Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsAnother fine addition to an already excellent series
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 30, 2008
As a reader I'm often driven by various reading projects. Last August I decided that I wanted to read my way through the more significant and critically acclaimed (e.g., Bram Stoker, Theodore Sturgeon, Richard Matheson, Poppy Brite, George R. R. Martin) and less significant but very popular (Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephanie Meyer) writers. There were a couple of writers that I couldn't quite place in either camp. One was F. Paul Wilson, who I have yet to read. Another was Charlaine Harris. My initial fear was that she was going to be another Laurell K. Hamilton, who had started with a great initial premise but seemed completely clueless as to what to do next, making one misstep after another in destroying what could have been a very good series (and indeed, with a couple of books, like OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY -- interestingly completely divorced from the dreadful St. Louis social setting that destroyed most of her other books -- she did show us something of what the Anita Blake books might have become). There were a long string of interesting parallels, including a protagonist with supernatural powers and a supernatural lineage becoming socially and romantically involved with vampires and were creatures. But while the Anita Blake books were increasingly less and less imaginative and more and more nothing short of pornographic, the Sookie Stackhouse books are unceasingly fresh, fun, and surprising. Everything that the Anita Blake books do wrong, the Sookie Stackhouse books do correctly.
I'm not in a position to predict whether the Sookie Stackhouse books will be regarded thirty years from now as highly as are vampire novels by Theodore Sturgeon or Richard Matheson (Sturgeon's SOME OF YOUR BLOOD and Matheson's I AM LEGEND redefined the way vampire novels could be written), but I will assert baldly that as a series they are definitely far, far better on every level than both the Anne Rice vampire series and the Anita Blake series. Harris is an infinitely better writer than Rice, who frequently struggles with basic composition and is weak at narrative. While Hamilton is somewhat better than Rice as a stylist (though she can write some surreally awful sentences) and much better at narrative, she can't come close to Harris for the deft and intelligent decisions he has made in moving her story forward.
There are just so many things I like about the Sookie Stackhouse books. Most popular writers engaging in long series usually have a number (sometimes a large number) of cringe worthy elements. I can honestly say that while I haven't loved every element in the Sookie books, I haven't experienced a moment where I was embarrassed to be reading one of the books. I like nearly all of the many characters who populate the books (though I never warmed up to Quinn) and have found all of the stories to be quite entertaining. I love Sookie's narrative voice, the ordinariness of most of her life, and the nice contrast of normal everyday life with her unusual supernatural adventures.
I also very much love the way that Harris has very, very patiently developed her storylines. For instance, the affair between Bill and Sookie lasted less than a third of the novels published so far (the fraction depending on whether you consider them broken up in CLUB DEAD). Instead of getting them back together, Harris had their relationship, what was left of it, get worse and worse, to the point where Sookie wouldn't even acknowledge Bill's presence in a room. In the most recent two novels, however, Harris has very, very gradually been healing some of the worst elements of their relationship. I don't know if they will rekindle their affair, but it does now appear that they will now at least be talking to one another. They are, after all, neighbors. We have also been learning a bit in the past few books about Sookie's supernatural lineage. We even meet in this latest novel her fairy great-grandfather Niall (a name I find interesting because on several boards and in several MMRPGs I have taken the handle of Njal -- there are many linguistic similarities between Old Irish and Old Icelandic and I'd like to think they are variants of the same name -- my source for my handle is the Icelandic saga NJAL'S SAGA, a translation of which is published by Penguin). In other words, Harris is very good about not impatiently rushing to the next elements in the story. At the same time, storywise the novels feel pretty full. A lot of things happen in them. There are always good "B" plots, and often good "C" and "D" plots as well. If the main plots in this book was the were war and the hostile takeover of post-Katrina Louisiana by vampires from Las Vegas, then the "B" plot was the introduction of Sookie's great-grandfather Niall, and the "C" plot her brother Jason's divorce. At the same time, being introduced to Sookie's "nephew," who has the same abilities that she has, sets up more story lines for the future.
So, now I've finished all the Sookie Stackhouse books that have been published so far. Unfortunately Charlaine Harris has not announced any additional Sookie Stackhouse books. Instead, the next year or so apparently will be dedicated to one or another of her other series. The success of the TV series TRUE BLOOD, based on the Sookie Stackhouse book, might cause her to reevaluate how quickly she resumes writing the next book in the sequel. Her other heroines are all well and good, but I doubt if any will generate the kind of public interest another Sookie book would. Although she has consistently produced yearly a new Sookie novel for the past several years, it looks like we will get Season Two of TRUE BLOOD (tentatively scheduled for the summer of 2009) before we get another Sookie Stackhouse novel. Whenever it arrives, I definitely will be taking a look.
