. (Although Butcher's work does have a couple vampires.)

Thank you!!! I also love vampires!! It's so difficult to find an author that mix romance and vampires and doesn't forget that those little guys are also "scary monsters"... not misioners, or preachers, or obsessive control freaks... or sparkling fairies (shudder).
Sometimes, I was just waiting for the guy of Twilight to start singing and suddenly sprout fairy wings. Maybe if everyone were "dusty fairies of love", the thing about shinning and sprouting poetry and almost flying, and be "so beautiful", "almost like an angel, but not totally one", would have been a bit less hateful for me.I felt offended. I try to have an optimistic view of books, to rescue whatever I can and read them to the end to have a well founded opinion... This time it was impossible for me.

In fact, I felt the whole book was like hearing a realigious fanatic, trying to convert me into her religion... The only difference was that they changed the names of certain people: The doctor Whathisname, was some sort of biblical prophet or even Jesus himself.. in a way, he was "sent by his father, to be sacrificed"... Edward the prodigous son. All of them, try to show "the right way" to lost vampires.
___

For example, The analogy Twilight uses for vegetarianism and "the goodnes" that are Edward and his family, offended me.

Just "vegetarian" vampires, are good creatures.... so, does she means that vegetarian people is kinder than people that eats meat?
So, am I a some kind of monster who needs to be converted because I like to eat fish? So, from her point of view, I couldn't love a cat or a dog, because I would feel the need to eat them?

People that eats meat can have sheeps as pets, and chickens, Why, in this book, vampires that sucks blood, can't meet humans without wanting to eat them? And, well, If they are not humans anymore, they should not have a soul, nor a conscience... or at least their "soul" should also be transformed, so that when they see humans, they are as atractive to them as a cow, or a dog, or a pig...

So, in that way, wouldn't Edward be having some sort of parahillia? He wants to have sex with "his prey"... so in the end, her analogies guided me to believe, that Edward, the fairy vampire, shouldn't be frowned upon by his society not because he is vegetarian in love with a girl with serious problems of co-dependence, but because he is some sort of vegetarian lusting after his cat...

I hope I made sense? :P

Not really.

I get that you're agreeing that vampires should be scary but beyond that....

Maybe if I'd read more than 100 pages of the first twilight, I'd get it.

Edited 2009-08-06 06:52 (UTC)

Yeah, lol, that's probably it (mixed with my bad grammar).

A friend of mine, told me that Twilight is the life that the author would like to live, because she is probably a sexually frustrated person...
Another friend, told me that the fourth book was good, and that I should try it. I read it skipping pages

(sorry if I spoiler someone)

It's a even big WTF! I have always thought that there was psychological violence in the way the guy talked with the girl. It got worse during their marriage... I skipped several pages, and she got a child and changes herself, and then every fucking thing, gets "incredible right" and the guy is not a violent emo anymore... He doesn't think being a vampire as a "punishment" from God. No, now that Bella is like him, with his child, etc. 100 yeors of pain and self hate and emo-ness, ended.

Message to stupid teenagers: "If you have problems with you boyfirend, and he treats you badly... get married to him, change youself to his like, and have his child quickly, and everything is going to be all right... becaouse it was probably your fault". This is what domestic violency is done from in my country.

A friend of mine, told me that Twilight is the life that the author would like to live,

Very, very true.

Message to stupid teenagers: "If you have problems with you boyfirend, and he treats you badly... get married to him, change youself to his like, and have his child quickly, and everything is going to be all right... becaouse it was probably your fault". This is what domestic violency is done from in my country.

Same in mine, sad to say.

Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon. This explains almost every single WTF thing about the Twilight series. If you felt like she was preaching to you, she was, only I don't even think it was deliberate subtext. Its just her ingrained WTF. There are dozens of not-so-subtle Mormon parallels and influences, including Volturi = Catholic church = EVIL, and Werewolves = Native Americans = Lamanites = EVIL.

Read this: http://stoney321.livejournal.com/317176.html

It points out (and mocks) all of the parallels, and is one of the funniest damn things Ive ever read.

Thank you! I am definitely going to read that.
I knew she was a mormon after my failed try to read her book. I don't know a lot about mormons beyond what a mormon aquitance has told me, so I am not sure if my next opinion is well founded.
From what I have been told, they are a bit racist and sexist. Maybe that explains the lack of black vampires in the book. The only one, was not even the leader of the group. And the woman role, always behind the man (or with a man), to the point in which
No man=No brain=Zombie... There are not important s"pinsters women", while there are men who are alone.
I live in a small town but there are a bunch of different religions here (catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, mormons, protestants, and even a bunch of fanatic christians).
I have been to birthdays, were all these people from different religions go to "get fun", and end up preaching and almost challeging each other for "who gives the most original sermon that bings more people to their religion and make God love them more"... so I really wouldn't be surprised if this book was some sort of merchandising technique to bring more teenagers and young adult followers (at least in my city, there was a mormon boom, at the same time of the Twilight boom).
I know that what she did probably was not deliberate... but well, a church it's a church. I am a "mexican catholic"... and I don't believe in the church. I know that a lot of things that powerful religions do (even if it's jus support someone), is quite well thought .
For example, La virgen de Guadalupe, It's a lie. She was the representation of Coatlicue, an aztec virgin goddess. When the church tried to convert the aztecs, they couldn't overpower the Coatlicue ritual, so the invented the Guadalupe virgin to gain adepts and to control the people. 500 years after, that lie is still working.

Shallow at it may seems, I haven't really had interest in the Sookie Stackhouse series simply because the covers were drawn...wait, wrong word, made to look like it's done by a very lazy artist who doesn't think highly of Harris' work.

Shallow, I know.

Hey, cover art is important.

That said, if that's all that's keeping you from giving it a try, I'd recommend picking up a reprint with *points to icon* that incredibly sexy cover image.

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Oh, Bite Me Sookie

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