Friday Fun: Vampires Inc.

A week or so ago I joined a new Triberr Tribe, one that's focused on science fiction and fantasy. For those of you who aren't familiar with Triberr, it's a blog networking and promotion site. It's been a lot of fun getting to know a bunch of new bloggers, but today I realized something. Since joining this new tribe, I've done posts about my kids and romance blogs and salted caramel. Not much sci-fi going on, unless you count my kids. They are teenagers, after all.

**waves at members of the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books and Writing Tribe**

In order to prove that my paranormal cred is intact, I decided to do a post featuring a couple of my favorite vampires - Bill and Eric - along with Sookie, and, well, the whole True Blood gang.

I have to confess I'm not a huge fan of the show (except for the pix of a certain blond viking vampire) but I love the books the series is based on, and last weekend I read Deadlocked, book 13 in the Southern Vampire Mysteries. I don't really do book reviews, so I'm making an exception for this one. The hard part will be avoiding spoilers, and maybe this won't be so much a book review as just a collection of my impressions. I have a feeling that if you've made it this far in the series, you'll read Deadlocked regardless of what I say. And if you've given up on the series, this probably won't make you want to jump back in.

Impression 1:  Deadlocked unwinds at a leisurely pace, as if Ms Charlaine and I were sitting down with a couple glasses of sweet tea while she told me the story. There's some action over here and then some banter over there. There's time for Sookie to run to the grocery store to pick up a few things to make dinner for some friends who just had new baby twins. There were times when I wondered if we were ever going to get where we were going. On the whole, though, I liked that aspect of it.

Impression 2: Towards the end she dropped in a couple of surprising details that left me feeling like I didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle. Either I've missed a short story or she's fired her continuity editor. It wasn't a deal-breaker, by any means, but I ended up with the same sense of dislocation I felt while reading Definitely Dead, when I came to the place that refers to events that happened in the short story One Word Answer. I've read all the Southern Vampire Mysteries - some of them multiple times - and there were things in this one that I thought came out of left field. Or perhaps another short story. Or maybe I'm just getting forgetful in my old age.

Impression 3:It was like going out for cocktails with a guy you used to have a huge crush on and maybe dated for a while, but now think of as a friend. It was fun to catch up and hear the news, but there was a sense of sadness too because so much of the excitement was gone.

Impression 4: She sure is wrapping things up! By the end, so many story lines had bows on them I could barely see the words on the page.

I cannot even imagine how hard it is to create thirteen books about the same bunch of characters, and I have a great deal of respect for what Charlaine Harris has done. I liked Deadlocked, and if you're a Sookie fan, I encourage you to read it. But you probably already have.
;)
Couple more things...Noni couldn't be here this week, because she has a new job where they expect her to be in an office from 9 - 5 Monday through Friday. Sadly, there'll be no more working from home in her slouchy slacks and Rocket Dog sandals. It's seriously cut into our white-wine-and-salad lunches, let me tell you. So, since I was left to my own devices, I picked the video trailer for True Blood Season One - the only season I really paid attention to. Oh, and then there's the gratuitous SPIKE pic. Because, um, you know. It's Spike.
Peace,
Liv

Photo credits:  http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/true-blood/photos.php