ice_of_dreams: (desolate)
I am not quick to judge an author in Plagiarism, I think that there are only so much material in books and therefore it is difficult to find ideas that are completely new.

However, I really can't stomach Sunny's Monere series.

I vowed not to read this series AGAIN ever, but I think someone needs to point out all the similarities in Sunny and Bishop's Dark Jewels and LKH's Meredith Gentry Series.

If you have more lines to add, not themes, but exact lines of the books that are the same in Sunny's Monere series and other books comment and we'll add it. Honestly. This has got to stop.




"Each territory is ruled by a Queen," Gryphon answered. "And the land is divided into many territories."
--Sunny, Mona Lisa Awakening

vs.

The Blood villages within a District would look after, and treat fairly, the landen villages that were bound to them. The District Queens would serve in the Province Queen's court. The Province Queens, in their turn, would serve the Territory Queen, who was chosen by the majority of the darker-Jeweled Blood, both male and female, because she was the strongest and the best.
-- Anne Bishop, Daughter of the Blood






They are full-blooded warriors, stronger and faster than you. Fear not, you will be drawn to them in the same manner as you are drawn to me
--Sunny Mona Lisa Awakening

vs.

It wasn't just the magic that had drawn the males. It was the inner radiance housed ithin those female bodies, a luminescence that some men had craved as much as they might have craved a light they could see glowing in a window when they were standing out in the cold. They had craved that light as much as they had craved being sheathed in the sweet darkness of a woman's body, if not more.
Males had become Blood because they'd been drawn to both.
-- Anne Bishop, Daughter of the Blood




"If Mona Sera detects the intimate scent of her men upon you, she will slay you all. She will kill you because she will see you as attempting to take her territory, her men. She will destroy the men who dare touch you because she will view it as betrayal against herself, a rejection. And as you can see," he grimaced and gestured at himself, "the lady does not take rejection well. If, in the unlikely event the men manage to constrain themselves, do what you can to seduce one or two—all would be best—and make them yours.
-- Mona Lisa Awakening

vs.

Sholto was one of the Queen’s Guard, which meant he couldn’t sleep with any sidhe except her. She didn’t share her men, not with anyone. The punishment for breaking the taboo was death by torture.
-- Meredith Gentry




An entire scene here... with Gryphon and Mona Lisa in Mona Lisa Awakening mimicks Doyle and Merry's scene in A Kiss of Shadows. Where Gryphon and Doyle are both wounded and Mona Lisa and Merry are wearing nothing underneath their night shirt and though Mona Lisa convinces Gryphon to lie with her, in Merry and Doyle's case, Merry didn't tease Doyle but brought him with magic accidentally.

In fact, Gryphon mimicks Doyle to the extent that Gryphon is also a Falcon and Doyle is an Eagle.




There has never been a Mixed Blood Queen before.
-- Mona Lisa awakening

vs

Meredith is the first half-sidhe Queen in Unseelie court.





As you see, males may gain power from joining with a Queen
-- Mona Lisa Awakening

vs.

"No one who has not become a god can sleep with Merry until we understand what the chalice and the Goddess want
-- Seduced by Moonlight
Doyle referring to Merry bringing back the Raven's godhead through sex.




Demon dead was perhaps a more accurate description. They were not creatures from hell as we think of them, although they did live there—in Hell, that is. Demon dead are Monère who died, yet retained enough psychic energy to sustain their existence in another realm—a forever twilight where no life, no colors, existed
-- Sunny, Over the Moon Anthology, Mona Lisa Three

vs


He'd never feared anything in Hell, but he'd always felt an aching despair for the cildru dyathe, the demon-dead children. In Hell, the dead retained the form of their last living hour. This cold, blasted Realm had never been a kind place, but to look upon those children, to see what had been done to them by another's hand
-- Daughter of the Blood




And another disturbingly SAME scene:

"You… uh, you're not going to eat me, are you?"

"Not yet," he growled. "My hunger for you is too great for such restraint this first time."

"Amber," I said almost desperately as his head dipped down, as I felt the brush of his lips and the alarming edge of his teeth stroke over the base of my neck where my pulse bounded suddenly like a desperate thing. As he lingered over it, fear and desire pumped my heart equally. A delicious combination, that edge of danger. But only if I knew there truly wasn't any.

"Amber," I said more sharply. He lifted his head, his nostrils flaring, his eyes dilating as he breathed in my fear-tanged arousal. "I mean as a meal. You don't see me as food, do you?"

He shook his head as if coming out of a daze. His eyes still looked cold, inhuman, but his voice, his voice was the Amber I knew and loved, warm with reassurance… and a bit of amusement. "No, love. I want to fuck you. Not eat you."

"Oh good." The tension left my body, leaving an almost painful, sagging relief in its wake.

His body shook. His breath hitched against my skin as he bent his head once more to my neck. "Amber." Alarm kicked in once more. Had I hurt his feelings?

His head remained lowered.

"Amber, you're not… crying, are you?"

"No," he choked, his breath huffing against me.

"Look at me."

He did. Mirth danced in his eyes, not tears.

"Beast," I said succinctly.

"Don't worry," he choked out, "not too much of one."

His body shook with the laughter he was trying to suppress. "Don't be mad, my love." But his words were ruined by the shaking merriment of his heaving body, and he suddenly lost the battle. A shout of laughter burst out. Then another, and another, until he was fairly howling with it, shaking against me not with lust but with hilarity.

Oh, the bastard! He was laughing at me!
---- Sunny, On the Prown Anthology, Mona Lisa Betwining

vs.

"Are we having fun here, Doyle, or are you going to eat me?" My voice was a little steadier, firmer.

"This first time I would not trust myself to put my mouth to such tender places."

It took me a second to realize that he had misunderstood me. "I don't mean eat me in the euphemistic sense, Doyle. I mean, am I food?" My voice sounded utterly calm now, ordinary. Pinned to the bed by his body, his eyes still animalistic and wild, and I sounded like I was in the office, talking business.

He blinked and I saw the confusion in his eyes. I realized that I was asking him to think too deeply. He'd given himself over to a piece of himself that he rarely let out. That part didn't think like a person.

**snip***

He put a hand back to touch the blood on his back, as if he hadn't felt it until that moment. He propped himself up on one elbow and stared at the blood on his hands. Then he threw back his head and laughed, laughed until he collapsed on top of me again, and when he finished laughing, he cried.

--- LKH A Caress of Twilight


ice_of_dreams: (merry gentry)
I have had the same love-hate relationship with Meredith Gentry ever since Mistral's Kiss. After I read chapter 1 I thought it would be in keeping with the old times, an old crime scene, and some investigations. I should have known better.

One of the things I hate about the writing style is that it assumes I am an idiot. For example, in one sentence Merry uses the term "The Summerland", who anybody with a fair hand of knowing myths knows would be equal to Paradise in terms of fae language. Disregarding that, I thought context clues were enough to point it out that way. But no. Ms. Hamilton has to have a specific sentence saying: "The Summerlands was one of our words for Heaven." And I think that sums up why I hate the book. It assumes that one doesn't, or can't think. I think that's the reason why for EVERY new book in this series the author wants to recap everything from book 1 with things like: "I've only remembered the queen doing this and that..." which happened in the series... and yes, the author doesn't even remember half of the things that happens in her own books. (As numerous errata abound in a lot of books are seen, and even a duplicate "tattooing" happened in two different books).

Another thing I find annoying is the way the author explains away during her sex scenes. I'm not bothered by all of the sex in Meredith Gentry, but I am bothered with the way it is written. It's conversation in between. And though the author tries her hand at BDSM it feels like she's done all research at it, but haven't actually seen how a scene like that is played out. Meredith might be a pain whore, but she's certainly picky about it. It's like the author tries to curtail to BDSM but tries to limit the savagery of it for her more conservative readers.

Or stating the obvious like this scene:
"What's wrong with him?"
"Wizard's Bane."
"Oh,” Sholto said.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s an old term for wizards who overextend themselves. I figured it was a quicker explanation to Sholto.”
“Which I’ve just made longer,”

Or sometimes when another character asks "what did you say?" someone would repeat the entire line. Not just write down "Rhys repeated his words in controlled anger." So you're reading the same useless script. It gets BORING after eight books of that type of writing style.

So I think, in a rather round about way, I am hating the fact that instead of trying to write the story, the author is trying to explain the story through conversations. And it drives me insane, because half way trough, you already understood. You don't need the character to explain the scene that just happened. Know-it-all characters. It wastes half of the book!

I am even starting to hate the goddess appearing out of the blue. I was okay with Rhys but, Ivi and Brii had me banging my head against the computer desk.

I also thought... and this is somewhat a spoiler here. That they went with TOO MANY MEN for the final battle in this book when one assassin and one pretend guard could have done the work. And I thin their oppenents were too complacent during their final face off. No one who killed off that number of fae could have been that ... stupid.

The only other thing I liked about this is the way Doyle and Frost are playing out. And for some perverse reason, I enjoy the entire Doyle and Barnithus arguments. But when it does get to the crime scene *sigh* it does get a bit better. It seems like this book would have been better with the crime scene and the paparazzi more and less of the goddess. Which is rather, teh point of this series, bring magic back to the fae... but honestly? Once at the climax or once at the falling action would have been nicer for me than the way they did it here, making it look like a filler. (I'd much rather look at the "communing" Rhys was doing with the sithen rather than some of the other fillers I was reading."


But *sigh* even if Doyle and Frost get a lot of time in this book, and Doyle gets name dropped a lot, (even when he isn't in the room Merry manages to think of him or tell something about him), nothing new is in that corner except for a smallish bit of information.

WHY then am I still reading the series? Because I like some of the characters if not the writing style. I like the idea if not the whole book. I like myths and fae even if the way they handled this was not as well as I would have liked.

So yes. Here's to another round of waiting.
ice_of_dreams: (merry gentry)
Yes, the Divine Misdemeanors preview is out. It looks to be as promising as the first book in the series. There's murder, and there's an investigation... both of which drew me to Merry Gentry in the first place. I still think the way Laurell Hamilton writes the sentences in Merry Gentry is unnatural, but that may be because she's trying to emulate 1800's speech in 21st century... although I don't get quite the same feel from say vampire books or other immortal stories. At the same time, I *still* don't get the fact why she recaps her stories by repeating the exact same line with teh exact same feel as previous books. Redundancy is... old. Although Divine Misdemeanors is better than Swallowing Darkness in the way that the entire first chapter was not a rehash of the entire series. So far.

But as most addictions, yes, I will still probably be buying the book. T_T.
ice_of_dreams: (merry gentry)
The book I've been waiting for for a year has its ups downs and curveballs. Spoilers up ahead.

What I liked about this book is that there was action a whole lot of the way. A good deal of predictions came true, but not all of them. You get answers in this book, because obviously it's the final book in the series, unless someone higher up decides to milk it for all its worth and have a couple more in the future. But from the way the author wrote it out in the blod in the past, she was tired of writing of the series anyway, so yay for anita fans, probably more anita blake to churn out.

You get to answer in this book who gets to take the Unseelie sithen, you get the answer of will Frost come back. You get the answer of who killed Essus. For Doyle fans, there was an almost sex moment with him, interrupted viciously by a lot of talk between other people and Mistral's hurt feelings. I know, the world ends. NO the book didn't turn out like Mistral's Kiss, there was a lot of almost dying that it tended to get repetitive after a while.

I did not get to see more of Doyle's past, which was a bummer. Because all of the plot progression was crammed into one book and recap was crammed into chapter one. Honestly. You could not read chapter one if you wanted to. I would turn to fanfics except LKH has forbidden that avenue of entertainment due to weird fanfic world politics.

I need to read the entire series again, especially since I believe the entire Doyle-Merry thing was too rushed. Hey, I love the guy, just not the way it was executed. He was Merry's first guard, then in book two he didn't trust her, in book three he showed her grudging respect and wham bam in book five and six, they were in love and in seven they were cuddling. Honestly, it was strange to read the darkness in book 7 cuddling. Utterly strange but lovely because I liked him a lot anwyway.

I would have loved to see how this would have proceeded up to the point of birthing the twins but it's pouintless now. Unless we watch a series of murders and the guards scuttling around investigating, much like most paranormal series now, hwich I think was never the point of Meredith Gentry, even though she was a PI.

Meredith, Princess but never Queen.

*sigh* the world turns.
ice_of_dreams: (desolate)
I read the first chapter of Swallowing Darkness through the author's website... Although I am looking forward to reading the book, Chapter one was an entire summary of what happened in Books 1-6 the type of thing that I would have skipped through if I were reading the book itself. Although it would be useful to new readers, I doubt that a lot of new readers would have picked up book 7 of a series right off the bat. It was a bit repetitive especially since most of the six books had a tendency to recap that much. I liked the start of Book 6 much better, it was an attention grabber.

Although I am still looking forward to it becuase a lot of plot movement has been promised here. Here's hoping that I don't get turned off over the medicine in the book.
ice_of_dreams: (merry gentry)
Anita Blake. I don't know if I should be happy or what :/ *sigh* I want a Merry Gentry one, but short of a porn movie, LKH already expressed that it's not happening. I'm not sure if I'm game to watch Anita Blake. That means I have to invest more time and effort to like the series ;p

Fibished Books 1-5 of Jaz Sparks. Liked it. Need to think on it. Am sleepy though and need my beauty sleep.
ice_of_dreams: (merry gentry)
A new book cover of swallowing darkness was released recently. I just knew that if they were picking a solid color for Doyle it was either going to be purple or blue. Since Frost was already blue (since you can't really color him white in the cover) Doyle ends up being blue. Wanna bet the scene is the coronation scene? The Swallowing Darkness book is an even match for the Lick of Frost book (in terms of cover) and Ms. Hamilton promises a plot heavy book this time around. Not only can I not wait for November since by November I'd be over my hell in internal medicine, I am squirming in my seat to read the book. Hopefully, she will reveal more of Doyle, but at the same time, I am hoping that like most fans of the series she does not do a Richard for Doyle. I could not bear it if she does something like that for his character.







The two covers of Swallowing Darkness ;p
ice_of_dreams: (merry gentry)
She killed someone in Swallowing Darkness! She KILLED someone in SWALLOWING DARKNESS.

I've been hoping all this time that it isn't going to be Doyle, but you never know. After all she KILLED FROST. (Almost Killed frost...) whatever...

So I'm HOPING against hope that she didn't kill Doyle in his self-titled book. She sent Mistral away after Mistral's kiss, she 'killed' frost in a Lick of Frost... I can't take it if she kills Doyle. I won't have a reason to read the book if she kills Doyle.

I mean, I'm reading the book because I like the concept, but I also fell in love with the characters. And I love Doyle the most. And we don't know ANYTHING about him yet. We know a lot about everyone, but we don't know anything about Doyle. I'm fine if she kills Galen, I'm even fine if she kills Sholto. I'm fine if she kills Mistral. If she kills Rhys, I'll be sad, and miss him, but I will survive. But if she kills Doyle I am going to stop reading her, because there's nothing in it for me anymore.

And honestly, I think she's either killing off Doyle, Galen or Rhys. Maybe Barinthus. Because those are the only deaths that would hurt. And she claims that she cried over the death. Therefore, she hurt. THe others... she doesn't love them enough yet. Not for that type of hurt I'm getting over from her blog anyway.
ice_of_dreams: (merry gentry)
I read Laurell K. Hamilton initially, because as my multiple papers on fairy tales attest to, I love following everything on fae. So I picked up A Kiss of Shadows (the first book in Merry Gentry) because it promised to bring me back to the time when instead of Sleeping Beauty being woken up by a kiss, she was raped (ok Anne Rice did that AGAIN, but that's not here or there), etc. And it was dealing with high courth sidhe, something I rarely get to see written down. (I've seen some like Anne Bishop in Tir Alain trilogy write about it, but nothing that was completely dark).

I enjoy the mystery of the first few books, and of course, court intrigue. Of course I would have rather had lesser weird sex (as in book five) but then, I knew what I was getting into when I picked up the first book... so anyway...

And besides... what I REALLY wanted to write about was speculation about all the court intrigue/future plot lines in the book. Instead of saying if the book is good or bad, becuase it has both ugly and good moments.

SPOILERS.... )

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