4 Simple Reasons to Read Laurell K. Hamilton’s Dead Ice

If our revealing interview with Laurell K. Hamilton a few weeks ago wasn’t enough to convince you to read Dead Ice—the latest in her Anita Blake saga, featuring a plot that finds Anita investigating the source of some creepy pornography involving the supernaturally compelled undead (that’s zombies to you)—we’ll make it even easier: here are four simple reasons to read the 24th installment in the adventures of the iconic necromancer and vampire executioner.
Anita Blake
In the last decade or so, paranormal fantasy has been powered by a laundry list of brilliantly developed, genre redefining heroines: Sookie Stackhouse, Rachel Morgan, Jane True, Sabina Kane, Harper Blaine, Mercy Thompson, Chess Putnam, Maxine Kiss, Jane Yellowrock, and Anna Strong have entertained and enlightened readers by the millions—but is any one of these leading ladies more fully realized than Anita Blake? Anyone who has followed this series from the beginning will tell you that they know Anita intimately—as a friend, a teacher, a trailblazer, and, when it comes to Anita’s many personal relationships, someone they have unabashedly lived vicariously through. Love her or hate her, Hamilton has created one of the most fully realized characters to ever grace the pages of a novel.
Historical significance
This series, simply put, irrevocably changed the genre fiction landscape. Before the advent of Anita, genre categories were rigidly defined. But the phenomenal commercial success of this series—an audacious blend of dark fantasy, romance, noir fiction, etc.—legitimized a new brand of narrative fusion, and helped tear down the boundaries between genre categories, and opened up the floodgates for a virtually limitless supply of such storylines. Look at any national genre fiction bestselling list and you’ll undoubtedly see Hamilton’s effect, 22 years after the first Anita Blake novel was released.
The deeply philosophical undertone
Anyone who has called this series supernatural porn has obviously missed the its main point—Anita’s transformative journey of self-discovery. The series is filled with countless existential tidbits of wisdom. Here are just a few:

• “There comes a point when you just love someone. Not because they’re good, or bad, or anything really. You just love them. It doesn’t mean you’ll be together forever. It doesn’t mean you won’t hurt each other. It just means you love them. Sometimes in spite of who they are, and sometimes because of who they are. And you know that they love you, sometimes because of who you are, and sometimes in spite of it.”— Incubus Dreams

• “If you fear nothing, then you are not brave. You are merely too foolish to be afraid.”— Skin Trade

• “Most hatred is based on fear, one way or another.”— Guilty Pleasures

         ^• “Happiness is as contagious as sorrow.”— Dead Ice

• “Never trust people who smile constantly. They’re either selling something or not very bright.”— Burnt Offerings

• “The truth may not set you free, but used carefully, it can confuse the hell out of your enemies.”— Micah

Masterfully choreographed sex scenes
More than a few authors have stated that there’s nothing harder to write than a good sex scene. The steamy sequences in Hamilton’s Anita Blake books are the stuff of legend. Dead Ice is no slouch in this department—there is an incredibly complex, ahem, encounter between multiple people towards the end that would’ve driven lesser writers crazy. Hamilton pulls it off effortlessly. You try to write a believable and erotic sex scene featuring multiple shape-shifters, vampires, and humans—it’s not easy!
Arguably no other genre fiction saga—and no other author—has evolved as dramatically over time as Anita Blake and Laurell K. Hamilton. But it’s not only about the evolution of an iconic character and an author—it’s about the evolution of genre fiction. Enough said.