Big read the third

So for my third big read I chose to revisit an author I used to like. Laurell K Hamilton is a great author. Dead Ice was a great book.

But oh the issues. Too many cooks spoil the dish and too many plots spoil the book. Aside from the main plot, which was post snuff porn involving zombies with souls, there were 6 other plots, and they took up most of the book. A couple of them were interesting, and could have been their own books.

Anita raised a zombie for a historical society, and we got to see some neat necromancy points. I love just the idea of raising a zombie to talk about history. It also brought up some great stuff on the science of flesh eating brainless zombies and ghouls.  Give me books upon books of that.

Anita has several 'animals to call', meaning that she is a panwere who doesn't shift. Now those powers are spilling over to the actual shifters in her life. This is great for the shifter polticial interplay that Hamilton likes to bring up, but here it felt like it should have been more, if there had been more time and space for it.

The personal  relationships have really changed for the better since I last picked up one of these books. Hamilton has written many of her characters into therapy, and there was a lot less squabbling and bitchery. There were some great examples of polyamorous negotiation, as Anita has a fiance, 2 seriously committed boyfriends, several less committed boyfriends, a couple girlfriends and some friends with benefits. Added to that is her character moving towards marriage and a commitment ceremony (with the 2 serious boyfriends), she is looking seriously at adding a new partner (possibly a girl) to the commitment ceremony to fulfill a prophecy about one of her old enemies.  

Hamitlon writes a great urban fantasy, but she is forever expanding Anita's circle of partners, and their interplay has taken over the books to the point where it feels like the plot on the back of the book is ignored.  There were at least two good books here. Hamilton could have put the two zombie plots together with a small amount of fleshing out for a full book, just as the shifter politics and the romantic plots would have made their own great book.

7/10. I reccomend this book, but if you like the main plot to be the main plot, than this probably isn't the book (or the series or even the author) for you.