Incubus Dreams: An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Novel

In Twilight for Bella we have Edward & Jacob. For Sookie we have Bill and Eric with a dash of Alcide & Quinn. But for the incomparable Anita Blake we have Jean-Claude, Richard, Asher, Nathaniel, Jason, Damien and my personal favorite: Micah. Who says a woman can't have it all? Anita is tortured by norms but she is who she is and the angst of these relationships is powerful. I have loved the entire series and Laurell's vision of these characters. Some readers miss the mystery of the first set of books and don't care for the relationship madness. I personally love it all and trust the authors vision to develop Anita as she needs to be developed. Throw away your 'white picket fence" ideals and take a wild ride with Anita Blake. You might just enjoy it...I know I did.

I have read a number of Anita Blake series. This is the only one I have ever REread. The sex scenes were off the wall, just what you would hope for with Werewolves & Vampires. What could be worse than tame vampire sex??? I loved that the relationship with Nathaniel finally took off. I look forward to more encounters between theme.

Wow! This is LKH's best book yet! I am a huge fan of the series and have loved the development of Anita. See, when we first met Anita back in 'Guilty Pleasures', she was a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails, vampire-killer with morals, integrity, principles, and intelligence. How boring. However, starting around 3 books ago, her degeneration into an ambivalent, unconfident, self-centered, cheap whore who will have sex with anyone and anything, has got to be one of the best destructions of a literary character in any series. Gone is the prissy Anita who said "I don't do furry." Or the undead, or any stranger who happens to be present when the arduer kicks in. Enter the new liberated Anita: one who will forever walk bowlegged based on the frequency and quantity of sex she has with impossibly endowed men (who all have long hair that "spill" everywhere). Now we don't have to waste time with solving crimes or raising the dead. The vampire world used to be scared of Anita because she might take them down. Not anymore. No siree, Bob! Now vamps are only scared that if they piss her off, they might not get to sleep with her for the umpteenth time. LKH wisely chooses not to waste any precious space in ID with lame filler like an actual plot. Instead she focuses on the only thing that really matters: How many times can she get Anita to have sex, with as many different men, in a multitude of positions, in as little amount of time as possible. And did I mention the dialogue? I mean, can you get better writing than in this book? Consider this classic line from ID..."Fvck me while I'm tight!" or "Please stop or it won't last!" I don't think so. What about this great sequence..."Fvck me, I said. Fvck me, God, fvck me, just fvck me. Fvck me, fvck me, fvck me, fvck me, please, please, please, just fvck me." Just terrific. Get this book! You will not be disappointed!

People complain about unresolved plot and all the sex. What I got from the story was how Anita needed to acknowledge all the problems in her life and deal with them instead of avoiding them and hope they'll go away. Could the mystery have been deal with more? Yes. Could the sex scenes have been shortened? Of course. But for me it was the heroine realizing that she needs to deal with her feelings, personal and professional. Now that is out of the way, bring on the Council and the Mother Of All Darkness!

I'm giving this a 5 because I checked it out from the library instead of buying it. This leaves me far more favorably disposed to the book. Here's what I'd like to see in the next Merry Gentry (oops I meant Anita Blake) novel: 1. More threesomes - You heard me, this book didn't contain nearly enough threesomes for my taste. Also, I'd appreciate it if all of the additional threesomes were 2 guys + Anita (as I and I'm sure most readers can't get enough of that) 2. More guys joining Anita's harem. Also, more of those guys who are hetero being written into the 2 guy/Anita threesomes - especially if it makes them super uncomfortable like it did Richard. 3. Less zombie raising 4. Less fighting/violence (other than the additional biting/chewing/sucking in 2 guy/Anita threesomes) 5. Less detective/police stuff (this takes away from pages that could be better spent giving even more elaborate descriptions of the threesomes) 6. More discussions about impending sex before the sex. Yes, I think most readers find a chapter or two of dialog about an impending sexual encounter beforehand to really add to the story. While Incubus Dreams did include the pre-sex chapters for the most part, there were a couple of threesomes that were just slipped in there without adequate discussion. 6. Fewer female characters besides Anita and corpses. Live women/vampires shouldn't be included in this series anymore. Ditch Ronnie and the lady cop too. After all, they'll never make it into the threesomes (since Anita doesn't do women), so why bother us with them in the first place. Lose the female therapist - get a guy and get him in a 2 guy/Anita threesome. The same with Dr Lillian - a threesomable male would be far better.