The Laughing Corpse

Like all of the Anita Blake books I have read so far (I've gotten up to _Blue Moon_, and stalled there; my dislike of Richard taints that book for me), this one was excellent. Fast-paced, darkly humorous, exciting, and well worth buying even at the exorbitant price that paperbacks cost nowadays. (Of course, I did buy it in a regular bookstore.)

The potential reader should be warned, however: of books one through seven (at least), this is the most gory by far. _Bloody Bones_ is probably the only one to even give it competition. Messy deaths are described in great detail... and it isn't always an adult who dies. I'm not generally all that squeamish, but I still winced at a couple of the scenes in here. And while there is a leavening dose of humor, _Laughing Corpse_ remains the Anita Blake novel closest to being traditional horror.

Don't read this one first. Start at the beginning, with _Guilty Pleasures_; if you can't find it, consider _Circus of the Damned_ as a starting point instead. There's a great deal to be said for this book, but it stands slightly apart from the others in its sheer amount of blood 'n guts and its darker atmophere. Anyone who's looking to get into the series might be better advised to do so via another route. Anyone who's already come to like Anita Blake probably won't be able to put it down.

"The Laughing Corpse" by Laurell K. Hamilton, the second novel in the addictive Anita Blake - Vampire Hunter series, is a fun-filled thrill ride that will have readers craving more. Even better than the first of the series, this book grabs the reader by the throat and doesn't let go. Full of page-turning suspense, this book is escapist reading at its very best!
When Anita Blake, tough-as-nails vampire executioner and necromancer, is offered a million dollars by Harold Gaynor to raise a 300-year-old zombie, she has no choice but to decline. A zombie that old can only be raised one way - with a human sacrifice. Mr. Gaynor is not at all pleased with her refusal, but Anita will not be bought or threatened.
Unfortunately, when incredibly violent and gruesome murders start occurring, apparently perpetrated by a flesh-eating zombie, Anita realizes that someone else has raised Gaynor's zombie.
Anita seeks the help of the country's most powerful voodoo priestess, Dominga Salvador, in hopes that she might know about the killer zombie. However, when Anita refuses an offer to work with Dominga, it puts her on the voodoo priestess' list of enemies.
Anita is left fighting off Gaynor's goons, a murderous zombie, and all the nasty preternatural monsters Dominga Salvador can send her way, which makes for some great reading!
On top of all her other troubles, Anita must deal with the advances of Jean-Claude, the new Master Vampire of the City. Although Jean-Claude is mind-numbingly sexy, Anita refuses to become involved with a vampire. But Jean-Claude doesn't give up that easy, and his witty and sometimes wicked exchanges with Anita are truly entertaining.
"The Laughing Corpse" is a suspenseful, non-stop action adventure set in Hamilton's weird and wild world of vampires, werewolves, and zombies. Readers will be absorbed into this wonderfully imaginative alternate reality and will enjoy every minute spent in the company of Anita and the gang. So pick this book up today, put the phone off the hook, and enjoy!

This is one of the necessary books in a series. The first book catches your attention, but leaves a lot to be answered. The second book, The Laughing Corpse, develops the characters, especially Ms. Blake, and shows what they are willing to do if not now then in the future. There are a few hints of foreshadowing in this book. It also hints at the huge amount of power that Anita has and will discover in future books. If you are not reading these books in order then this book will probably not interest you as much. If you are reading them in order, which I highly recommend, then you will appreciate what you learn from this book after you have read the later books. I hope everyone has a beautiful day and KEEP READING!

The Laughing Corpse Submitted 6/16/01
Zombies. Those undead, mindless, soulless creatures of nightmares are at the core of the second book in the "Anita Blake, Vampire Slayer" series.
Anita Blake has an affinity with the dead, and is a professional Animator. That is, she can raise the recently dead from the grave as zombies. This is an employable talent in a futuristic world where the dead can be called up to do everything from testify in court to act as grisly house servants. Anita's second job, executing renegade vampires who are otherwise protected by law, is downplayed much more in this work than in the first. Still, the short, plucky animator who has been dubbed "The Executioner" by the vampires of St. Louis will need all her talents to stay alive in this second work.
Blake is called upon by a rich business owner to animate a 200-year-old corpse. Blake refuses, because to raise something that old will require far more than just the blood of a goat or a chicken: a human being must be sacrificed. Blake may not have a problem doing away with dangerous vampires, but murdering humans to raise a two-century-old zombie is neither in her job or ethical contract.
However, true to the first book, this is far from the only thing going on in the story. In addition to the rich man's offer to make Anita rich as well by raising the dead (although, making her a murderer in the process) and her defending herself against his goons who are, ah, *encouraging* her to take the job, there is the much more pressing problem of a renegade zombie that is literally tearing families to pieces. Anita's attempts to enlist the help of the country's most powerful voodoo priestess seems only to complicate matters, and Anita's suspicions about the priestess's involvement in the possible rogue zombie murders only manages to get Anita into deeper trouble yet. Reviewers note: don't make one of the world's most powerful voodoo priests angry at you!!
Meanwhile, there is also the not-so-small matter of the master vampire of the city who is trying to entice Anita to become his human servant (with The Executioner as his servant, his reputation would be powerful beyond words; vampires are SUCH political creatures!).
This is the second Anita Blake novel I've read after finishing "Guilty Pleasures", the first in the Blake series. As in the first book, the story is gritty, dark and wholly enticing. In a futuristic world, vampires are protected by law (unless they go on a rampage, in which case warrants for their destruction can be issued), and they have taken on a creepshow sort of attraction. The Laughing Corpse is the name of a vampire comedy club that young, mostly hip urban folk flock to because of the oddity and possible danger. Blake herself has seen too much of these undead creatures to be fooled by witty repartee, however.
Part detective story, part police investigation and part horror, the Anita Blake novels are gearing up to be the sort of stories that will hook even casual readers. There is a good deal of action, mystery, investigation and-- in the case of this story-- gore to keep the attention of most adult readers. Indeed, this story has more than it's share of gore than the previous novel as whole families are quite literally ripped to shreds by the zombie and... ahem... eaten.
Still, Hamilton has a masterful grasp of the language and describes the horror of a post-zombie attack police investigation without allowing the narrative to become "spatterpunk"-- rivers of gore and buckets of blood-- and she allows much of the visuals to be left up to the reader's imagination. Hence, those with weak stomachs and vivid imaginations may wish to reconsider whether or not they want to read this work.
Blake herself is a believable character; a mixture of tough-as-nails slayer of the undead who nonetheless secretly collects stuffed toy penguins. If YOUR job was to decapitate chickens to raise rotting corpses and crawl through filthy crypts to destroy dangerous vampires, you would need a childlike connection to innocence as well. This is a nice touch that allows us to more fully believe in both Blake as a person and the weird place the world has become with it's frank and open dealings with the supernatural.
True to the first book, there are sudden plot twists that fly at you from nowhere, and just when you think everything is neatly solved and we can go home now and take a long, hot shower, WHAM! we're blindsided by something else even more horrifying. The climax of "Laughing Corpse" is as surprising and tense as any grand work of suspense fiction and will make it impossible to put the book down.
More thrilling than horrifying (I had no trouble sleeping, nor was I tempted to peek in my closet and under the bed after reading this book), readers who are looking for a fast-paced thriller would do well to turn their attentions to this series. It is not necessary to read the first to read the second, but I would recommend it-- there are some subtle references that would be lost if one did not first start with "Guilty Pleasures", which is a fine read in itself.
Hats off, Ms. Hamilton. Fine work and my thanks to you.

Unfortunately this book is racist, classist and displays religious bigotry. The villain is a "voodoo queen" who raises zombies and Anita's personal religious bent casts Dominga Salvador and her African originated religious beliefs as immediately suspect and evil. It was irresponsible to write this without a display of the good side of Santeria, Candomble, Macumba, worship of Ocha or the Orisha or the Saints.
The plot was stronger than other books in series because it wsn't laden with as many characters as the rest of teh books became so that focus stayed on the crime plot. Which was good, remarkable even for a Hamilton book in many ways. Anita never so much of solves a crime as she just shoots the right folks at the right time. This book actually has a thread of strength to it but the racism and one-sided views of God through Catholicism weakens it. I'm reading it thinking to myself Anita raise steh dead, sleeps with a werewolf and a vampire and is JUDGING someone. Laughable. If this books were a little stronger, it could attain the level of dreck.

This series rocks. It really does. Anita Blake is like Buffy the Vampire Slayer all grown up and living in the modern age (as in, using guns instead of crossbows). In this book, we see a glimpse of just how powerful Anita can be when she puts her mind to it. And I love the originality of this series, despite appearances of certain stereotypical, French, devastatingly handsome vampires who wear clothes that belong in the 1800's or in the 1980's and who try very very hard to seduce the main character. Don't get me wrong, I like Jean-Claude, but he seems to be very run-of-the-mill...except for the part when he went in Anita's house. I loved that part! I also like Richard, who is not in this book but shows up later in the series.
Anyway, my main problem with this book is extremely nitpicky. It's about Anita and her so-called martial arts. She is constantly saying that she is small and slight, and so, even though she trains in something (judo, I think), she is completely defenseless without her gun. Please. One of the purposes of martial arts is to teach small and weak people such as Anita how to defend themselves against larger people. I know a woman who is about the size that Anita would be, and she trains in aikido (that's learning how to throw people and learning how to fall). This woman can seriously kick the but of any three-hundred pound man who tries to try anything on her.
Another purpose of martial arts is to teach the student how to disarm an armed opponant. In fact, that's one of the first things you learn, to ensure that no one gets hurt. Logically, Anita should be able to do this, if she takes judo.
And if Anita had really been training as hard as she claimed to be, the judo or whatever would have become instinct. I trained in karate for a few years, and it was approximately four years ago. Though I've forgotten all but the most basic moves, my arm still comes up to block instinctively when someone tries to hit my face. A martial art is not just something that you learn, it's something you do. It's more than just a mode of fighting. I think that next time, Ms. Hamilton should do a little research before just throwing something into her story.
This book was cool (not my favorite; the best in my opinion so far is Circus of the Damned), and the plot was good, but I got so sick of hearing Anita talk about how helpless she was without her gun. Were it not for that, I would have given this book four stars.

I read mysteries and horror/fantasy only occasionally because I can usually guess whodunit or whydunit (as I did here) or because I find the fantasy too unconvincing (Tolkien being an exception), so why bother. However, I am enjoying this series, despite some sloppy writing/editing and holes in the plots, because Hamilton does create a convincing alternate reality and her chracterizations are, on the whole, very good. And Jean-Claude is just a great character, as is Anita. However, [SPOILERS AHEAD], Hamilton needs more attentive editing than she's currently receiving: in the final scene Jean-Claude claims to have witnessed the deaths of two minor characters whose deaths resulted in Anita being able to wield a massive amount of power that could be felt throughout the City and to have been drawn to Anita that night by sensing that power (which is self contradictory -- how could he have arrived before the act that caused the "power surge" if he was drawn by the power surge itself?). And Anita claims at the end that the police never figure out her connection to any of the deaths that occur that night, despite the fact that (presumably) her fingerprints were left on a machete and bullets from her gun were in two corpses. But other than these ridiculous loose ends, it was a fun book, but a weaker effort than many others inthe series.

This is the first book I've read of the Anita Blake series so I can't compare it to the others. Initially I found, that with one gory or menacing scene following another in rapid succession, I didn't have time to develop much empathy for the characters, and became ho-hum about rotting body parts and scowling bad guys. It's all very much `in your face'. I found the humor to be of the `insults tossed back and forth' type, which is as tiresome to read about as it is to listen to in real life, rather than that of character wit or originality, for which I was hoping. But when the author backed off and gave me space I did get a chance to feel her power and potential as a writer and a story-teller. Some of the characterizations were nicely done, and Jean-Claude was mesmerizing. I'd have liked it better if I'd not felt that the author was simply trying to gross me out.

well... don't get me wrong, this is a good book... but considering that i rated 'guilty pleasures' (gp) as a 4 star material, i have to give this a 3 and a half star. to me this book was kind of a let down after gp (that book is damned good!).
as usual, trouble brewed in anitaland, and it is up to our animator to solve the problem... a few evil ppl here, a few sleepless nights there, add a couple of assasination attempts and we have the history of her life down to a pat. this time, the trouble came in the form of harold gaynor, a rich but shady sort of character who wanted anita to raise 300 yr old corpse... but when she refused,trouble came - BIG time.
as usual, anita was her beautifully scathing self, and jean-claude is perfect as always - cool and unshakable as only he can be. my complain is that their caustic and hilarious repartees are too bloody limited.. damn, but i love their conversations!
however, on the down side, the plot is quite thin... and to think that it started out real great. i can't really seem to figure out what is happening and it had an excellent potential... but it ends there - just a potential. as usual the ending was rushed and was quite lame indeed... it could have been soooo much better! and somehow the 'thing' that they were hunting... lkh could have given 'it' a more intriguing aspect (gosh, i hate it when i have to find words to explain what i mean without giving up the story line and spoilers!)...
both dominga and gaynor was a bit 2 dimentional and cardboardy for me.. there's no spark and life in them. b.o.r.i.n.g!
but the spook squad? man, they are the greatest! excellent, excellent ppl...amazing!
but... although this book has a lot of flaws, don't give it a miss. it's still essential for those who are following the series, but for those who are just curious, don't buy it, but perhaps check it out first in a library or something. you could do much worse than reading this book... enjoy

I recently wrote a review of Guilty Pleasures, the first volume in this Anita Blake series. I said it was great while waiting for the next Harry Dresden volume by Jim Butcher, or that of the Angel (tv vampire detective--#3 on--Not Forgotten (#2) by Holder is harder to read and should be saved for when you are out of other books) paperbacks. I thought nothing would be as breath-taking as Fool Moon by Butcher (Harry Dresden is like a grown up Harry Potter in a setting similar to Anita Blake's).
But Laughing Corpse was a real roller-coaster ride-- Some series are not to be read late at night alone because they are too frightening. This series is also not to be read then because you'll stay up all night and maybe ruin your work day the next day. I still cannot say anything is greater than Fool Moon but this series is now WAY UP there. And don't miss Naked Came the Sasquatch by John Boston, Virtual Girl by Amy Thomson, Shadows Fall by Simon Green, or the works of Jefferson Swycaffer!