Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Dead Ice by Laurell K. Hamilton

As long as I was catching up on Anita Blake, and the library had this book, I figured "what the heck?"

This is a 556 page novel that really could have been about 200 pages shorter, if one removed all the agonizing that Anita does over her relationships with the men and women in her life.

When it boils down to the action plots of the novel, Anita is contacted by the FBI to help them track down someone who is abusing zombies and selling zombie porn. Back in an earlier book, Anita encountered a voodoo priestess who was able to return the souls of the dead to their bodies after raising them as zombies, torturing them with awareness of their true state, and it appears someone has either discovered or re-invented the technique.

Anita also finds herself in a tough situation when a zombie she raises for a historical society to quiz turns out to be far too lifelike, and developing flesh-eating cravings. The first is a symptom of her growing powers, possibly, and the second is due to an unknown fact about the person whose body she raises.

Speaking of her growing powers, Anita's possession of pan-were capabilities begins to bleed over into the men in her life who are weres, and they discover that they are able to assume more animal forms than their "native" ones.

Anita and Jean Claude's wedding plans continue to move forward, but there's a wrinkle concerning the were tigers, who have a prophecy that the Mother of All Darkness will return if one of them is not wed to Anita, as well. So, Anita has to audition some tigers to join her menagerie.

Asher is also causing problems again, after they have allowed him to return from exile. They really ought to just send him off to Tasmania or someplace really remote.

A fairly good story, but way too much emotional angst.

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