I have to thank Laurell K. Hamilton and this book for teaching me life is too short to hang on even after a series jumps the shark. For me the Anita Blake series did in Narcissus in Chains, the tenth book. This is the 17th book in the series, but two things had kept me going. First, back when this book came out, once I had invested in a series, I kept going no matter what. (Hello, Gookind's Sword of Truth series, where I suffered to the end.) Second, this series once was good. I liked Jean-Claude, I liked Richard, I was liking Anita's arc as she saw other sides to creatures she had seen as "monsters" and faced her own darkness. So sheer momentum (and hope) kept me going. After Narcissus in Chains, the plots shrank and the sex scenes lengthened until they were taking over the books. I had a lot more problems than the (badly written, tedious) sex scenes, but yes, I did see it as a problem that if you took out all of the sex in the (endless) 752-page Incubus Dreams, you would get a slim novella. So, one might think the answer would be, get rid of the sex! (Anita btw was chaste until the sixth book--and those were the best in the series.) Or at least, don't let it dominate the story.
So I had hope when I heard there was less sex in this novel, that she had left her "sweeties" behind to go vampire hunting with Edward, Olaf and Bernardo, the marshals featured in Obsidian Butterfly, the last good book. I knew all hope was gone when that made no difference. The non-sex parts have now become as tedious as the sex. Anita seems tired, and I'm tired of her, of her constant more-macho-than-thou, yet-more-woman-than-you-ever-will-be posturing. The imagination, the creative edge this series had is long gone. Anita had been getting more and more unlikable with each book as, avatar for Hamilton that she is, she spent unbelievable portions of the books defending her lifestyle to all comers--and it has reached absurd lengths here.
This was the last book in the series I ever completed. I tried once more with the next book, Flirt, and gave up mid-read. No more Anita for me.
