US Mall 1 - Obsidian Butterfly (An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 9)

	List Price: $7.99 Our Price: $4.16 Your Save: $ 3.83 ( 48% ) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Manufacturer: Jove
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54 EAN: 9780515134506 ISBN: 0515134503 Label: Jove Manufacturer: Jove Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 608 Publication Date: 2002-09-24 Publisher: Jove Studio: Jove
Related Items Narcissus in Chains (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 10) Blue Moon (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 8) Burnt Offerings (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 7) Cerulean Sins (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 11) Incubus Dreams (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 12)
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Best book in the Anita Blake Series.... Comment: Gotta love this book. Hamilton writing at her best. The subsequent books lose it a bit, but this one is IMHO by far the best of the series. Great plot, tightly written action, some great little twists, great characters (gotta love Bernardo and Olaf and the poor old cops....), more is revealed of Edward. All in all, this book illustrates what Hamilton can come out with when she's writing at her peak. Well worth the read - altho it makes more sense if you've read the earlier books in the series. Customer Rating: Summary: Obsidian Butterfly (An Anita Blake, Vampire Comment: I know,I know I say it every time but this is book is GOOD. oh my god I just love it. you must read it. Laurell Hamilton you are an amazing human being. Customer Rating: Summary: great book Comment: Laurell Hamilton has an extremely vivid fantasy and is able to create situations full of suspense and mystery. Anita Blake is always an incredible character...not only she's a great heroine, but she's also funny! The plot of this book is very well created and i couldn't almost put the book down! Customer Rating: Summary: First rate psychological thriller Comment: All right, so I'm up to Book 9 in the series now, and I still haven't lost any interest. Reading these as quickly as I have been has made them seem like one extremely long novel, rather than a series; I can't decide if it's better or worse this way. But the fact that the characters are still fascinating to me and the stories haven't lost anything over the course of -- what, 3000 pages? Something like that -- shows me that this is a series that is worth pursuing, something that I plan to read and enjoy more than once. Maybe next time I'll read them with a little more space in between. This one was excellent, though slower than the ones before it. Slower partly because it was longer, jumping 150, 200 pages in length over Blue Moon, and slower partly because it was just slower-paced. There was much less action and much more investigating and talking to different people in this one, which was a little disappointing inasmuch as it was Edward's book, and I expected that to be nothing but slaughter. But after reading it, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way, because it was fascinating to examine the disparate attitudes and morals and desires of the Four Psychos of the Apocalypse, Edward, Bernardo, Olaf, and Anita. These four run the gamut of serial killers, since that's what all of them are, and I loved comparing them over the course of the book. You have Bernardo, who isn't really in it for the kill, but is simply good at what he does and has found a place where he belongs in his role as killer-for-hire. Since he doesn't love the kill, he does as much bodyguard work as anything, and he chafes the worst under the necessity of waiting for a break in the case. Then you have Olaf, who is a true serial killer -- a sexual sadist. He's in it for the kill, but not this kind of kill, so he has trouble with this case as well, but for a different reason: he has trouble because he has a terrible time resisting his own desire to kill Anita. The case becomes something he just wants to get finished so he can get back to what he loves: murder. Then there are our two heroes, Anita and Edward; throughout all the earlier books, Anita has worried that she is becoming too much like Edward, too willing to kill for too little reason. Not surprising, as she has dropped several hints that Edward had much to do with making her the way she is; most of her guns are either given to her or suggested to her by Edward, and her biggest internal struggle -- the conflict between her connection to her two boys, and Edward's most basic philosophy, "You don't sleep with the monsters, you kill the monsters" -- comes directly from her desire to live up to Edward's example in some way. So she has been worrying that she will become as bad as, if not worse than, Edward. In this book, it turns out, she really has reached Edward's level, but not because she sank that low: rather, Edward came up. The empty, cold-hearted killer, who exists only for the thrill of a challenging hunt and a deadly climax, has found love. He has found a family. And when he comes together with these other three murderers, they actually become friends, as much as these people can. Even Olaf -- though his perception of Anita, particularly, is pretty far from what I'd call friendship. But it fit perfectly with his character. How many writers can do that? How many can not only write a convincing serial killer, but four convincing serial killers, of disparate types, and also portray their interactions in what seems a realistic way? The only other one I've known is Stephen King, who's done similar things in novels with multiple villains -- like It, with Pennywise and Ace and Beverly's father all playing different villain roles at different points. I think it says quite a lot about Laurell Hamilton that her name goes next to his in my mind with this accomplishment. The story was okay; I liked Obsidian Butterfly, both her story and her power/character, and I liked the mystery surrounding the deaths. I didn't think much of the "god," though his outfit was the ickiest thing in this oft-icky series since the rotting vampire sex or the zombie scenes in The Laughing Corpse. Good to see the theme of horrifying-multi-person-zombie come back around again, thanks to that twisted little nutjob Nicky Baco. I was a little bummed that even after 600 pages of Edward's story, I still never got to see him cut loose and slaughter people by the score; that was Olaf, Bernardo, and Anita. Which was still cool. And I liked Anita's difficulty in dealing with celibacy and her final decision regarding Richard and Jean-Claude -- and it was nice to have a book without the two of them flexing and ma-petite-ing all over the place. Though now I want them back in it, so we can see what happens next! Customer Rating: Summary: the best in the series Comment: After reading her other works, this one has the least sex scenes and is the best book in the series.
Editorial Reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Best book in the Anita Blake Series.... Comment: Gotta love this book. Hamilton writing at her best. The subsequent books lose it a bit, but this one is IMHO by far the best of the series. Great plot, tightly written action, some great little twists, great characters (gotta love Bernardo and Olaf and the poor old cops....), more is revealed of Edward. All in all, this book illustrates what Hamilton can come out with when she's writing at her peak. Well worth the read - altho it makes more sense if you've read the earlier books in the series. Customer Rating: Summary: Obsidian Butterfly (An Anita Blake, Vampire Comment: I know,I know I say it every time but this is book is GOOD. oh my god I just love it. you must read it. Laurell Hamilton you are an amazing human being. Customer Rating: Summary: great book Comment: Laurell Hamilton has an extremely vivid fantasy and is able to create situations full of suspense and mystery. Anita Blake is always an incredible character...not only she's a great heroine, but she's also funny! The plot of this book is very well created and i couldn't almost put the book down! Customer Rating: Summary: First rate psychological thriller Comment: All right, so I'm up to Book 9 in the series now, and I still haven't lost any interest. Reading these as quickly as I have been has made them seem like one extremely long novel, rather than a series; I can't decide if it's better or worse this way. But the fact that the characters are still fascinating to me and the stories haven't lost anything over the course of -- what, 3000 pages? Something like that -- shows me that this is a series that is worth pursuing, something that I plan to read and enjoy more than once. Maybe next time I'll read them with a little more space in between. This one was excellent, though slower than the ones before it. Slower partly because it was longer, jumping 150, 200 pages in length over Blue Moon, and slower partly because it was just slower-paced. There was much less action and much more investigating and talking to different people in this one, which was a little disappointing inasmuch as it was Edward's book, and I expected that to be nothing but slaughter. But after reading it, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way, because it was fascinating to examine the disparate attitudes and morals and desires of the Four Psychos of the Apocalypse, Edward, Bernardo, Olaf, and Anita. These four run the gamut of serial killers, since that's what all of them are, and I loved comparing them over the course of the book. You have Bernardo, who isn't really in it for the kill, but is simply good at what he does and has found a place where he belongs in his role as killer-for-hire. Since he doesn't love the kill, he does as much bodyguard work as anything, and he chafes the worst under the necessity of waiting for a break in the case. Then you have Olaf, who is a true serial killer -- a sexual sadist. He's in it for the kill, but not this kind of kill, so he has trouble with this case as well, but for a different reason: he has trouble because he has a terrible time resisting his own desire to kill Anita. The case becomes something he just wants to get finished so he can get back to what he loves: murder. Then there are our two heroes, Anita and Edward; throughout all the earlier books, Anita has worried that she is becoming too much like Edward, too willing to kill for too little reason. Not surprising, as she has dropped several hints that Edward had much to do with making her the way she is; most of her guns are either given to her or suggested to her by Edward, and her biggest internal struggle -- the conflict between her connection to her two boys, and Edward's most basic philosophy, "You don't sleep with the monsters, you kill the monsters" -- comes directly from her desire to live up to Edward's example in some way. So she has been worrying that she will become as bad as, if not worse than, Edward. In this book, it turns out, she really has reached Edward's level, but not because she sank that low: rather, Edward came up. The empty, cold-hearted killer, who exists only for the thrill of a challenging hunt and a deadly climax, has found love. He has found a family. And when he comes together with these other three murderers, they actually become friends, as much as these people can. Even Olaf -- though his perception of Anita, particularly, is pretty far from what I'd call friendship. But it fit perfectly with his character. How many writers can do that? How many can not only write a convincing serial killer, but four convincing serial killers, of disparate types, and also portray their interactions in what seems a realistic way? The only other one I've known is Stephen King, who's done similar things in novels with multiple villains -- like It, with Pennywise and Ace and Beverly's father all playing different villain roles at different points. I think it says quite a lot about Laurell Hamilton that her name goes next to his in my mind with this accomplishment. The story was okay; I liked Obsidian Butterfly, both her story and her power/character, and I liked the mystery surrounding the deaths. I didn't think much of the "god," though his outfit was the ickiest thing in this oft-icky series since the rotting vampire sex or the zombie scenes in The Laughing Corpse. Good to see the theme of horrifying-multi-person-zombie come back around again, thanks to that twisted little nutjob Nicky Baco. I was a little bummed that even after 600 pages of Edward's story, I still never got to see him cut loose and slaughter people by the score; that was Olaf, Bernardo, and Anita. Which was still cool. And I liked Anita's difficulty in dealing with celibacy and her final decision regarding Richard and Jean-Claude -- and it was nice to have a book without the two of them flexing and ma-petite-ing all over the place. Though now I want them back in it, so we can see what happens next! Customer Rating: Summary: the best in the series Comment: After reading her other works, this one has the least sex scenes and is the best book in the series. Array