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Affliction (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Book 22) by [Laurell K. Hamilton]

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Laurell K. Hamilton

Affliction (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Book 22) Kindle Edition

by Laurell K. Hamilton (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Had everyone bitten tonight caught this? The other bites had not looked like vampire bites. They'd been zombie, or human looking. Was this infection something that vampires and shapeshifters could catch? If it was, then it was something new. Some zombies are raised. Others must be put down. Just ask me, Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter.

Before now, I figured I could handle them. Before now, I had never heard of any of them causing human beings to perish in agony. But that's all changed. Micah's estranged father lies dying, rotting away inside from some strange ailment that has his doctor's whispering about 'zombie disease'.

I make my living from zombies - but these aren't the kind I know so well. These creatures hunt in daylight, and are as fast and strong as vampires. If they bite you, you become just like them. And round and round it goes ... Where will it stop? Even I don't know.

Length: 690 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Page Flip: Enabled	Language: English

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Review

Hamilton remains one of the most inventive and exciting writers in the paranormal field - Charlaine Harris

Anita Blake is one of the most fascinating fictional heroines since Scarlett O'Hara - Publishers Weekly

What The Da Vinci Code did for the religious thriller, the Anita Blake series has done for the vampire novel - USA Today

A hardcore guilty pleasure - The Times --This text refers to the paperback edition.

From the Publisher

Laurell K. Hamilton is the bestselling author of the acclaimed Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Novels. She lives near St Louis with her husband, her daughter, two dogs and an ever-fluctuating number of fish. She invites you to visit her website at www.laurellkhamilton.org. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

ASIN : B00ABLJ46Y
Publisher : Headline (2 July 2013)
Language : English
File size : 3861 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 690 pages

Best Sellers Rank: 132,704 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 401 in Vampire Mysteries
- 434 in Werewolf & Shifter Mysteries
- 1,129 in Contemporary Fantasy (Kindle Store)

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Symone

Family, romance and Crime!!!

Reviewed in Australia on 24 February 2017

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Affliction follows Anita as she travels home with Micah for the first time.
Anita quickly proves that whenever she leaves St Louis it doesn't take long for something preternatural to distract her and get in the way of personal time.
After things get out of hand good old Edward turns up which is always fun and they work to solve the latest string of preternatural crimes.
I liked this book because we see backstory and character development for one of Anitas main loves. The action does not slow down for the romance. It is a great blend of romance, family and crime.

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Kaz

best ever

Reviewed in Australia on 7 April 2015

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I have read all of the Anita Blake novels and this by far is the best of the lot, highly recommend to all Anita fans!!!!!

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The only afflicted person is the reader

Reviewed in Australia on 5 March 2016

Ever since Micah Callahan was introduced, Laurell K. Hamilton has been determinedly shoving him down the throats of her readers, despite him essentially being a Stepford Husband with freakishly huge gonads.

And in "Affliction," she finally decides to give him some attempt at character development... thirteen books after he was first introduced. While the plot of this book sounds appealing (family drama AND a horrifying new type of zombie!), Hamilton manages to choke it to death on her own mediocrity -- when the book isn't preaching the gospel of polyamory, it's stupefying readers with grotesque sex scenes, tedious repetitive dialogue, naked misogyny and a cop-out on the only interesting parts of the story.

While being hostile and misogynistic at work, Anita receives a call from Micah's mother. Apparently there's a new type of zombie out there, whose bite causes gangrene and death -- and Micah's father is one of the victims. Micah deliberately alienated his family years ago, but he agrees to go back and make peace with them. And because polyamory means you have no individuality, Anita and Nathaniel are coming along as well, only to find that Micah's family is a bit more similar to their relationship than anyone thought. Yes, more "polyamory is the only way!"

And after reaffirming that she's manly and tough, Anita gets involved in the hunt for these new strange zombies, which she does by making a complete fool out of herself. Think bondage gear for search-and-rescue. Yes, it gets that silly. But it turns out that these zombies are not what they seem, and Anita will need assistance from her merry band of thugs, assassins, sociopaths and serial killers to deal with the villain. Also, there's some marriage proposals floating around, just to completely kill any tension.

Most of the Anita Blake novels have been dreadful, but "Affliction" is something far worse -- disappointing. In the hands of a competent author, the plot would have had a solid mixture of personal tragedy, character development, action and horror. And the promise of flesh-eating zombies could have injected (or rather, INFECTED) a fresh new danger to a shallow fictional universe that has gotten very flat and stale. All the parts of an excellent book were there... except that Hamilton managed to wreck every single one of them.

There are a couple well-written scenes, such as the battle in the hospital. But 99% of the time, "Affliction" is like wading through clammy chest-deep quicksand in search of a lost pin -- Hamilton pads the flimsy plot out with a lot of people getting into squabbles over nothing (especially Anita posturing in front of law enforcement like an angry baboon), and characters endlessly expositing to each other about things they already know ("but you are my human servant, one leg of the triumvirate of power that we share with my wolf to call, our reluctant Richard"). Every single writing rule that exists, this book breaks.

That includes actual character development. Anita is her usual bratty, ragey, barely-aware self her, like a psychotic id made flesh, and Nathaniel remains her freaky enabler (think a more attractive version of Gollum, with Anita as the One Ring). And though it seems like Micah SHOULD be developed by all this, Hamilton guts that subplot with a dull knife -- we're assured that his family doesn't hold his hurtful behavior against him, and the dying-dad hook ends up going exactly nowhere. No, the only new development is the news that he's off killing and having sex with other were leaders to gain control of their groups, in a futile attempt to make him seem more "alpha."

And Hamilton is at her most Hamiltonian here. Every negative trait of the series seems to be emphasized -- rage attacks, rancid misogyny, religious bigotry, Anita fighting with half the people she meets, a truly horrifying sex scene involving strangulation, and endless descriptions of how short/gorgeous/macho/tough/sexually adept Anita is. And of course, lots of pithy little pellets of "wisdom" that Anita dribbles out every few minutes, which sound like the philosophical ramblings of a four-year-old ("A smart friend told me that it's okay to cry; sometimes you're so happy it spills out your eyes").

Perhaps the worst part is what Hamilton DOESN'T show us. For instance, a new vampire council has been formed on American soil... so of course it happened between books, and JC is (naturally) the one in charge rather than a vampire whose whose testicles AREN'T in a jar beside Anita's bed. A better author could have gotten a whole trilogy of stories about the bloody, espionage-fraught, divisive formation of a new council, like an urban fantasy version of "Game of Thrones"... but that doesn't interest Hamilton, because it's not about polyamory.

Yes, Hamilton wants us to know that the only kind, intelligent, beautiful people in the world are the polyamorous ones, while monogamists are all homophobic, hypocritical ugly Christians who are just jealous of her polyamorous bliss and kinky sex. This is presented with all the sanctimonious smugness of really bad religious fiction, but without the excuse.

There is no more fitting title for this book than "Affliction" -- it is a giant festering boil on the diseased carcass of a once-promising urban fantasy series, afflicting the reader with a vague sense of nausea and regret. Avoid like a vial of smallpox.

3 people found this helpful

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John Green, NCGBT

Afflicts You with Apathy

Reviewed in Australia on 6 December 2017

Just when you thought it was safe.

It's not a stretch to say that we're sold a bill of goods on this one. After months of promos and teasers about an unknown zombie disease ravaging people, there came a teaser trailer where the villain was clearly identified as Lover of Death, a Master Rotting Vampire, who'd been presumed dead. Except there was never any mention of him dying before. As I recall, the last word on him was killing seventy people in Europe at the end of Bullet. Yet the premise of Affliction is that he'd been thought dead along with Mother of All Darkness, so his appearance is a surprising twist. Except it's not, since we've already been told about it. Plus it feels like it was kind of thrown in at the last moment; Hamilton has a history of milking the latest trend; with zombies the hot property nowadays instead of simply returning Anita to her zombie-raising roots, she pulls a lame bait and switch and then shows her hand anyway. In a nutshell, what was thought to be a zombie affliction is LoD resurfacing to try to stake out a territory of his own so he can kill everything.

**SPOILERS TO FOLLOW**
What's Good: There are flashes, instances, glimpses of Hamilton actually trying to write a story. Every so often you'll get a decent passage, a zinger that'll make you smile, an insight that makes you pause for a second. The greatly diminished amount of sex is glaringly apparent- 3 or 4 scenes total- and once again belies her protests about not paying attention to criticism of the series. It's a giant step in the right direction. But as it's Hamilton, one step forward results in two steps back. Some will consider it good that there's a veritable roll call of characters trotted out for this book. JC gets some face time, even Asher and Richard get some mention here. And yes- Edward is very much present in the book, and it was a welcome sight, even though he's a far cry from the man we came to appreciate in the first place. Underserved folks like Lisandro, Ares and Bram get some time as well, and there's a few spots of actual continuity brought in.

What's Bad: Once again, you almost don't know where to start. From the beginning, LKH dishes up a few quotes about acquiring power and poetry balancing out excess power. If that don't make much sense, don't worry- it's all about foreshadowing and justifying all the powerups Anita acquires in the book, including hyena and what's left of Mother of All Darkness, and the ability to enthrall even vamps now.

Since there's a lot less sex and Hamilton is allergic to the plot, something else has to fill up the pages not devoted to wangst and love. You got it- Haterz! Page after page of ridiculous, borderline insane rants and diatribes about Anita's sex life... all right in the middle of a potential zombie invasion. They literally get prevented from interrogating some vampires because Hamilton drags out a cavalcade of nobodies to complain about who Anita's sleeping with. Plus it would've cut out about a third of the book if they had ever talked to them. Gotta have your priorities in place.

Anyone, even LKH herself, who says she's not writing PNR (paranormal romance) need look no further than this doorstop. It's all about the lovey-dovey here, so much that it overwhelms what's supposed to be the plot. Let's start with Micah: for someone whom Anita's been so in love with for years she knows jack-all about him. His mother calls, asking for him by his childhood nickname- Mike- and Anita has no clue what's going on, even though the woman specifically called because Anita's with her son and he's one of the few strays she's picked up that has a family, it never registers. In an almost 600 page book, it takes damn near the first 200 pages just to get out of town- and Hamilton must've thought of Boulder, Co. at the last minute because you don't even know where they're going until after they get there- meet Micah's relatives and sort out some family drama and most of them disappear soon after anyway. And then they start looking for zombies.

Micah's family dynamic is so goofy it's a cartoon, running the gamut of every stereotype and trope Hamilton can shove in to take up space- including, of course, haterz and religious zealots. Micah comes home to see his dying father, hasn't seen his family in 10 years and worries about explaining his M/M/F threesome to his divorced parents only to find they've got their own threesome going- with Mom's new hubby- and a couple extra kids as a result. Might as well say he gets it from his parents.

Got a couple of questions for you all: when you discover a dangerous master vampire setting up shop in a city, shouldn't you inform the Master of the City so he can deal with the problem? Wouldn't they feel its presence anyway? When a homicidal master vampire has an animal to call shouldn't you inform said clan about the danger? Rally the troops to help flush it out, maybe ease some tensions between paranormals and humans? When a horde of zombies is set loose on a killing spree shouldn't all of the above groups be involved to help protect the city? Answer: you do know what series this is, right? What's really funny about that is there was all this drama about who the MotC was and how to properly deal with him... and he never even appeared in the book. You see some of his flunkies when Anita and the boys are met at the airport, and never hear from them again. Oh, and didja know that vampires can become doctors now? Wonder how that even works, let alone if he's allowed to operate on patients and what'll happen if he's stuck in ER when the sun comes up.

You could almost count how many pages it would be before someone would start on Anita for her sex life or her furry friends, or because it's 2 o'clock. Whenever there was a spare moment or space to expedite matters, along came a pissing contest to fill the gap. I swear I was actually noticing when we'd go a few chapters without anyone complaining about Anita and her... oh, wait- there's another one.

The biggest development here is that Anita gets engaged... to everybody. Yep; first Micah, then JC proposes to her so now it's about who to legally marry and who to handfast or whatever with. Which becomes just another thing for the haterz to hate on Anita about. The second biggest development is that if you didn't think Anita and Edward were going to sleep together at some point, you best believe it now- Edward's loving, stepford wife-to-be Donna has signed off on it. Deal with it; it's gonna happen, probably before Anita gets hitched (who wants to bet it'll be the night before the wedding?). As usual, all the women who are slim and slender are mannish and waspish towards Anita; if they have any sexy curves, noticeable breasts or even a hint of femininity that's a dead giveaway they'll be on Anita's side. And Hamilton still can't resist injecting sex into nearly every situation. Ex: Nathaniel agrees to shift into his panther form to help track some missing people. To make the locals more comfortable he consents to wear a collar to show that he's under control; the collar he uses is his bondage collar with his nickname "P-Cat" (Amazon Edit) etched into it for all these cops to see. And the point is...?

With 20 years of stories under her belt, a veritable mine of lore and worldbuilding behind her, Hamilton always leaves you wondering why she's so adverse to storytelling. Probably because if she did, most of the stuff she writes couldn't possibly happen. It'd simply make no damned sense and take the focus away from what's important- Anita. During the book it's info-dumped that JC is the Head of the American Vampire Council, which makes him- and therefore Anita- all kinds of extra-powerful. Now who wouldn't want to read that story- JC making out like Michael Corleone as we witness the rise of a new American dynasty. Instead it's glossed over in favor endless declarations of love and pissing contests about the sex life of a blow up doll with a badge. Boulder, Colorado is noted from being one of the most progressive, eclectic places in the country- except when Anita's around, then it's a hotbed of racism against weres- and even though the hospital has a vampire for a doctor- go figure- a woman can't have multiple sex partners in peace while killing zombies and vampires to help these fools out. And if they insist on treating weres as a potentially dangerous group, especially after one gets possessed by a vampire and goes berserk on some cops, that just makes them a bunch of bigoted losers.

Oh, almost forgot: someone dies. In an effort to create tension one of the bodyguards bites the dust. Don't worry; about two dozen new ones float in and out of the story, so you won't even have time to miss him.

What's Left: An unedited mess of contradictory information and a storyline with its head up its butt. There were several instances of cut-n-pasted text that never got fixed since Hamilton still has that no-edit clause. You'll know them when you see them.

I can't even muster up any energy to get snarky about the book; the thing is just plain bad. Bloated, obvious, boring and bad. And the next thrilling episode which'll probably be all about wedding dramas with a couple of werewolves or something thrown in, isn't likely to improve things.

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Loved it

Reviewed in Australia on 24 April 2020

Sorry for waiting so long to review this book. Read it ages ago and have recently reread it. Just gotta say, Affliction is one of my favourite Anita Blake books. Yeah, some people think that LKH has lost the plot but it doesn't bother me. I have read them all and enjoyed them all. Relax and let the book do what it's supposed to, entertain you. A great read in my opinion.

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Amazon Customer

addicted

Reviewed in Australia on 10 June 2014

It's been 1 year since I started the Anita Blake series.. I was waiting for book after book to be delivered, I am addicted. Every book that's written is edge of your seat excitement. Fantastic written, relatable. A++

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Top reviews from other countries

OneCatEvil

Come on Ms Hamilton!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 October 2013

Verified Purchase

I started reading these books about a female corpse raider who helped the police, in the background she starts dating/meeting guys who are interested and willing to pursue. Over the last 10/12 books that has changed to almost constant sex with everything passing through, very little storey line/police investigation/zombie work, and sadly non stop emotional cra** from her partners, well Ms Hamilton if I wanted relationship drama I would watch Eastenders! (Sorry Eastenders fans but it has to be said!).
This storey line is pulling a little back towards the original (not much, but I think there were pages were no one had heart felt chats or hard sex) I think now I stick with the books hoping she'll turn back or kill everyone off. Worth reading to stay in the loop but otherwise is very similer to the last 3.
Oh and if Ms Hamilton does get to see this - I stopped reading the Merry Gentry series because of the boringly long pages and pages of sex with every creature and no story line that didn't have to do with the Fey throne, I started reading that series for the fairy private eye angle and loved the first book. Please stop writing S&M and get back to stories with a plot.

7 people found this helpful

Tali

Good but not quite back to great.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 November 2013

Verified Purchase

The last few novels in the series have been missing a lot of the previous elements that made it so amazing and it took me a few weeks to get around to buying this next installment. I can't say its back to its original high standard, but its getting back on track. After the last novel I was starting to lose interest, mainly because the last book felt like it should have been a scene in one of the other books as opposed to being its own novel.

Starts out fairly well, caught my interest and kept me reading and before I knew it I had finished the book! It's certainly a step back in the right direction and although not quite back to its previous level, its a very good start.

This book revolves around Micah and his beginnings, but soon moves beyond that as Anita gets on case. Some really exciting moments in this book and some humor to make the less exciting scenes worth reading. It's a fairly balanced book and I enjoyed it. My only gripe being the occasional 'this sounds familiar' paragraph. I don't know if it's just me, but there were a number of Anita's inner thoughts which seemed almost copy and pasted from previous novels with a few tweaks to make it look unique. It might just be me, but there were a lot of déjà vu moments like that.

So overall, enjoyable but still lacking in comparison to previous books.

2 people found this helpful

Mary Heron

COULD HAVE BEEN THE BEST BOOK SO FAR

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 July 2013

Verified Purchase

Loved the storyline, it's an away mission for Anita (and they are always the best stories)which means we get Edward, AND a Zombie Apocalypse loved it, from start to finish. So whats the problem you may ask, I am sick to death of Anita having to go through the whole, fangbanger/blood whore drama with almost every police officer and /or official she meets. there must be over half a dozen long scenes in this book alone on the subject, and how many times in one book do you need to describe a characters physical attributes, even the characters on the periphery of the story get detailed descriptions every time they appear on page. Also I am by no means a prude but I have to say I am starting to get disturbed about the direction the series sex scenes are taking, I have read some ellora's cave, so when Anita expressed a liking for bdsm thought ok, and up till this book most of the bdsm has happened off page. Not this book, I really did not find anything remotely entertaining in reading a scene between Nicky, Nathaniel and Anita, I will not spoil the book for anybody suffice to say if the series continues in this vein I will not be reading anymore, have been with Anita for day one and would hate to stop reading but the sex scenes strike me as more suited to a fetish book than an urban fantasy, and I really think this book should carry a warning.

3 people found this helpful

ZJK64

Cracking good read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 November 2019

Verified Purchase

I had thought this series jumped the shark half a dozen titles back, but this one actually has a decent plot and all the good points of the early books. Hamilton has stopped going on and on and on about the difficulties Anita has with all her hot men and is back to writing a proper engaging story.

WildWelshWoman

Great book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 November 2020

Verified Purchase

Why Amazon insist on 20 words for a review via kindle, I don't know. Especially when I just want to say that I really enjoyed this book.

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