Those Who Seek Forgiveness is set in the Anitaverse, right before Guilty Pleasures. Back to the old pre-porn Anita, a story about a zombie raising where not everything that the client tells Anita is the truth, which has repercussions.A Lust of Cupids. A very short story about two people trying hard to avoid cupids that are determined to get them involved with each other. I disliked the fact that the characters really didn't have much of a choice and my reaction to finding out that my parents had been involved would have been incensed anger.The Edge of the Sea was partially about LKH's relationship with the sea and partially about a woman being killed by a mer-man. Did stray into some of the mer legends and was a different story.A Sacrcity of Lake Monsters is a Nessie story. Had some good ideas lurking that didn't quite surface.Selling Houses is another story set in Anitaverse, but none of the regular characters are in it. This is the sort of story that you expect to read in compilations (rather than LKH's slightly re-written part of a book). It's a story of an estate agent selling to the newly legal vampires. I liked this one.A Token for Celandine is set in the world of Nightseer. A healer goes to seek redemption for some evil magic she did. Very black and white look at the world.A Clean Sweep is about a superhero called Captain Housework. Oh yes indeed, that man we all would love to have, but in this story he snaps.The Curse Maker is also set in the world of Nightseer and was about a bard who had been cursed and the people who set out to break it. Features a vampire sword.The Geese is about goose who was a little girl who had a geas laid upon her to kill her parents murderer - by her parents murderer, becoming a goose allowed her to grow up. What will her mate do when she becomes human?House of Wizards is about a non-magician marrying into a magical family. In a world where magicians have all the rights this could be seen as a way of getting up in society this shows how she copes. I wasn't really impressed with some of the ways she coped.Here Be Dragons is possibly my favorite story. It is about a doctor who rehabilitates violent criminals. In a world where psionics is a science, psionics are trained by the government but some of them are too dangerous. This is about a child and how the adult copes.Winterkill is yet another story set in the Nightseer universe. The main character is a lot like Edward of the AB series - she has found that killing ordinary humans are far too easy and only kills wizards. She's hunting a wizard who killed her family, she uses some of the rules of the world to fix things. Reads like a transcript of a roleplaying session.Stealing Souls is another story set in the Nightseer universe. A wizard has been stealing and imprisoning souls in order to boost his power, and something must be done to stop him. Two of those souls are the heroine's sisters. Features a vampire sword.The Girl who was Infatuated with Death was previously printed in Bite where I read it, a girl with bone cancer who is about to lose one leg and possibly more is hunted by Anita because she's underage. A very mixed bag, some of the stories are quite short and many of them could possibly make good longer stories but there would also probably be too much sex if they were lengthened
Strange Candy 1-star11/27/10An extreme chore to read and would not of finished it if not for Group Read. In general I have been an avid fan of LKH, however the last few Anita books I have not bought and just borrow from the library. I feel like Hamilton has been making a mockery out of the Anita Blake series because she's pissed off at all the negative reviews and comments. The fans complain about too many boyfriends so then she adds more in the next book. Whatever the critics complain about then her next book is nothing but those complaints. Before each story there is a little commentary from LKH. Most of the commentary is about how she submitted this or that story to whatever magazine/publisher and how they rejected it. Something like......Those fools I am a famous author now and wouldn't sell you a story if my life depended on it so I am going to put all of these rejected stories in one book and have my fans buy it because they are suckers and will buy anything that has my name on it. Strange Candy consists of the following short stories:THOSE WHO SEEK FORGIVENESS - This is an Anita Blake story.A LUST OF CUPIDS- This story is Urban Fantasy and completely stupid about an angry flock of cupids.THE EDGE OF THE SEA- Urban Fantasy about a merman rapist.A SCARCITY OF LAKE MONSTERS - Urban Fantasy - I actually liked this story, it's about a lake monster breeding program in the Enchanted Forest National Park. SELLING HOUSES- Anita Blake world realtor selling to vampires.A TOKEN FOR CELANDINE- Classic Medieval Fantasy (witches, swords, demons)A CLEAN SWEEP- Urban Fantasy about a stupid house cleaning super hero.THE CURSE-MAKER - Classic Medieval fantasy (witches, swords, demons)GEESE- Classic Medieval FantasyHOUSE OF WIZARDS- Classic Medieval Fantasy (witches, swords, demons)HERE BE DRAGONS- Urban Fantasy about psychics and dreams.WINTERKILL- fantasy (witches, swords, demons)STEALING SOULS- fantasy (witches, swords, demons)THE GIRL WHO WAS INFATUATED WITH DEATH- Anita Blake that I had already read in a different anthology. Nothing like feeling cheated.
For the purposes of my Anita Blake Book Challenge, I only reviewed the three Anita Blake related short stories that are part of this collection.Strange Candy gives us three brief glimpses into the wonderful world of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. The introductions that accompany each of the chapters gave us a glimpse into Laurell K. Hamilton’s creative process. We get to understand what inspired her to write about Anita and the many different directions she has taken the series.The first story, Those Who Seek Forgiveness, showed the birth of the Anita Blake character: a mere animator (zombie raiser). I love the story because it showed how simple Anita’s life would've been had she not been seduced by Jean Claude. I would use the term “normal”, but as the story shows, Anita’s job as an animator comes with its own inherent risks. In someway, the story actually acts as an introduction to how Anita met the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team squad. I could just see Dolph and Zebrowski coming to interview her on what happened in the cemetery, and then asking her, “Hey since you’re so good with the weird, can you help us with this case?” I love how Laurell K. Hamilton has kept shots of pure animator-Anita throughout the series. We get to see Anita dealing with clients who lie about their true motivations for having a zombie raised, or the different reasons for having zombies raised.See the rest of this review at:https://theribbonmarker.wordpress.com...
—The Ribbon Marker
I picked up "Strange Candy" after having read the first "Anita Blake" book. (I've read the entire "Merry Gentry" series since the beginning, and had avoided "Anita Blake" 'till recently.) This review is for the Audio CD format. There are a collection of short stories in "Strange Candy," each with an introduction by Laurell K. Hamilton about the history of or commentary about each story. The Audio CD format used one narrator for the stories themselves, and a different narrator for the introductions. The introductions/commentaries indicated that a number of these stories were early in her writing career, and many of them had been rejected by publishers, anthologies, and/or other editors. (In at least one case, Hamilton indicates that a story was rejected initially, but published later after Hamilton became better-known.)The "Anita Blake" stories in the collection were fun-- and showed an indication that they weren't as "early" in Hamilton's writing as a number of the others. I'm not able to separate out whether I disliked the speed/style of the narrator-- or whether those other stories were simply terrible, and were rejected for good reasons. One or two of them were interesting, if unpolished. One or two of them were not just poorly-written, but completely trite. (Ms. Hamilton would do well to stay away from the medieval fantasy genre-- a rejecting editor had the truth of it when telling Hamilton that it's been done, and better, by others.)The couple of fun "Anita Blake" stories in the collection weren't enough for me to even say the book was "okay" with two stars. There seemed to be an open goal of vanity publishing, here-- pushing out a collection of previously-rejected work because she can afford (price? reputation?) to do so now. One supposes that doing so would be gratifying, an 'in your face' to the people who'd rejected the work previously... However, what seems to be clear is that vanity has more aspects to it than just vindication (vindictiveness?)-- it also seems to have caused (or, considering criticism of Hamilton's work in the last few years, going "editor-less," and her published work openly suffering in quality) a blindness to the notion that she may not have been wronged when these people have declined to publish these stories-- they may have had good reasons.I'm glad I didn't purchase the book; I borrowed it from the library. The narrator's voice and delivery of the stories worked for some of them, but not for others.
—Miss Lily
Seeing these short stories by Laurell K. Hamilton was a treat. Some were good, some were great, and some can be skipped over. My biggest problem with the whole shebang is the cover. This book has nothing to do with women in bondage attire eating candy. Actually, this book has no sex in it at all. Which, when you think about it, is "strange" indeed when you consider the other series' that this author writes. Overall, a pretty good read, although some of Ms. Hamilton's snarky comments in the introductions to some of the stories really didn't need to be included. If you're a fan of Ms. Hamilton, you'll want to read STRANGE CANDY just to see how she handles short stories. If you're looking for another sex-filled Anita Blake or Meredith Gentry story, this isn't the place to find it. And for those who feel the need to hide the cover of this book beneath a copy of Good Housekeeping, I don't blame you. The cover is there for shock value alone, nothing else. It doesn't apply to what's inside the book at all, and for that someone should be ashamed.
—Jennifer Wardrip
