This is the seventh volume in the Anita Blake series and in my opinion its the best. The books are set in an alternate history in which vampires, zombies, fairies, trolls etc are all real and have rights. Antia is a necromancer whcih means she can raise and control the dead.
The plot is ... Read review
When the vampire Master of St Louis starts an affair with the city's most notorious ... more
necromancer and executioner of vampires, it was bound to cause comment.Anita Blake finds out, inBurnt Offerings, that there is something even her lover Jean-Claude fear...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
You can't trust anyone who sleeps with the monsters.' That's what I've always said. That's ... more
what I've always believed. But now I'm the one sharing a bed with the Master Vampire of the City. Me Anita Blake. The woman the vampires call The Executioner. F...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
Advantages: Jean-Claude Disadvantages: Anitas getting too powerful...
This is the seventh volume in the Anita Blake series and in my opinion its the best. The books are set in an alternate history in which vampires, zombies, fairies, trolls etc are all real and have rights. Antia is a necromancer whcih means she can raise and control the dead.
The plot is the usual action packed nonsense. Really you should read the previous volumes to get up-to-speed (all heartily reccommended)but theres enogh info shoved ... ...to skip ahead. (These info dumps are really annoying if you've read them in order) The plot revolves around the arrival of the vampire council. Anita and co. defeated a council member in the last book and Jean-Claude(her vampire lover)should have taken his place on the council. He didn't as he wasn't strong enough to hold the place against challengers and the council come to town to sort him out. The up-shot of this is that Anita and Richard (her ... more
This is the seventh volume in the Anita Blake series and in my opinion its the best. The books are set in an alternate history in which vampires, zombies, fairies, trolls etc are all real and have rights. Antia is a necromancer whcih means she can raise and control the dead.
The plot is the usual action packed nonsense. Really you should read the previous volumes to get up-to-speed (all heartily reccommended)but theres enogh info shoved into the start of the book to help anyone wanting to skip ahead. (These info dumps are really annoying if you've read them in order) The plot revolves around the arrival of the vampire council. Anita and co. defeated a council member in the last book and Jean-Claude(her vampire lover)should have taken his place on the council. He didn't as he wasn't strong enough to hold the place against challengers and the council come to town to sort him out. The up-shot of this is that Anita and Richard (her werewolf ex) get drawn into help out.
As well as this theres someone using psychic powers to start fires, the were leopards need a new leader(guess who gets the job ?) and Jean-Claude meets and old mate called Asher.
The reason i like this book is because this volume finally puts Jean-Claude centre stage. Personally i find Jean-Claude one of the best charactres in the series. Not only is he a very good looking vampire, but hes also intelligent (often more so than Anita) and powerful. We find out a lot about Jean-Claude, and he finds a long-lost pal. The ohter vampires are all evil (it does seem a bit far-fetched to say that the only nice vamps are ones Anitas friendly with, but whose complaining?)
The reason this is unfortunate is that Jean-Claude is not supposed to be the charactre that the reader empathises with. The reader is supposed to be surpporting Anita and understanding her inner turmoil(caught between a werewolf and a vampire) not cheering every time the cause of this turmoil walks onto the page. But Anita rapidly gains power in this book. She becomes virtually undeafeatable and Jean-Claude is made to seem weak by comparison. It may just be me, but this sudden increase in ability is smacks of desperation. Hamilton gives Anita bigger enemies as otherwise they wouldn't be a challenge. However for Anita to defeat these enemies she has to become more powerful. The rate this is going Anita will become God in around seven books time(that should end the series)
Anita is no longer the sympathetic charcater she was in the first book. Partly this is due to her new boyfriend and the way she dealt/deals with Richard. Hera doption of the were leopards makes her seem hypocritical (although the were leopards are great characters). I liked this book for lots of reasons but Anita isn't really one of them.
However the writing is superb. If you've read a book and not known what was going on around you becasue the book seemed so real that you were livin it, then you'll know how reading Hamilton feels. Partly this is ude to it being in the first person, partly its due to the fact that a lot happens and you feel a little lost in the action. But mainly its just that shes a great writer and her crisp prose and expert analysis of the situation.
I enjoyed reading this book and i'd definatly reccommend it to anyone. Despite my gripes over character and believability i'd reccommend it because of Jean-Claude. He is a great character and for anyone who likes vampires(to read about)this is a real find. The problem is that he isn't the main charactre and previous volumes (and the oe after)have tended to side line him.
Read this for Jean-Claude and for the writing. Ignore its faults and for a while believe in it. This is escapist fiction at its best.
Advantages: Goes along at a cracking pace with excellent side characters Disadvantages: Involnurability and losing it's detective inclination
Being the seventh in a series, I firstly must strongly suggest that the previous volumes are read prior to this one, as it will give you more depth to the characters. As many serialisations do, there are sections in the book that refresh the memory, but these are often brief, and not as fullling!
Anita Blakes world is filled with all the things that go bump in the night, vampires, zombie, werewolves, wererats and so on. From what I took from the ... ...roots, supporting the RIP Team to discover the source of the fires that seem to be directed towards vampire owned businesses, and I have to admit, the fact that Anita now fraternises with the beasts more than the humans did make for an interesting take, particularly in how the human RIP Team now deals with her. However, it ended up being more about Anita's relationship with her current and past boyfriend, and how Anita is increasingly becoming superwoman. ...
Sa1sysoo 29.03.2007
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Burnt Offerings - Laurell K. Hamilton
Advantages: A furious plot, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at our heroine. Disadvantages: Our heroine is pretty much everything-proof. Maybe her weakness is kitchen sinks...
'Burnt Offerings' is the seventh of Laurell K. Hamilton's novels dealing with the life and times of Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter. Really, this review is part of a serial review of the series. While I won't be giving away any spoilers about this novel below, it's inevitable that I reveal some important information from the previous books - often stuff that served as the dramatic conclusions/revelations to those volumes. You have been warned… ... ...for seven books? Well, as usual with such endeavours, things are beginning to sag by this point. As with the previous offering, 'The Killing Dance', the main source of enjoyment comes from the longer running themes rather than the action of the plot herein. Still, before we get to that, the story so far. Anita Blake, vampire hunter and animator of corpses, has finally resolved her love triangle. To everybody's surprise, not least her own, she currently ...
RichardW 12.01.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Burnt Offerings - Laurell K. Hamilton
Finally, after two books, Hamilton reinfuses the series with some of the horror and suspense that got me hooked in the first place, while keeping up the emotional tug of the ongoing storylines...
Eight books in and you could come to this one cold - but there's more to enjoy of you've read the others. (*)
