How the smeg did that happen?

[briarwood]

Uh...on a totally non-political note, LKH's latest novel, with the begging-to-be-mocked title Swallowing Darkness is published this week. It's a Merry Gentry novel, not Anita Blake. Don't misunderstand, I think LKH has less talent than the average fanfic writer, but for some reason I do still enjoy the Merry books. I buy them as audiobooks, and listen to them on the walk to and from work.

My copy hasn't arrived yet; I had to order it from the US, so it's probably a couple of weeks away. But I found it for download on audible.co.uk which let me listen to a "preview". It's probably on iTunes as well; I haven't checked there yet.

They've changed the narrator. The original narrator is Laurell Merlington, who, though she mispronounces many of the Celtic names, really earned my admiration for the way she reads LKH's terrible sex scenes. She does such a great job with awful material; it's true professionalism how she manages to read without making it seem like it's meant to be funny. (I mean, it often is funny, and it's usually painfully un-erotic, but she reads so seriously...except the threesome in Mistrial's Kiss; not even she could make that good.) So I was a little ticked that they didn't use her for the new novel. If nothing else, she is Merry's voice to me now, after six books. I did notice the name of the new narrator: Claudia Black. And of course I recognised the name, but I didn't think it was the Claudia Black.

But from the preview snippet - OMG it is her! What on earth is a talented actress doing reading this crap? Why, oh, why would she do it?

(I can't wait for my CD to arrive now.)

Comments

[raynedanser.livejournal.com]

OMG - That's such a shame Claudia is doing that. I almost suggested maybe she likes LKH, but I really hope not. :/

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

It's such a weird choice, too. She doesn't sound American, and Merry is supposed to be this all-American-mid-western gal.

On the other hand, Claudia Black, reading me porn... Even bad porn, that's kind of a happy place :-)

[raynedanser.livejournal.com]

Maybe they figured she would have a voice that a lot of people would recognize?

Claudia Black, reading me porn... Even bad porn, that's kind of a happy place :-)

Hee! Yes, there is no bad there. ;-)

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

Maybe she's practising for some of the SG1 Big Finish audios...?

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Maybe. I guess LKH switched publishers, but Claudia is a weird choice for this. Not as weird as her agreeing to do it, though!

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

::shrug:: Even talented actresses need a little extra cash ever now and then. Maybe she saw a small Caribbean island she liked and decided to splurge, then needed to make up the loss ...

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

*grins*

Yeah. I'm curious what she'd be paid for doing something like this, actually...or rather, whether it would be royalty-based. Audiobooks are beginning to sell very well indeed and as popular as LKH's books seem to be, it could be a very good deal.

[nghthwk8.livejournal.com]

I read the book in the bookstore. There's actually very little sex in this book but lots of action. Claudia Black should do a good job with it.

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

There's actually very little sex in this book but lots of action.

Really? Two books in a row with actual plot??? What's happened to the queen of bad porn?

Thanks for the info!

[nghthwk8.livejournal.com]

Plots actually get pushed along and questions answered instead of more people for Merry to have sex with.

What's the other book with an actual plot?? I'm sure the queen of bad porn will be back but if she keeps this new trend I have hopes for the next Anita book.

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

What's the other book with an actual plot??

Lick of Frost.

I have no hope for Anita any longer. The series could be fixed only by the deaths of several major characters and LKH won't do it.

[nghthwk8.livejournal.com]

I believe there are less sex scenes in the present book than Lick of Frost or at least close to it.

With regards to Anita, there would need to be at least major attitude changes with some of the characters, if not their deaths, or moving to other cities to save the series.

An interesting comment I read in her blog recently was that originally she started the Merry series to explore issues of politics and sex that was not a major issue in Anita books but since then they have become more equal with reagrds to the sex issue. That's a major place where the Anita books went wrong, all the sex scenes. You can have the succubus aspect without describing in details all the sex scenes that have become a bit dull.

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

With regards to Anita, there would need to be at least major attitude changes with some of the characters, if not their deaths

It needs more than an attitude change. At the very least, the "ardeur" has to go, which means Jean Claude has to die. Richard is now utterly beyond hope, but Jean Claude's death would kill him anyway (although at this point, IMHO death is too good for him).

Their deaths would create a place from which the series could possibly be rebuilt into something worth continuing: Anita's unorthodox lifestyle would still be an issue re. her police work, but on a far more realistic footing. Her powers can still be a big deal, just without the giant-vagina-of-doom and the vamps can be the bad guys again, which is as it should be. The shapeshifter stuff was always more interesting.

Anita needs some human friends. Actual friends, not antagonists. Like Edward, like Ronnie-as-she-was and whatever happened to her lawyer friend whose wedding was such a big deal in the first few books? Catherine, was it? Human friends who think in human ways could bring Anita some much-needed self-awareness - someone, for example, needs to point out to her that she's guilty of rape. Multiple times.

Most importantly, though, LKH needs to get it through her thick head that angst does not equal plot, and sex does not equal plot. A novel-length story needs to have actual plot beyond those two things. Otherwise, all she's writing is porn. I've got nothing against porn, but I resent it being packaged as something else.

That's a major place where the Anita books went wrong, all the sex scenes.

I'm not sure I quite agree. I think the reason all the sex scenes mess up the series is because LKH haas no idea how to write sex. Her peculiar vocabulary aside (though that's a major part of the problem), in a novel sex should move the plot forward. With the Merry books, it started out that way, then got lost. I have some hope that she's regaining that. Similarly, in the Anita series the earliest sex scenes, such as in Blue Moon were absolutely integral to the plot. As porn, it was awful, but that didn't matter because it moved the plot forward. But somewhere along the way they became just bad porn to no clear purpose.