Anita gets a call early one morning (does this woman ever get calls during normal business hours?) - it's Larry. His pregnant wife, Tammy, is going into premature labor, and he can't fly out to Philadelphia to raise a zombie for a case. Anita agrees to go, and to restrain the pesky ardeur, she brings along Micah.If I had spent money on this audiobook, I'd be asking for a refund right about now. Unabridged, this "novel" is a mere 4 hours long. Ellen Degeneres' Seriously...I'm Kidding is the same length, and I think I may have liked that one better.Anyway, after the atrocity that was Incubus Dreams, a largely plotless book that spent more time with Anita hopping in an out of guys' pants than any crime, I wasn't sure I'd ever return to this series. But I needed something a bit lighter than I had been reading, and I figured that the teenie-tiny "Micah" couldn't be as bad as "Dreams".Turns out, I was right! I found this book to be a great improvement over "Dreams". Gone are the five hour long arguments over who is going to sleep with Anita when and in what position. Gone are the constant fights with authority figures. Gone are the endless meanderings of Anita about her relationships. Gone are Anita's hatred for women. This book focuses intensely on Anita and Micah and their relationship. And in that regard, this book is a winner. We actually have time to look at the two and feel their chemistry. And as long as you forget the rape-y shower scene in Narcissus in Chains, you might find yourself liking Micah quite a bit more.But just because this book is better than "Dreams", doesn't mean it's fabulous and I'm an Anita Blake fan. I mean, dirt is better than kitty poo, after all. This book has plenty of flaws along with our favorite LKHisms:1. I found myself being OK with Micah - right up until this exchange:"What was the first straw?"He looked down, and I realized he was embarrassed. "What?" I asked."I was too big."BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! How am I supposed to listen to that with a straight face? How did the NARRATOR read that with a straight face?2. How big is too big?Long enough that he could touch his own belly button without using his hands. Thick enough that I couldn't get finger and thumb completely around him when he was at his thickest.Wow, how does Micah have sex with anyone with a schlong like that? I'd think he'd send women to the HOSPITAL with a Wang like that!3. Just in case you thought Anita might actually start acting and talking like a feminist - no worries! She's the same sexist, misogynistic a-hole as ever! When Larry calls needing help, Anita volunteers, no questions-asked, no hard feelings. But last book, when Ronnie called up drunk, despairing over a broken relationship, Anita got upset that Ronnie made her go to a club to save her and "threaten" her delicate Wangs."I probably overshared. That girlness again." -> Yucky girlness! It's not like GUYS ever overshare or that women DON'T."It felt weak and very girl-ic and I didn't like it." -> Because doing anything remotely associate with being a woman is BAD. And "girly" is now too bleh of a word to use, so let's invent a new one!"How many women had hurt him?" -> What about all the women he caused to bleed when he jammed his Wang into them? No, we can't possibly have compassion to them! They are just horrible because they are born with Woohoos that aren't big enough for His Bigness.4. The ardeur (pronounced humorously as "ar DOOR") is back! Fortunately, it only appears once. Unfortunately, the sex scene is your typical squickiness we've come to know and love from LKH, filled with endless repetitions of "F- me!", "So wet, so tight", and "OMG, is it even going to fit?!"5. Fox and later Franklin both take offense at Anita, as cops in this world are wont to do whenever she appears. Because women in the law enforcement fields in the naughties is so uncommon. Fox quickly though comes to the Light Side when Anita tells him that no, she didn't flirt with a guy from Obsidian Butterfly and everything is totes OK. The other guy makes an excellent point, which Anita steamrolls over. Because while others can't twist the laws to their wills, Anita better'd be able to, gorrammit!What is it about her? She blinks those big brown eyes and everyone just looks the other way as she breaks a dozen rules am bends the very law we're sworn to uphold?6. The last 20 min of a 4 hour audiobook wrap up the book. More time is spent with Micah and Anita talking or having sex than the so-called plot.What is sadly absent are endless pages of clothing descriptions and truly execrable writing. LKH does detail what Micah and Anita wear, but for once, it was rather brief and not that flowery. As for the writing quality, it wasn't half bad - much like the beginning books - with the exception of the items from #4.This is definitely not the worst of the series; yes, it's not great, but at points, it wasn't half bad. And having it so short was a plus - at least we didn't have 80 repetitive sex scenes and police p!ssing contests! However, I would definitely not recommend buying this; spending full price for this extremely short book is a waste of trees and paper. Pick up a copy used (shouldn't be a problem finding one) or at the library.
(Original review Jan 2007)Overall 4/5Story 4/5tRe-Readability 4/5Characters 3/5With "Micah" I have now finished all the Anita Blake novels that are in paperback ("Danse Macabre" is still hardcover only). And …… well, I’m probably exaggerating a bit with the ratings, but in contrast to "Incubus Dreams," this is … a masterpiece.The book is 288 pages, the last 30-odd being a preview of Danse Macabre. And rather than the densely spaced tiny text, this is normal-sized text, double-spaced. It’s like reading a Parker Spenser novel — and it reads nearly as fast. Short chapters — even short sentences — and, wonder of wonders, a plot that doesn’t center on, or even consist primarily of (a) Anita having sex with people, (b) Anita learning she has new and terrible powers.Well, there’s a bit of that, but it’s a continuation of the previous volume. But most of what we get is a straightforward story, with a limited cast (only some of whom we’ve previously met), much of which centers around animating a zombie for the FBI. There’s sex, yeah, but that’s just sort of a blip in the middle of things. We learn some interesting stuff about the titular character (and some goofy stuff as well, dealing with how he, like the majority of the men in Anita’s life, is Extraordinarily Well-Endowed).We get some gunplay. We get some personal conflicts not having to do with vampiric or lycanthropic politics. And we get something that resembles the original novel in the whole series far more than the past several volumes.I don’t know if all of this was the result of Hamilton suddenly getting some editorial advice, having a contractual obligation to produce a book and limited time or inclination to do so, or if she just had only a short nubbin of a story idea and decided not to embellish it with … well, the seemingly obligatory multiple sex scenes.This novel (practically a novella) restores my faith in the series, at least to some degree. Decent (well, recommendable) stuff.
What do You think about Micah (2006)?
Firstly, a pertinent point about this book is it’s short – it’s about 100 pages long by my e-reader and a substantial part of that is a preview of Danse Macabre. This is normally where I insert my complaints about how I don’t like novellas, but I’ll pass on it this once.But I will say if you are going to write a novella, you have little space to actually waste words – your words have to count. You can’t write an 80 page story and then waffle. Unfortunately, this book does waffle – partly with the standard over-descriptive style interspaced with an annoying amount of recapping (though, to be fair, both are far more restrained than is common in the series) and partly with it taking its time to get on with the plot.We then have scenes that take too long, add very little and take up space: a sex scene to be exact. And there was the obligatory Agent who calls in Anita but can’t be professional enough to hide his obvious dislike (all these people who hate Anita, none of them capable of a veneer of civility) which means we have to have a longwinded rendition of Anita vs The Haterz that will only get worse from this point in the series.We also have a lot of revisiting of Anita’s issues. Now I’m not actually against exploring Anita’s need to constantly sabotage her own relationships, being awkward for awkwardness sake and often fleeing into anger whenever she feels any kind of emotion because she’s terrified of anything that may make her slightly vulnerable. These would be interesting things to explore – but less so things to repeat ad nauseum. Exploration is not the same as repetition especially in a novella where we have limited space to actually develop things.One thing I was eager to see was some development of Micah. By this phase in the books Micah is pretty much a short guy who is a wereleopard and has a really big penis. As one of Anita’s main men – growing ever more important – it would be nice for him to be more than the Giant Kitty Cock (there’s a mental image for you).Of course, this being the Anita Blake Series, “development” means “big load of angst.” So we get Micah angst… about being a wereleopard (therefore a monster) and having a huge cock (and how this made dating hard).Y’know it could be an interesting thing to examine that the much vaunted mega-penis of doom actually has a downside, that most women don’t actually want anything to do with a penis the size of their arm and that it’s very easy to be fetishized because of it. Except we had it used as another example of how Anita is better than all women because not only can she take the super ginormocock of doom but she can do it with minimal foreplay while so very very very very tight (as we were told at extreme length) because she is ANITA!Read More
—Fangs for the Fantasy
Anita fills in as a reanimator for a friend, and has to fly to Philadelphia. Because she’s still getting her ardeur under control, she brings Micah along with her. He tries to set up a little romantic getaway for them because they’ve never really had any long length of time together, and Anita wigs out because she can’t figure out what it means, how she’s supposed to feel, and because she’s stupid like that and can’t appreciate a good thing. Yeah. So they get there and Anita clashes with the Fed
—Arminzerella
Micah is the thirteenth in LKH’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of lots and lots of sex, racy dialog, with one of her lovers, Micah. Damn if I didn’t want to jump into this book to play the role of Micah.I wanted so much to be Micah in the nice hotel room trip down memory lane when Anita pulled him to her chest. OOO-RAH!! Being “not small” provoked a lot of dialog including the “Old Double Standard” reference to males only wanted sex. “Be careful where you point that, it might go off!! The rest of the bedroom scene sounded delicious. Yummy!! “Blink if you can hear me.” Licking my lips!!! Anita seems to like well-endowed men and couldn’t walk even if the fire alarm sounded.This is all about Anita’s relationship with Micah, who goes with her to Philadelphia to perform a zombie animation including some weird twists. The assignment is not exactly what she was told as she was substituting for Larry Kirkland whose wife is in premature labor.Through this novella, Anita continues to struggle with her arduer effects which cause her to have sex ever few hours. As normal, Anita is able mostly to resolve each of these difficulties by the end. And of course, Anita is injured and knocked unconscious at the animation but her zombie came to the rescue along with Micah. This adult extra erotica Anita book was full of sex and intrigue and most enjoyable. I’m off to get the next in the series and hope it is as HOT.
—Pete
