A Stroke of Midnight (Meredith Gentry, Book 4)
by Laurell K. Hamilton
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Book Summary Information
Author: Laurell K. HamiltonEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-04-12
ISBN: 0345443578
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of A Stroke of Midnight (Meredith Gentry, Book 4)
Book Review: From the MOUTH OF LKH.
Summary: 1 Stars
I was a fan of Laurell K. Hamilton, however my questions about editing, the quality of the sex scenes and the bleeding over of phrases from her Vampire Hunter series have obviously fallen on Deaf ears. After visiting her MB to attempt to find an answer, and reading post of fans wishing her well, as her Grandmother is ill ~ I found this...
"Tuesday, May 03, 2005
And the flags go up
I wasn't going to post this blog. It's one I wrote back in February when Jon and I first realized how mean some people had gotten on the guestbook on the blog. But today when I read over the blog entries that Darla and Jon had made I accidently went back a screen or two and saw some of the messages on the board. Shame on the handful of nasty, jealous, individuals. We don't owe anyone an apology for anything we've done. But I'm loosing track of the apologies that people might owe us. Yes, my grandmother is dying, but not because of a second stroke. And the change since her 94th birthday is not that great a change, unfortunately. She has been ill for a very long time. Do I really have to say that I'm aware my grandmother is dying to strangers. Yes, you are fans, readers, but you don't know me personally. Do I really have to share details of my life that only my friends deserve to know to keep some of you from being cruel? I went up four weeks ago with my husband, and daughter to say good-bye to the woman who raised me. I wanted Trinity to see her before it got too bad. She did. We did. There was no Hallmark moment. I did not expect one. But we went, we said good-bye, and I knew the news would eventually be bad. Or good, she is in so much pain now. You don't want to loose them, but you understand that they are tired of hurting.
Is this what some of you want, my pain? Not happy that I don't share my innermost torment? Books not enough? Blog not enough? 99 percent of my fans are some of the nicest, niftiest people on the face of the planet, but to that other 1 percent I say this. No I won't say it. I have deleted several choice things here. But I won't say them, because maybe that is what the nasty-minded noisy 1 percent want. They want me to be as mean-spirited, cruel, and rude as they are. Well, not today. Maybe that small ugly percentage will wear me down and I will finally loose my temper publicly. I hope not. But today I am a grown-up, who was raised by a strong woman who taught me that you are polite to strangers. That you are nice to people if they will let you be. That was the way I was raised and that is the way I will behave.
What follows is the rest of the post I wrote some months ago. Enjoy, I guess.
Darla and Jon tell me that I really don't want, or need, to read some of the posts that have prompted Jon to think the guest book has out-lived its usefulness. There was a time, not so long ago, that I would have insisted. I would have read all the crabbiness, but I've grown up since then, or maybe I'm just tired. I'll vote for tired.
Jon is going to put up a link to the moderated board. Apparently, some of you guys that were unhappy because the moderators of the main board were not allowing you to call names and say cruel things, decided to come over to the blog. The guest book was unmoderated. It was a place where you could speak, and maybe, just maybe, I might see it. I never get on the board. But a few of you, a small, but vocal minority, have forgotten that the guest book was a privaledge not a right. So, like any privaledge that gets abused, it goes away.
Now, some of you are going to say, she just can't take criticism. That Jon and Darla are keeping me away from the fans that would tell me the truth and bring the series back to where you want it to be. You, the vocal minority, started complaining to me, and Jon, on the tour for Narcissus in Chains. You complained that there was too much sex, and that she shouldn't have dumped Richard. You guys actually made me doubt so much I went back and reread the scene. Anita didn't dump Richard, he dumped her, for being more comfortable with the monsters than he was. So the most vocal, the most cruel, those that called other fans that didn't agree with you names, most of you that have been the least well-mannered have wanted the same things. One, you wanted less sex in the books. Two, you wanted Richard to win. You differed on other stuff, but that was your main desires.
Cerulean Sins was the next book, then Incubus Dreams. Did you, of the vocal minority, notice a trend in these books? Richard was almost non-existent in CS, and I had to fight with my subconscious to get him into ID. And the sexual content? Is it going up or down? I think up, definitely up.
I did not do it on purpose, it wasn't in the front of my head, but my subconscious has always been contrary. You tell me I can't do something, or shouldn't do it, or try to force your preferences on me, and I have to really fight not to do just the opposite of what you want me to do. It wasn't until somewhere near the end of Incubus that I realized all your complaints both hearing about them third hand, and in person on tour was effecting me in the way I just described. I can't stop doing something if I don't realize why I'm doing it. Now I do, but you know what, I'm going to have to take a nod from Ms. Rowling. She said in an interview that nothing anyone says, or wants, will change a single word she's writing in her wonderful series. Well, folks, guess what, me either.
But unlike Ms. Rowling, you are having an effect on me, one I keep fighting against. A very negative one. You tell me that there's too much sex, and part of me thinks, you ain't seen nothing yet. You advocate Richard, and it makes it hard to write him as a character, because every time I deal with him, I hear the ugly echoes in my head of you.
You are allowed to express your unhappiness, but politely. Not just to me, but to other fans. For all of you who have been complaining, and not just the vocal minority, here are some examples of things that can be said in moderated space:
I would like more mystery and less interpersonal relationships in the next book. (Me, too.) I would like Anita to end up with Jean-Claude. I would like Anita to end up with Asher and Jean-Claude. I would like Anita to end up with Micah. I would like Anita to end up with Nathaniel. I would like Anita to end up with Richard. I would like Anita to end up with Nathaniel and Micah. I would like Anita to not choose and keep everybody. I'm a Damian fan, why can't she pick him? (A variant of that.) I'd like to see more sex with Damian. I'd like to see more sex with Asher. I'd like to see more of Asher on stage, period. I'd like to see more Jean-Claude. When is Jason going to take one for the team again? I would like to see (insert character name) do more of (insert activity) with Anita. Oh, and some would like Asher and Jean-Claude to be a couple so that Anita and Richard could be a couple. There's even the, Ronnie and Anita should be a couple contingent. We'd like to see Anita do her job more. (Me, too.) More police action please. More with Marianne and Verne's pack. More vampire politics. More furry politics. More zombies please. When are we going to see Willie and Angel-fangs again? More Edward, please. When will Olaf come back?
I've covered most of the different complaints, though not all. I've left out the personal attacks on me and my husband. I've left out the fans that wanted me to kill Micah, and have Anita pin his leopard hide to her wall. (I am not making that up. A fan asked, and meant it.) The last few are just mean, folks.
But seeing the previous list, tell me how am I to please everyone? There is no way, so I shall please myself, because in the end if you don't please yourself, then what is left to you?
You are all allowed to disagree with the direction the series has taken, or who Anita is dating, or sleeping with. Feel free, but be nice about it. You can say the same thing but in a polite manner and it won't be deleted. It won't be censored. But the moderators on the board do not allow personal verbal assaults on other fans, or on me, or even the moderators. Be nice, or play somewhere else.
The arduer is a major metaphysical ability, and curse/blessing. It cannot be brought into the series and then fixed just like that. Anything this powerful should have consequences, and a learning curve. I've always planned on Anita getting to the point where she can control the arduer and not have to have sex every few hours. (And already I hear some fans complaining that I'll be cutting the sex down. We actually have vastly more people who love the higher sexual content than hate it. They just don't get mean about it, so they don't get as much press. And by the way, as the sexual content has gone up, so have the sales of the book. I didn't plan it that way, but it's worked out that way.) I'd always planned on the arduer being controllable so Anita can go out of town as a federal marshal. The arduer traps her here in St. Louis, unless she takes a harem for food. You can't do police work that way, not out of town. So, have patience, and it will calm down. I honestly don't know where her domestic arrangement will go. I didn't plan on us being where we are. Anita is more contrary than I am, and every time I push one person over another, she digs her feet in and does the opposite of what I had planned. A trait we share, for good, or ill.
But I will not rush the transition. I will not hurry my overall plot because some of you are not happy with it. I am sorry you seem so unhappy. If you are truly that unhappy with the direction the series has taken, then stop reading it. Stop reading what I write. There, simply, fixed. If you don't like it, don't buy it, don't read it.
If I was as rude and nasty to my fans as a few of them have been to me and to my husband, you would be screaming about it. And you'd have a right to complain. Let me clue you, all of you, just because a person is a celebrity, in a small way or large, they are still people. If you wouldn't be this nasty to your friend, or neighbor, then why do you get to be that nasty to someone just because they write a book, or acted in a movie, or sang a song. Does being an artist mean that common decency no longer applies?
As for those who claim I'm in an ivory tower, well it's my tower, and if I want not to listen to people call me names, or speculate on my sex life with my husband, then I'm entitled not to listen. All of you complaining that I isolate myself from what you believe to be the truth, remember that you aren't right. Your opinion is just your opinion, not right, not wrong, just your opinion You are entitled to it. As I am entitled to mine. It's a free country, last I checked, and that means we are all entitled to our opinions. But being entitled to an opinion doesn't make you right.
posted by LKH at 3:51 PM "
This rant was posted on the Laurell K. Hamilton, Message board on May 3, 2005.
If you have any complaints, concerns or wish that the series world return to it's original premise, your hopes are in vain, LKH has stated that the series will continue as she sees fits to spite those who are not happy.
Summary of A Stroke of Midnight (Meredith Gentry, Book 4)
I am Meredith Gentry, P.I., solving cases in Los Angeles, far from the peril and deception of my real home?because I am also Princess Meredith, heir to the darkest throne faerie has to offer. The Unseelie Court infuses me with its power. But at what price does such magic come? How much of my human side will I have to give up, and how much of the sinister side of faerie will I have to embrace? To sit on a throne that has ruled through bloodshed and violence for centuries, I might have to become that which I dread the most.Enemies watch my every move. My cousin Cel strives to have me killed even now from his prison cell. But not all the assassination attempts are his. Some Unseelie nobles have waited centuries for my aunt Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, to become weak enough that she might be toppled from her throne. Enemies unforeseen move against us?enemies who would murder the least among us.
The threat will drive us to allow human police into faerie for the first time in our history. I need my allies now more than ever, especially since fate will lead me into the arm of Mistral, Master of Storms, the queen?s new captain of her guard. Our passion will reawaken powers long forgotten among the warriors of the sidhe. Pain and pleasure await me?and danger, as well, for some at that court seek only death.
I will find new joys with the butterfly-winged demi-fey. My guards and I will show all of faerie that violence and sex are as popular among the sidhe as they are among the lesser fey of our court. The Darkness will weep, and Frost will comfort him. The gentlest of my guards will find new strength and break my heart. Passions undreamed of await us?and my enemies gather, for the future of both courts of faerie begins to unravel.
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