Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes

Saturday, October 12

I have just finished reading the five books of the Meredith Gentry books by Laurell K. Hamilton. As I have mentioned before, I have also read all of the currently available Anita Blake books by the same author. Both series have their merits, but—even as much as I love vampire stories—I do believe the Gentry series is the better of the two to date.

The Gentry books concern the land of the Faerie and all those with in it—from the Sidhe to the Goblins to the Demi-fey. Each race of faerie has its own unique qualities ranging from the beautiful to the terrifying.

So far, the main character stays true to who she is as she grows and learns what it means to be fighting the battles she has to fight. She grows stronger and learns quickly to accept those things that just are. This point is where the Gentry books are far better than the Blake novels.

The main character in the Blake series tries too hard to fight who she is. She cannot accept and live peacefully with what she perceives a the monster like qualities she carries. This may be what makes her character unique—this striving to remain “good”—but it is utterly absurd. No one who goes through what either of these main figures do could survive with their sanity intact without having embraced and accepted their darker side.

Blake’s inability to truly accept this side of her is what keeps me from liking her character enough to “feel her pain” , so to speak, as she faces countless horrors in each novel. However, Gentry’s ability to accept who she and those around her are completely allows me to be able to really become involved in the novels and even find myself fighting horror and tears for the characters within.

And here we see why I call the Gentry series the best by far…at least through the fifth novel. For any novel to be great in my eyes, it must make me feel. The characters have to be real to me for those moments I am reading the words on the page. Otherwise, it is just a story…nothing great, though it may be good. In the Blake series, there are characters who are very real for me during those moments, but the main character tends to be less real than the rest. This does not a great series make…

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