Review posted here: http://offbeatvagabond.blogspot.com/2010/10/laurell-k-hamilton-obsidian-butterfly.html Let me start off by saying, I am a huge Anita Blake fan. There wouldn't be True Blood if not for Anita. Hell, as much as it pains me to say this, there wouldn't be Twilight if. It for Anita. She is the original badass. Now I am aware of how people feel about the series now. But this does not mean I am going to stop reading the series though. This book is definitely different from the last eight books. We are not focused on Anita,first of all, we are focused on Edward. Also, most characters that we are use to, Jean-Claude, Richard, Dolph, and more are nowhere in this book. Though Jean-Claude makes a "dreamy" appearance in this book. Now back to Edward. He scares me and he is a psychopath, yet he is surprisingly likable. He does go for the bad guys (at least I hope he does). But this book starts with Anita starting to pay Edward a favor (after killing his even crazier psycho killer friend, Harold). She goes to Arizona to meet Edward to then find out he has a fiance with kids and goes by the name Ted. I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this, given how Edward is, if his "family" knew what he did, well that would be too much. Anita, of course, knows the catastrophe that this will be and can't believe Edward is doing this not only to Donna, but to her little four year old girl and teenage son (who saw his dad die. Yeah, that bad). So "Ted" called Anita to help solve a series of horrendous mutilations. People are being skinned alive, but they are not dead. No one can figure how they are alive and why they have been strange occurrences while they were skinned. People just conveniently needed to leave their own homes to walk or something when these mutilations took place. So while investigating Anita meets Edward's backup. One is Bernardo Spotted Horse, sexy, horny ex Military killer and Olaf. Olaf is big, German, and a rapist who just so happens to target women with Anita's characteristics. I am sure you can imagine this meeting. They end up meeting the Master of the City and her human servant after a disturbing stage display. If you are familiar with Anita's meetings with other vampires and their entourage, at least one person has their brains shot out. But the meeting wasn't a total waste because she finds out Obsidian Butterfly (the Master of the City) is not the god she says she is and that he cryptic talk leads to a dangerous realization (won't say, read the book). Anita also meets up with a fellow necromancer. He is as scary as everyone says he is a d has a thing for Anita. He also has a secret. But due to Nicky's stupidity (the other necromancer), Anita and her gang are being followed by Ted's "friends" who want Anita to protect their coward of a leader. There are a lot of things happening in this book (sorry if my follow up isn't helping much, I don't have the book with me), but it manages to not feel cluttered. It moves in a nice pace. Some books are too slow to get to the drama or the action. This was just fine. I love that we find out the Edward isn't completely soulless. Tge other books really had me thinking otherwise. Now I have heard the complaints about no Richard and (barely) no Jean-Claude, but I think this book was fine without them. It is what Anita needed to get things figured out (but not necessarily straighten). She is attracted to Detective Ramirez in this book, but the thought of leaving her boys completely is a no-go. I honestly would have liked to have seen how Anita would be like dating a human. I love Richard and Jean-Claude for sure, but still. I have read multiple reviews about this book and have seen the issues, but frankly, I wasn't disappointed. I like the turn this book took. It still felt like Anita. She is still on that line of cop and killer. That is what makes me love her. She doesn't follow the law 100%, but she does what she must to save others. This book kept to that. This book was full of Anita's humor, Edward's new found beating heart, monsters that have done things that I honestly had a nightmare about the other night and strange love (well, I am nit sure love is the right word, hell not even lust is the right word). Overall this was a great book in the series. I love the new yet old Edward/Ted. I thought this was a great read and like I said, it is the Anita we know and love, just with a different perspective.
This is actually the first of the Anita Blake books I read. I was anxiously looking for a new series to lose myself in while in a Barnes and Noble waiting to see 50 First Dates, and I happened on this one and was really attracted to the title because of the mental imagery the title conjured.Let's say that the day after I finished it I hurried back to the store and bought the entire series up to this point once I realized what order they actually came in. It was such a page turner; full of intrigue and thrills with a plot that was extremely easy to get absorbed in, and set in a world that was similarly easy to fall into. Anita impressed me as very complex and obviously right on the verge of breaking hence her early iron willed control and unwillingness to let go of her own tightly locked down values, but at this point in the series she is already well on her way to metamorphosis into something altogether different from anything she imagined. It was great reading following that.It is hard for me to decide where this book fits in the hierarchy of the series from best to worst because the ones preceding it were all defining volumes and as such represent a point at which you just knew things would run downhill. I read other reviews where people pan this one and don't understand those, but also see that there are tons of longtime readers who all list this book as the point beyond which the series jumped the shark. It is quintessential Anita Blake in my opinion; containing all the elements that made the series what it once was. It is actually the only book of the entire series that caused me palatable upset. I don't want to spoil anything, but this is a graphic book still true to the original formula highlighting Anita's skill set that lends so heavily to RPIT and her contributions as a marshall, meaning scene investigations, gunplay and "wet work" which is profoundly gory and very intricately described. As a mother, I have had several opportunities to have themes and situations in the story cause unease. But this one reaches a point within where I had an almost primal reaction and actually, I must admit, did break into tears. There is of course necromancy in spades here as well, but I mention Anita's other skills to form a contrast with the preachy, vamp and were politics laden miasmas that the series got progressively more bogged down with. There is none of that here.It was this book's ability to make me feel the situations within it that put it at the top for me, but the subject matter also makes it the book I skip when I reread the series. It takes a lot for that to happen because I am good at maintaining distance from fictional situations normally.All the other characters in the book are well done too. We get extensive time in Edward's world, which is at once even darker and more menacing and mysterious than Anita's because it is so much colder. There is just enough still unknown about Edward even while he's heavily involved in the story to keep him a reason to turn pages madly. So when you add Olaf into the mix and his sick sadism uniquely tuned to Anita you get a completely different feel from the situation. Jean-Claude is of course always trying to possess Anita but it's a much warmer feel than with Olaf. Olaf is like ice cold madness, and it really comes home when it's made clear that even Edward keeps him at arms distance and can't even claim to control him. I spent a lot of time in Anita's shoes feeling like meat to be torn apart by a laughing madman on the verge of the best climax of his life. And shocked at my need to turn pages even faster in response.If you are a fan of the original ideals of this series, you can't go wrong with this one. It has everything you'll be looking for and does a great job of blending the realities of Anita's job with the realities of what she is becoming esoterically and spiritually, and maintains the balance Laurell used to be known for. Enjoy it, because after this point things change almost violently, and definitely for the worst as the series begins to quickly run off the rails for complete inability to say goodbye to any of an ever increasing cast of "eyeball-creasingly" gorgeous flawed male anti-heroes and the tawdry bedroom multiple-choice tests that abound as a result of the deus ex machina we've come to know and hate as The Ardeur.Great reading, and does the series proud!
What do You think about Obsidian Butterfly (2002)?
This is the 9th book in the Anita Blake series by Laurell K Hamilton. I have been hooked since book 1 and this is my favorite book so far in the series.Edward is a professional hit man that pops in and out of the first 8 books of the series. I have been very intrigued and interested in learning more about this character. This book is completely about a mission that Edward and Anita take on together.This series is AWESOME and Anita Blake is one of my favorite characters of all time. I recommend this series to any adult that loves science fiction, horror, or vampires/warewolves/warelepords. :) enjoy!
—Amanda
Edward asks Anita to help him solve a grisly case of murders where he lives with his new family, under a secret identity. I was so pleased to see that there was going to be an Edward themed book as he is one of my favourite characters in the series. I loved it when he turned up in The Killing Dance which is still my favourite book from this author. I was hoping that this might lead us back into proper urban fantasy and this book certainly delivered.Edward is living as normal guy Ted, with his girlfriend, playing father to her two kids. They have no idea about his other life as a deadly hit man and Edward wants to keep it that way. His relationship with Anita in this book goes from professional rivals to friends and I liked that development. It was fun to see this other side of Edward and gave him that human side that we had never seen. Of course that does not mean that Edward has gone soft...I didn't like Anita's attitude to Donna. It seems to me that Anita gets jealous every time another woman is the centre of attention. She may not want to bed Edward, but I think she's pissed that he doesn't want to bed her, instead loving a normal woman. This is Anita's excuse to sneer at the woman for her age, looks, inability to see Edward's true nature etc. Anita has been worshipped by all the men in her life for too long that she can't stand being second best to another woman. Maybe this is why she sneers about Ronnie's relationship as well. She hates when a man doesn't love her, even if it's a friend's lover. It's like her relationship with Richard-she can have any number of lovers she wants but when Richard has other lovers, she gets pissed and whiny about it. Her thuggish behaviour to Donna when the poor woman is crying over her family being threatened is disgusting. I'm surprised that Edward didn't bitch slap her for that coz I wanted to. Badly. Yes the story is disturbing when Donna's kids get abducted but this was used to show more depth to Edward-his conflicted feelings of loving stepdad and hit man. You can argue that what happens to Peter is not needed but it was there to shock you, showing that even Edward can't stop the bad guys all the time. It didn't detract from the book for me, though that might be because I read authors like Edward Lee who take shocking to crazy heights. Olaf also adds to disturbing as you are just waiting on him to lose control and attack Anita. It creates some good tension.This book was full of action, magic, danger and great characters-all the things that I really enjoy in urban fantasy. The plot moved at pace, we had interesting interactions between the characters, Anita gets into lots of trouble as usual and Edward is trying to protect those he loves. This was an enjoyable book and it was wonderful not to have the whole Anita love triangle getting in the way of the story. I really hoped that this was a turning point for the series and that we'd go back to the Anita of old, but sadly it was just a break from her tangled love life, the exception to the rule.
—chucklesthescot
This is the book where Laurell K. Hamilton lost me as a reader. I love the early Anita Blake books, because they are police procedurals set in a fantasy world. But somewhere along the way, the menage a trois between the three main characters (a necromancer, a vampire, and a werewolf) overspread the pages like a nasty rash of suspicious nature. In the books after Obsidian Butterfly, Anita is having sex with every were creature available, the detective elements have gone out the window, and I could only skim the books, hoping the series would somehow recover. My husband continued to buy the series because he is a collector by nature, but I refused to read them. Eventually he also lost heart. Unfortunately, I know what went wrong. Sorting out an impossible love triangle is difficult enough in real life, let alone in a piece of fiction where all the participants have to stay likeable, and can't become utter shits. The Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer has similar problems, as it is also a romance involving a werewolf, a vampire, and a human. When my teenage niece asked for the Twilight series for Christmas this year, I felt like warning her not to get involved in a tangled love affair. Of course, we ended up buying Twilight for her anyway. Some things have to be learned through personal experience.
—yellowbird
