Reflections on the Anita Blake novels, books 1-6

The Anita Blake and Merry Gentry books are my two favorite series out there.  I love them both and the worlds Laurell K Hamilton created for them.  With that being said, I do tend to love the Merry series a bit more than the Anita series.  But I didn't understand WHY I loved one more than the other, so I decided to explore that a bit.  (It's an INFJ thing, I really can't help it.)


So I went back and read the first six books in the Anita Blake series and discovered some things:

• I don't like Richard all that much.  And when I explored that is was because Richard could never accept himself fully, but expected Anita to accept him fully.  

• You can always count on Jean-Claude to get the job done.  Whatever that job may be, if Anita asks it of Jean-Claude & it is within his power to do, it will get done.  

• Vampires tend to kill less messily than lycanthropes.  This does not apply if either the vampire or the lycanthrope is mentally unstable.  Vampires sip their food while lycanthropes tear their's to pieces.  

• Lycanthropes tend to be much more sexual than vampires.  They have a different kind of energy to them and lycanthropes tend to channel that more towards sex than vampires.

• I really like when Edward and Anita are working together to take bad things out.  I really dislike when Edward and Anita are at odds.  They make a good professional team.

• The second book was probably the hardest for me to read because of the murder scenes depicted.  But in terms of being pure evil, I'd say Dominga Salvador took the prize, not the killer zombie she raised.  Prize for most manipulative monster goes to Alejandro's master (whose name escapes me at the moment) who narrowly edges Raina out at being the most willing to use his underlings as fodder

• As I've gotten older and have had more life-experience, I've realized that while Anita remains a favorite kick-ass heroine, she has some problematic personal issues.  Mainly being unreasonable at times.  But...nobody handles a gun like Anita ;-)

I will be continuing my re-read of the Anita Blake novels over the next few months.  A re-read of the Merry Gentry books will also happen, but I have no idea when at this point.