Professor Bainbridge has a writing assignment for Heather:
Being somewhat of a fan of crossover fan fiction stories (e.g., X-Files/Highlander), I’ve come up with a solution. I want to read a really good story in which one of my favorite fictional villains crosses over into Anita Blake’s world and, well, snuffs her. (Not to put too fine a point on it.)
What’s his problem?
It’s not just the gratuitous S&M-tinged sex and violence. It’s not just the incredibly formulaic plots (big bad vampire comes to town; Anita’s not allowed to kill vampire bad guy due to some contrived rule of vampire politics; after killing and screwing lots of other folks, Anita finally gets to kill the bad guy. Yawn).
It’s simply that the main characters have become so unlikeable. Anita Blake is the worst of the lot. She’s a insufferably smug psychopathic bitch who is constantly pissed off at something and whose first reaction to somebody new is either to screw them, kill them, or both. She’s also one of the most remarkably self-centered major characters I’ve ever encountered, leaving behind a trail of broken hearts and (dare I say it?) blue balls wherever she goes. (One of the oddities of the series is that, despite the amount of sex in the books, Blake is always leaving somebody high and dry.)
Well, I think insufferable, smug, psychopathic, and constantly pissed off are rather attractive features in a woman (present beautiful, sufferable, not-smug, well-adjusted, and pleasantly-disposed wife excluded, of course), but I also quit reading the books when Anita Blake set up the whole sleep with the werewolf one night, sleep with the vampire the next night rotation and the books became more of the author’s wish fulfillment than this reader’s wish list.
