Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter - Series Overview

Author: Laurell K. Hamilton

Now this is one damn cool series. I first noticed it when Orbit got the rights to print/distribute the UK version and some time later I walked into the bookshop and suddenly there was a whole bunch of books in a series with this cool matching cover art about some chick that hunts vampires. Oh and in the artwork she looked kinda like Lara Croft (similar outfits, dark hair)

At first I was a bit hesitant because it sounded like it might be a total buffy rip off, then the first few books found their way onto a cheap pile in an obvious effort to get people interested in the series.
Well the evil plot worked, and I only had to pay full price for three of the first eight novels. Shortly after the purchase I began reading them.

Turns out that the series was really well written and that Anita was much cooler than Buffy.

The first thing that needs to be realised is that the world is pretty much identical to the real world except that magic and monsters are real, basically what it would be like if you woke up one day and the owner of the local pub was a vampire, your co-worker was a werewolf and your ex-girlfriend that you dated in high school was a super powerful witch. There are a lot of interesting sub plots through these novels, such as the constitutional rights for Vampires and other such conundrums. With that established one just needs to know why Anita is way cooler than buffy.

The first point about Anita is that her main line of employment is as an Animator, not the type that make cartoons. She raises Zombies for a living, legislation has been passed that the testimony of a zombie is admissible in court, so there is big money in raising zombies to get them to testify in contested wills etc. It is a very lucrative business (if you happen to have the talent for raising the dead).
She is also a licensed Vampire Executioner, meaning she is allowed to kill vampires if she gets a warrant. On top of this Anita is on retainer with the police as their preternatural expert, they call her in when the shit hits the fan and it isn't caused by humans.

As the novels progress she turns into a raging horn bag and ends up shagging the city's master vampire and the head of the werewolf pack. This is in between jacking up her body count to one that arnie would be proud of and meeting up with a Bounty Hunter that specialises in monsters because people are too easy. Most importantly Anita is a total psychopath at times and collects stuffed penguins (Linux Loving Slut material)

Anita has an interesting arsenal, she doesn't use a stake to kill vampires she prefers a Browning Hi Power with silver plated hollow points or a shotgun at close range (with silver shot). She also uses silver knives and occasionally an Uzi (also with silver hollow points).
Silver is handy in her secondary lines of work (which seem to occupy more of her time than her actual job), as it will kill vampires if you take their heart out and also kills were creatures.

The only lame bit about the series is that religious symbols + faith = bad for vamps. I hate that when religion gets in the way of a perfectly good vampire story.

Books

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