Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #10 - Narcissus In Chains

Laurell K. Hamilton

For the series overview click the following link. Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter

This is the first Anita book that I have managed to review basically right after finishing it, so at least this time I should get my facts straight.

The cover of this book is a major evolution in the orbit edition's cover art, more so than the removal of the gothy winged thing behind the title. It sees a departure from the somewhat cartoonesque Anita to a photo realistic one. Fortunately the cartoonesque one remains on the spine so that it doesn't look odd next to the others on the bookshelf. The font has also remained the same.

We also have a very moody blue moon feel to the cover art, this is fitting seeing as this is another one of the ones that is almost totally about the shape shifters.

The thing noticeably missing in this novel is Edward. He is mentioned, and his only effect on the plot is that he had the great idea getting Anita to stash some weapons in concealed compartments in her Jeep. Bit of a pity since he is one of the more interesting recurring characters and things are always interesting when he is around.

The other Character that gets mentioned is Larry, I was starting to get a bit worried that perhaps he was going to just fade away since we hadn't seen much of him for a few novels. I fell he necessary for a balance since there are no other real eager dorky types on offer.

We start his novel with Anita getting back from New Mexico after an extended stay trying to sort her life out and learning to deal with being bonded to Richard and Jean Claude. She has been working with things such as psychic shielding with a witch that she met whist helping Edward with some nasty monster in the last novel.

Since she has been away Richard and Jean Claude have had a few problems. Richard has basically totally destroyed the power structure of the Wolf Pack and Jean Claude has had to do some questionable things, most noticeably having to imprison Damian in a coffin with crucifixes on it after he flipped out when Anita left town.

Anita is not back long when she has to go rescue her kitties, Gregory and Nathaniel have gotten themselves into a little trouble at the slightly seedy bondage club run by Were-Hyenas. The club is called Narcissus in Chains and it's proprietor is the head of the were hyenas, Narcissus.

Narcissus is a bit of an enthusiast in things involving pain, and as it turns out is a hermaphrodite. This may be something to do with the old belief that real hyenas could change sex, but it was later discovered that female hyenas just have wacky genitals.

But since were creatures display a blend of human, animal and mythological traits there is a distinct possibility that a were hyena could be a hermaphrodite.

Before Anita can do anything, her Richard and Jean Claude have to marry their marks, this amounts to basically shagging in the middle of the club.

Some strange things happen as a result of this, but I will go into this a bit later.

After all the fun is over they all go off to rescue the were leopards, and in the process Anita nearly gets killed, possibly infected with Lycanthropy and rescues some swanmanes. Swanmanes turns out to be the official term for any were swan that isn't a swan price of swanking, like Kasper in an earlier novel.

The People who caused the trouble are a strangely mixed bunch of Lycanthropes, snakes, lions and wolves.

The whole middle section is about shifter politics and Anita possibly becoming the Nirmir-Ra for real, which cause the political problems in the first place, and the thing that Anita has picked up from Jean Claude where she has to feed of sex. As a result Anita is trying to avoid having to shag just about everything in site.

There is so much of that in the middle that you start to think that this book may take out the record for the lowest ever body count in an Anita novel.

Anita's bad ass attitude does surface a few times though, most notably when she pops out her clip of silver bullets and loads up with lead bullets so that she can shoot Liz without killing her, after she disobeys Anita one too many times.

Eventually the bad guys put in an appearance again and Anita does her best to try and make some inroads on Edward's body count.

This novel is educational because we learn a lot more about Lycanthropy and shifter politics, but for the same reasons can lead to frustration.

I think this is one serves more of a world building purpose than anything else, and as such is an important addition to the series. It also fills in gaps in what Anita has been doing and where she stands with her relationships and where her powers are going.

It is definitely not a stand-alone novel, it is written as something that belongs in a series and can't really be read out of order. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Good if you have read the other books, bad if you haven't basically.

I am most interested to see where the series goes from here, and now just have to wait for the next one to get published under orbit.