Dead Ever After #13 in the Southern Vampire Mysteries Series - Charlaine Harris
I know the Southern Vampire Mysteries series aren't great literature and Charlaine Harris isn't going to be winning a Booker Prize any time soon, the series is a light, easy and entertaining read. Ms Harris has built an intriguing world and has been the Maker to a set of characters that I've found myself heavily invested in, which is rare for me.
In previous books the continuity errors have been comical but just about bareable; Ms Harris doesn't seem to know her own world apparently and frequently either forgets or gets the names wrong of her characters. Inconsequential characters (of which there were hundreds it seemed) changed names mid paragraph and a main character changed his age and hair colour in one book, huh?
She was also fond of parachuting characters into the story that weren't ever mentioned in the previous books as some sort of deus ex machina that left me bewildered and scratching my head. It resolved a plot line but was still rather irritating all the same.
Which brings me to the 13th Book in the series, Dead Ever after.. well, where to start? The writing is very poor, as I said above the writer is no prize winner. If Ms Harris has an editor she/he wants firing and a new one hired very quickly.
The plot is leaden and slow moving with a LOT of unnecessary detail about the main characters life, the murder mystery is predictable and pedestrian, enemies old and new drop dead at every turn and every plot line is briskly resolved regardless of whether the reader cared about it or not. This is fairly normal for the SVM series and I've overlooked it till now.
There are, however, many problems I have with the book, for instance, all the characters are out of, and act out of character, it made my head revolve it was so bad.
A story arc that had been happily bubbling for 12 books, yes, 12 books, was brutally dispensed with in six pages, as was a major character. The major character is not treated well in this book, he is dispatched to be the sex slave of a randy vampire Queen for no good reason that I could see other than to get rid of him. The author has publically said that she dislikes him and boy does it show. In fact I got the distinct feeling that Ms Harris dislikes all her characters a lot and is sick of the series.
The heroine, Sookie Stackhouse, has been set up as vampire bait as she is part fae (fairy) and telepathic to boot, a handy skill to have you'd think and one that you would make the most of perhaps. In previous books she has proved very useful to the supernatural population. Anyway, with the main protagonist dismissed and her protection gone you would think that every supernatural being in the 52 states will be after her, nope, she is left with a relatively young vampire bodyguard to look after her for a year. So if the King/Queen/Sheriff of the state rocks up and tries to claim her then the young vamp will defy all conventions and see them off - this does not happen and has not happened - in this universe vampires are fiercely feudal and obey their elders and Makers.
The heroine, again out of character, decides she is madly in love with someone who she has had at best lukewarm feelings for over the series. She is going to settle down with him, continue with her mundane life and job in a small town that hasn't been kind to her and have kids and a white picket fence.
Which brings me to the blood-bond, which was dispensed with quick-smart in an earlier book, yet a bond with another character through yet another plot device is fine..
Oh, and Ms Harris decided that after 12 books of Sookie Stackhouse being able to read shifter minds she now can't and can only feel emotions from them.
Meanwhile the vampire that tried to rape Sookie and feed off her earlier in the series is living in the house across the way and they are great friends. Sookie even considers revenge sex with him, I'm sorry what?
Speaking of which Ms harris has also written the most excrutiatingly bad sex scene of all time in this book, two words; seal sex.
Ms Harris has stated publically that the readers have been reading the series wrong and it was not intended to be a paranormal romance and she had the ending in mind since book two, which is her prerogative of course, it irks me though that in this book she has totally borked her canon, ruined her characters and left us, the reader with a sour taste in our mouths. I can't say that I will never buy anything Ms Harris writes again, as others have said, but I will certainly not go out of my way to read her work.
My new favourite phrase: retroactive continuity (retcon)
In previous books the continuity errors have been comical but just about bareable; Ms Harris doesn't seem to know her own world apparently and frequently either forgets or gets the names wrong of her characters. Inconsequential characters (of which there were hundreds it seemed) changed names mid paragraph and a main character changed his age and hair colour in one book, huh?
She was also fond of parachuting characters into the story that weren't ever mentioned in the previous books as some sort of deus ex machina that left me bewildered and scratching my head. It resolved a plot line but was still rather irritating all the same.
Which brings me to the 13th Book in the series, Dead Ever after.. well, where to start? The writing is very poor, as I said above the writer is no prize winner. If Ms Harris has an editor she/he wants firing and a new one hired very quickly.
The plot is leaden and slow moving with a LOT of unnecessary detail about the main characters life, the murder mystery is predictable and pedestrian, enemies old and new drop dead at every turn and every plot line is briskly resolved regardless of whether the reader cared about it or not. This is fairly normal for the SVM series and I've overlooked it till now.
There are, however, many problems I have with the book, for instance, all the characters are out of, and act out of character, it made my head revolve it was so bad.
A story arc that had been happily bubbling for 12 books, yes, 12 books, was brutally dispensed with in six pages, as was a major character. The major character is not treated well in this book, he is dispatched to be the sex slave of a randy vampire Queen for no good reason that I could see other than to get rid of him. The author has publically said that she dislikes him and boy does it show. In fact I got the distinct feeling that Ms Harris dislikes all her characters a lot and is sick of the series.
The heroine, Sookie Stackhouse, has been set up as vampire bait as she is part fae (fairy) and telepathic to boot, a handy skill to have you'd think and one that you would make the most of perhaps. In previous books she has proved very useful to the supernatural population. Anyway, with the main protagonist dismissed and her protection gone you would think that every supernatural being in the 52 states will be after her, nope, she is left with a relatively young vampire bodyguard to look after her for a year. So if the King/Queen/Sheriff of the state rocks up and tries to claim her then the young vamp will defy all conventions and see them off - this does not happen and has not happened - in this universe vampires are fiercely feudal and obey their elders and Makers.
The heroine, again out of character, decides she is madly in love with someone who she has had at best lukewarm feelings for over the series. She is going to settle down with him, continue with her mundane life and job in a small town that hasn't been kind to her and have kids and a white picket fence.
Which brings me to the blood-bond, which was dispensed with quick-smart in an earlier book, yet a bond with another character through yet another plot device is fine..
Oh, and Ms Harris decided that after 12 books of Sookie Stackhouse being able to read shifter minds she now can't and can only feel emotions from them.
Meanwhile the vampire that tried to rape Sookie and feed off her earlier in the series is living in the house across the way and they are great friends. Sookie even considers revenge sex with him, I'm sorry what?
Speaking of which Ms harris has also written the most excrutiatingly bad sex scene of all time in this book, two words; seal sex.
Ms Harris has stated publically that the readers have been reading the series wrong and it was not intended to be a paranormal romance and she had the ending in mind since book two, which is her prerogative of course, it irks me though that in this book she has totally borked her canon, ruined her characters and left us, the reader with a sour taste in our mouths. I can't say that I will never buy anything Ms Harris writes again, as others have said, but I will certainly not go out of my way to read her work.
My new favourite phrase: retroactive continuity (retcon)