True Blood Countdow

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Even the preview for True Blood is better than the entire last season of The Vampire Diaries. 42 days to go.

The Vampire Diaries is Over For the Season, and Really, Who Cares?

Okay, I guess it shows how important The Vampire Diaries is to me, because I am only now just getting around to commenting on it. Season finales are supposed to leave you wanting more, and to me this one just fell completely flat.  Last year watching Damon and Katherine kiss was far more interesting. In fact, watching that kiss had me wanting to push Nina out of the way and pucker up with Ian.

I don’t really care that Stefan is off on another blood binge.  Booo hooo. In fact, only good can come from this because he is far more interesting drunk on blood than when he is not. Can we please stop with the molting, moldy, depressing vampires. I also hope that during the break, Paul Wesley will take some acting classes.  Yes I said it.  The only thing he has managed to master is that serious glare, that is supposed to make the viewer weak in the knees, but inspires giggles from me.

When Jenna died in the last episode, I had honestly hoped that they would have found a reason to get rid of Jeremy as well.  I got my hopes up when founderella (sheriff) shot him, only to enter a land of grave disappointment when Bonnie brought him back.  Once again, the magical negro saves the day.  Heaven forbid they give her any culture, or anything to do but sacrifice herself for White people.

Vampire Academy series - Richelle Meade

So I’m now mining my way through book 5 of Vampire Academy by Richelle Meade, and my canary still clings to life, though it’s gasping a bit. Still, I’m going to keep swinging that pick because though the majority of what I get is dross, there’s enough nuggets of gold to make it worth while.

This series has got steadily better from the first book, Vampire Academy, which is a pleasant surprise in a genre where series usually start well then plummet more rapidly than a cheap roller coaster – and usually far more painfully (right, Laurell K Hamilton?).

The down side is that improving from the first book is no real achievement. The first book was dull, dreadfully dreadfully dull, full of teen angst and drama and so much highschool politics that it made my head ache – as mentioned here

But later books did improve, in fact each book improves on the last. The characters go from barely tolerable to actually quite interesting and, dare I say it, fairly deep and nuanced (well, sorta) but most of all the story really draws me in. It’s almost addictive, even when cursing the flaws of the books I keep reading because I want to know what’s happening next and where the story will go. Following Rose balancing her obligations to Lissa, the Moroi she’s bound to, and Dimitri her mentor/lover/enemy further balancing with Lissa’s difficulty with her unusual magic and the politics of the royal court and among that trying to navigate the fraught relationship with her parents, her love life and her own fears of insanity – this is a fascinating read, even when Rose is frustrating me with her gods-awful bad choice. And the world is novel and different – good vampires with elemental magic, undead vampires stalking them and the half-vampire guardians giving their lives in a corrupt society to keep their charges safe – even while their charges refuse to take the steps to protect themselves.

Ian Somerhalder's Famous Facial Expressions

Ian Somerhalder was almost hot enough to make The Vampire Diaries worth watching. Almost
Unfortunately, pictured above is one of his 6 facial expressions.Which is good - it’s 3 more than Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley have between them. I think they had to share. And the whole cast practiced their “long intense stares” together in a mirror

Charlaine Harris: Dead Reckoning, Book 11 of the Sookie Stackhouse Series

I mentioned last week that the next Sookie Stackhouse novel has been released.  Even though I know that Charlaine Harris is a truly troubled woman, after reading the Aurora Teagarden and Shakespeare series, I still could not wait to read this book.  Of course I have to share my thoughts with you because Harris inspires snark like no other writer I have ever read.

Spoilers ahead, you have been warned.

All right, I will start off my saying that Harris is clearly bored with this series.  The characters that we have spent so many books getting to know do not act like themselves.  Eric is violent without reason and constantly needs Sookie to place her hand on him to calm him down.  He even goes as far as to become violent with Pam, when a simple command would render her helpless to disobey his orders.  What is really weird about this, is that the relationship between Pam and Eric has always seemed like a friendship based on mutual respect, even though he is her creator. Then there is Bill, who believes that Sookie would win the Miss America best tits competition.  Yes, the vampire that Harris has spent so long constructing as a true southern gentleman actually said that. Sam, who has suddenly become Sookie’s best friend, now that he is dating another woman (note: the woman is a problem because of course she does not match Sookie’s version of femininity - typical Harris). 

Fangs for the Fantasy Podcast - Episode 14

Here we talk about the penultimate Vampire Diaries episode, Charlaine Harris' Dead Reckoning, the lastest Southern vampire Mysteries novel, Kelley Armstrong's Bitten and Stolen, Richelle Meade's Vampire Academy and Marjorie Liu's Dirk & Steele

I am gazing in my crystal ball and I predict the next Anita Blake novel

It occurs to me that I’m rapidly approaching the point where I should be looking to buy the next Anita Blake book. Gods why I do this to myself I will never know, I think the only defence is that they’ve now become so utterly bad that they’re almost comic

To extract every ounce of amusement and hopefully set myself up for a pleasant surprise, I have gazed into my crystal ball to predict the plot of this next worthy novel

The scene opens with Anita having sex. I’ll say on the kitchen table, not done that yet and gods forbid we miss a cliche. The sex will probably be portrayed as kinky but be more vanilla than an ice-cream van. For more detail I predict: