Strange Candy (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter)

by Laurell K. Hamilton

[wyvernfriend]

Those Who Seek Forgiveness is set in the Anitaverse, right before Guilty Pleasures. Back to the old pre-porn Anita, a story about a zombie raising where not everything that the client tells Anita is the truth, which has repercussions.

A Lust of Cupids. A very short story about two people trying hard to avoid cupids that are determined to get them involved with each other. I disliked the fact that the characters really didn't have much of a choice and my reaction to finding out that my parents had been involved would have been incensed anger.

The Edge of the Sea was partially about LKH's relationship with the sea and partially about a woman being killed by a mer-man. Did stray into some of the mer legends and was a different story.

A Sacrcity of Lake Monsters is a Nessie story. Had some good ideas lurking that didn't quite surface.

Selling Houses is another story set in Anitaverse, but none of the regular characters are in it. This is the sort of story that you expect to read in compilations (rather than LKH's slightly re-written part of a book). It's a story of an estate agent selling to the newly legal vampires. I liked this one.

A Token for Celandine is set in the world of Nightseer. A healer goes to seek redemption for some evil magic she did. Very black and white look at the world.

A Clean Sweep is about a superhero called Captain Housework. Oh yes indeed, that man we all would love to have, but in this story he snaps.

The Curse Maker is also set in the world of Nightseer and was about a bard who had been cursed and the people who set out to break it. Features a vampire sword.

The Geese is about goose who was a little girl who had a geas laid upon her to kill her parents murderer - by her parents murderer, becoming a goose allowed her to grow up. What will her mate do when she becomes human?

House of Wizards is about a non-magician marrying into a magical family. In a world where magicians have all the rights this could be seen as a way of getting up in society this shows how she copes. I wasn't really impressed with some of the ways she coped.

Here Be Dragons is possibly my favorite story. It is about a doctor who rehabilitates violent criminals. In a world where psionics is a science, psionics are trained by the government but some of them are too dangerous. This is about a child and how the adult copes.

Winterkill is yet another story set in the Nightseer universe. The main character is a lot like Edward of the AB series - she has found that killing ordinary humans are far too easy and only kills wizards. She's hunting a wizard who killed her family, she uses some of the rules of the world to fix things. Reads like a transcript of a roleplaying session.

Stealing Souls is another story set in the Nightseer universe. A wizard has been stealing and imprisoning souls in order to boost his power, and something must be done to stop him. Two of those souls are the heroine's sisters. Features a vampire sword.

The Girl who was Infatuated with Death was previously printed in Bite where I read it, a girl with bone cancer who is about to lose one leg and possibly more is hunted by Anita because she's underage.

A very mixed bag, some of the stories are quite short and many of them could possibly make good longer stories but there would also probably be too much sex if they were lengthened