True Blood Vs Southern Vampire Mysteries: A show and book discussion

[Athena]

My issue was also the hastily put together ending. I twigged about Sam/Sookie for awhile so would it have killed Harris to develop some sort of believable romance other than "Yet another shifter girlfriend hates Sookie. Sam gets killed and resurrected. They get together. They square dance. The end."

 

The Eric/Sookie marriage thing wasn't the greatest, but Sookie had a more believable romance with Eric, Alcide, Quinn and Bill than she did with Sam.

 

It is indeed true that the Books were suppose to only go up to 10 and they should have stayed that way. They started getting bad just before book ten. Harris was pulling plot points and character villains out of a hat by the end there.

[Bruinsfan]

Was very happy to not see Bubba in the show. Probably the absolute worst character in the books.

Amen to that.

 

I'm thankful the show didn't add Quinn. He was pointless in the books and the way he always said "babe" irked me.

I only recall reading one book with Quinn before quitting the series, but I heard his voice in my mind as Cartman's from South Park, which made his speech quirks entertaining in a way Harris probably never intended.

[Insomnia]

Bubba is in Canada now, and hates the winters. Seriously?

 

I need a time machine so I can go get my liver from my twenties to better handle all the alcohol I will need to consume to get through After Dead. Not to replace my current liver, mind you; I plan on using them both in tandem. 

 

This "book" is like some sort of drunken madlib. I'm not sure alcohol can fix this.

 

...I can't stop reading. Just when I think it can't, it somehow manages to get worse with each entry.

 

Who the fuck was Hank Clearwater? Why should we care that he contracted gonorrhea. Who thought it would be a good idea his "page" only needed to be one line about contracting gonorrhea?

 

If this book were ever actually published there would be lots of room for fans to write in, well...anything really, and it would be better than this.

 

"We may hear more about the rest of his life." - No thank you! - Barry Bellboy

 

Lupus! HA! - Sarah Newlin (While in prision)

 

*just stares at Calvin's entry for a while.* -Tanya died suddenly when she yelled at a young panther, who turned into a panther and killed him. One of the two harem endings.

 

Did anyone really think he DID survive the bombing? Was this really such a burning question with fans that it just HAD to be answered? REALLY? - Jake Purifoy

 

This is the second entry that basically reads Person X had more adventures. I know Harris isn't trying at this point but come on! The laziness of this "writing" makes sloths look energetic! - Dahliah Lynley-Chivers

 

Hey look, Hunter ALSO had many adventures after doing things. But at least he did things before he had adventures. 

 

"He feeds on sheep and whatever other game..." ...sheep are game? - Todd Seabrook

 

I don't think if I were sober I would know who half of these people are. And I've been accused of having a pretty damn good memory. But at least they aren't having more adventures.

 

I don't give a flying fuck about where their kids worked, or how many kids they had out of wedlock. One sentence and just then "He died suddenly." What the fucking fuck? - Jason

 

Hey, Nemesis, that relationship "build-up" was apparently saved for this "Book". It gets two whole sentences!

 

Who the hell are these people? Who cares what happened to them? What did I just read?

 

I lost count of how many had random vehicle accidents or got divorced and were miserable or were sick. I had lists but they all sort of blurred together and I'm too drunk to figure out the rest at this point. Thank god for spellcheck. (I bet I'm still more comprehensible than whatever that was though.)

 

I'm going to go drink a lot of water and pass out now.

 

I need a new liver. And I think my brain snuck off and curled up and died somewhere, whimpering first too.

 

I would spoiler this but that would unfair to anyone reading as they would have to take the extra effort to mouse over, then read the spoiler. And this "Book" isn't worth that effort. And then she had many adventures.

 

------

 

Some stats, now that I am sober and figured out what I was keeping tally of:

 

1. There are around 225 characters mentioned. These are characters that either appeared in the novels, and short stories, or were spouses or children who were name dropped.
2. Of the 171 pages of the ebook only 129 of them are story pages. The rest are pictures and fluff like table of context, lists of the authors books and such.
3.  Only 3 characters have stories that are longer than a page: Sookie, Eric, Jason. (From most content to least.)
4. 4 characters "stories" are one sentence long.

 

I made up a few categories. Some of them overlap.

 

Happily Ever After- These people had a goodish ending and either lived long lives, or were assumed to die natural deaths that weren't mentioned. (I put assumed because some of the entries were written as if they happened and were in the past, some were written in the present, and some were written into the future.) I only made entries for people who were named. So if they had a daughter who was named they would get a check, but if the daughter was just daughter, they didn't get one:156

Shittily Ever After - It is explicitly stated things did not go well for one reason or another: 10

Died suddenly - Either by some sort of accident, or simply being listed as dying suddenly: 17

Vanished: 2

Harems - I originally listed this as Orgies, but Harems seemed better. Men surrounded by and sexing up many women: 2

Had Many Adventures - Where it specifically says they had many adventures: 5

Illness - People who contracted a disease, usually fatal: 8

Multiple Marriages - Because when shitty things happen, it's important to mention when people get married three or four times without further context: 4

Already Dead by the end of the series, but mentioned anyway: 2

 

Now if you excuse me, I need to go apologize to my liver. Currently we're not talking and on the verge of seeing other people. You're welcome!

Edited July 19, 2014 by Insomnia

[ChlcGirl]

I really wish you wouldn't have listed all those cryptic entries, Insomnia.  Now I am ALMOST intrigued enough to buy the damn thing for myself just to see what the hell you were talking about!

[Insomnia]

Sorry! They weren't meant to be cryptic. I was just sort of live blogging my thoughts as I went along, and each drink made less sense to take notes. I knew in my head who I was talking about, see. I shall go back and add names at lease (If I can remember who I was talking about.) Seriously, your sanity will remain more intact wondering!

 

(Bonus, since looking at that list I see I left off Jane Bodehouse. She was a sudden death. She blacked out on the toilet and then hit her head. That one had me giggling for a while. No idea why I left it out.) I do know, drunk as I was it made sense in my head though!

 

So I'm actually a little pissed off now; for shits and giggles I decided to do a word count on this, as I was going through and trying to figure out who I was talking about. I'm an author, and while not published yet, I will be because with Amazon right now anyone can be published, if they put in the effort. And it doesn't have to be much effort at all - most erotic monster fiction clocks in at 2k - to 5k words per "book". I saw an interview once where Stephen King writes 2k words a day, so I made that my goal. More often than not, I hit it. It's not always a novel, (or long ass forum posts) but I'm writing something.  This book? Clocks in at 7, 202 words. With the (262), a (253), and and (252) being the most used words. (Sookie is used 28 times, married 27, and vampire 27).

 

There is no reason why these questions couldn't have been answered on fan forums, and the only reason this was published was for a money grab. If you really feel the need to just give money away, I could probably set up a paypal or Pateron account. At least I'm being completely honest and asking for your money! ;)

Edited July 19, 2014 by Insomnia

[NurseGiGi]

I only read through book 4 and was banging my head for doing so.  Charlaine Harris is a terrible writer but her premise was a good one, she just didn't have what it took to carry it through.  After the first book she spent at least a third of the books rehashing old stuff and having Sookie remind us that she was attractive, blond and blue eyed with big boobs.

 

Anyway, I hated what they did to the werepanthers and werewolves on the show.  They were nothing but every single redneck stereotype you've ever heard of and then some.  And I liked Alcide when he was first introduced in the books and am sorry to hear she turned him into an asshole.

 

Count me in as one who was relieved to see that Bubba didn't make it to the show.

[Insomnia]

To be fair, reminding us how good of a dancer Sookie was - but how she couldn't carry a tune, or what she looked like with the boobs and the tan was more for readers who had heard about the books and picked them up during the middle of the series, rather than ones who either started with the series or went back after learning about it.

 

As the popularity if the series grew and more people were picking it up it would be generally on the most recent book, and telepathic big boobed waitress who couldn't dance was Sookie's description. If people came along and the main character wasn't even described even fewer people would have continued to read them. It's just enough continuity that people don't have to go back and read the old stuff if they don't want to.

 

Of course since the Pelt's were involved in so much of the story you had to go back and catch up for that. But not because of Sookie's boobs. (And a complete aside, I don't think Sookie was ever describing herself as super overly attractive, and despite the many faults of the series, I'm happy that the heroine was not only not the ideal projected picture of beauty in our society, but she was okay with that too.) (As an aside to the aside, if you agree with me about body image don't do a Google search. Size 8 woman yields far too many pictures captioned plus sized And that is so sad.)

[ChlcGirl]

I have a bitch to get off my chest. Harris was terrible at writing sex scenes, but what really annoyed me was Sookie's preoccupation with men's nipples (really? That's the most intriguing part?) and the way men were always exploring Sookie's "topography." LEARN A NEW $5 WORD!!!

[pootlus]

If Kickstarter had existed in those days, someone could have started one to buy Harris a Thesaurus.

[sjohnson]

I have a bitch to get off my chest. Harris was terrible at writing sex scenes, but what really annoyed me was Sookie's preoccupation with men's nipples (really? That's the most intriguing part?) and the way men were always exploring Sookie's "topography." LEARN A NEW $5 WORD!!!

A preoccupation with male nipples seems like it might be an unconscious diversion from a preoccupation with....female nipples?

[Insomnia]

Well, nipples don't exactly require much thought or continuity; since everyone has them it was a safe bet to mention them, if she used too many body parts she might forget what people were playing with as they would change like the colour of the stripes on Jason's truck.

[bobbyjoe]

I'm surprised Harris didn't include entries about people's nipples in After Dead.  It wouldn't have surprised me, for example, to see this: 

 

"Alcide's Nipples:  Had many adventures.  Contracted a venereal disease.  Died suddenly in a car crash."

[ChlcGirl]

And the nipples all looked like pencil erasers according to Harris.  Yes.  That is indeed sexy imagery.