I Finished a Book!

I have read less in the last year than in any oth­er month in my life. Really.

How­ev­er, I did read the lat­est Ani­ta Blake nov­el, Incubus Dreams, this weekend.

The good news: It’s much larg­er than any oth­er book in the series. And it tru­ly belongs on the “poly nov­els” shelf now.
The bad news: There’s still more sex than plot.

There was a lit­tle plot—but she did­n’t resolve it! When I was four pages from the end and real­ized that we weren’t even going to SEE the real vil­lain in this book, I want­ed to toss it across the room.

No, the real “plot” is all about Ani­ta’s rela­tion­ships. She’s the tri­ad girl, always involved in three­somes. At least she’s com­ing to grips with that fact, but—GAH!

I don’t read romance nov­els. I don’t care about oth­er peo­ple’s rela­tion­ships enough to read para­graph after para­graph of them being all weepy or ecsta­t­ic or what­ev­er about their SOs. I’ve got plen­ty of rela­tion­ship stuff of my own, thank you very much.

I don’t read erot­i­ca. The most incred­i­ble writer of sexy stuff that I’ve ever encoun­tered is in bed with me every night. Why both­er to buy gener­ic stuff, when he’ll craft some­thing just for me?

Sup­pos­ed­ly, we read fic­tion to get what we don’t have in our own lives. I can’t run around, solve mys­ter­ies, and kill bad guys. I want that kind of stuff in the fic­tion I read. I want to read about heroes doing aston­ish­ing things, whether I’m read­ing sci­ence fic­tion, fan­ta­sy, or mys­tery nov­els. I want heroes I can believe in, who aren’t too perfect. 

Ani­ta has gained so many pow­ers that all the “pow­ers that be” in her uni­verse should have band­ed togeth­er to destroy her by now. Sto­ries are too bor­ing when the pro­tag­o­nists have no real chal­lenges. (Remem­ber­ing to use a con­dom on in the midst of meta­phys­i­cal fuck­ing is NOT a chal­lenge that belongs in a plot, okay?)