The beginning of the end. I was fascinated with the whole human servant thing. I was fascinated with the werewolf added into the fray thing - talk about a messy love life! I thought that her powers increasing was fine - they had to if she was hanging around the kinds of monsters that were in her coterie. The twist with her being able to have a vampire servant bound to her was a nice one....after all, her power is to control the dead, and what are vampires but dead? But it was never enough. It got to the point that every man who crossed her path fell madly in love, lust or slack jawed admiration of her whether he was human, vampire, werewolf, psychopath, you name it. She was a walking Love Potion Number 9. The only men who could withstand her powers of attraction were men who were such small side characters that they didn't matter. And her powers just kept getting bigger. First she's an animator and can raise the dead...with some effort and a careful ritual and specific tools. Then she doesn't need much effort, then she doesn't need any tools at all, then she becomes a necromancer, able to call ALL the dead. Then she becomes the werewolf's female leader, then the were leopards female leader although she's not forced to do any changing with the full moon nastiness. It gets to the point that you figure when she meets God, she'll just absorb all his powers, too. Is there any power she DOESN'T have? Because if not, I can guarantee she'll have it eventually, although I will not still be reading this series by the time she ascends to divinity.And as the sex increases, the plot decreases. I have nothing against soft core porn, I really don't. I read my fair share of it and enjoy it. But if I pick up a book to read a mystery or some fantasy and get doused with a couple hundred pages of fellatio before the plot even begins, I'm not reading what I picked the book up to read.This book marks a major turning point in the series for me. Up until this book, the series was still a good one despite the loss of the female detective angle as her social life becomes the focus of the plots rather than solving a mystery. But this book crosses over the line and from here, you need to grit your teeth to keep going with the rest of the series.

3.5, closer to 4 though.I have no idea how to rate this book. Everyone seemed to hate it so I started it with really low expectations. What can I say, I was surprised.Some were good surprises, some not so much.On one hand, there were a lot of things that I didn't like. The long, maybe useless descriptions were annoying (but I got used to them by now). I didn't like the "new" Richard and how he seemed to change from the guy I was used to. I didn't like the sexual relationships (if you can call them that way) and all they implied. But well, that's kind of the only stuff that I didn't enjoy. The good part is that all these changes were logical, Hamilton was really good at explaining everything and made me see the rationality behind all these changes. Can't say I liked them but they made sense.On the other hand, there were a lot of things that I really enjoyed. This book made me "feel" more than any other book of this series. It made me smile, frown, love, hate, yell etc. For me, that's one of the most important things in a book: to make react. It was long but really fast paced. It was very well written. It's everything I began to expect form this series.I just couldn't bring myself to rate this book any lower. Despite all the things I disliked, this was a damn well written book. Despite all the people who hate it and say that this is the beginning of the end, I just see it as a new beginning, a pretty big plot twist (for lack of a better word) that made some people hate this series and some just a bit more curious.I say it's worth a try :)

If I hear ARM WRESTLING one more time, I'll be shooting Anita Blake myself, and ask questions later.The character clothes are startlingly late 80s to early 90s kind of sexy, I wouldn't know I was a baby then but Bitch please! A healthy coat of vinyl body tight suit with matching boots ON A MAN'S BODY is hardly sexy! No matter how sexy that man is!Last book Anita was becoming this unrelatable character badass and the author tries to humanize her in this one by making her cry all the time and throw up and other characters love her whichever they may be or whatever she may have done... Anybody who hates Anita will eventually die and I say this with such certainty as sure as Anita will always tell you she has claustrophobia and airplane phobia and monster phobia and a bit of female phobia. But sure as hell she will take these all in a stride while overly describing her fears again and again you will want to claw your eyes out just not read them again. But hey Anita can heal you in one go, can suck the life out of you, can raise zombies and vampires, will make you fall in love with her or want to have sex with her, can be the alpha, the lupa, the executioner, the dominant, the protector, black belt in judo, learned kenpo disciple, a religious jogger and oh yeah almost now God's instrument on earth. Amen.

*le sigh*So, this is one of my least favorite novels of all time. In and outside of the Anita Blake series. I began reading this series as a senior in high school (about 2002) and was enraptured by this giant world of were-folk, vampires, and our favorite ball-busting, vampire staking, caustically witty Anita Blake.I followed the series dutifully and enjoyed every page. Obsidian Butterfly was wonderful with more Edward! But I got to this novel and became extremely dumbstruck and disappointed. What happened? Where did Anita go, and who is this crazed sex fiendish psuedo were-queen, vampire servant woman?The change to the writing style happened so drastically that I knew there was no going back. It seemed that Hamilton realized she would make more money punching out vampire bodice rippers than actually formulating an effective plot.

TOTALLY SPOILERY, BEWAREHamilton managed to work in at least two Triple Word Scores with use of terms that resonate well with genre fans: ouroboros (remember Scully's tattoo, anyone?) and oubliette (yay! Jareth would be so pleased). But the newest term created for the Blakeverse? Panwere. Because it was not enough to have werewolves, wereleopards, wererats, wereswans, weresnakes, weretigers, werehyenas, weredogs and werebears. Nay, we also have to have someone who can shapeshift into multiple animals. Oh, and also, he must have split personality disorder. (Just roll with it, it's faster that way.)When the books began, Anita was 24 and she was an animator (meaning she could raise zombies). Then she became a human servant to a vampire. But then she killed him (which nearly killed her) and was freed. Somewhere along the way, she went from being just an animator to a necromancer (like an uber-animator - she can now also raise vampires). Then she became a human servant again. And since she was dating the werewolf king (called an Ulfric), she was deemed his lupa (like a werewolf queen, I guess). And then she killed the head wereleopard in town and became the wereleopard's Nimir-Ra (queen).So, when this book began, Anita was 26 and a necromancer human servant to the Master of the City and the werewolf king's lupa and the wereleopards' queen. (See how I said to just roll with it?) During the course of the book, Anita is accidentally impaled on the claws of one of her wereleopards, so it seems she might become their Nimir-Ra for like real, yo. She exhibits all sorts of new powers that confirm this suspicion. But come the next full moon, she doesn't shapeshift and it turns out that much as her vampire sweetie has an "animal to call" (being wolves), she (through the marks of being his human servant) has gained an animal to call of her very own - the leopard. How convenient. Oh, and she has also become a Master Necromancer, in that she now has a vampire servant. And did I mention she is now also a succubus? Yeah, that one would take too long to explain, so just keep rolling.New folk that want to sleep with her: the new Nimir-Raj (leopard king) in town. And that panwere I mentioned earlier. Of course.