“Your breath smells like blood.” [Nikolaos] jerked back, a hand going to her lips. It was such a human gesture that I laughed. . . . One small, slippered foot kicked me in the chest. The force tumbled me backwards, sharp pain, no air.”

—Guilty Pleasures

Laugh, scream, or sometimes both: that’s our Anita Blake.

Like few authors before, Laurell K. Hamilton turned the burning light of reality on vampires and other denizens of the deepest recesses of our nightmares and showed us that even though they’re born of darkness, powerful and vicious creatures could retain the humanity life gives: love, angst, sorrow, and even laughter. They aren’t just terrifying; they can also be funny.

Much of the humor in the Anita Blake books comes from Anita’s observations. She makes us think about the logic of vampires, and werewolves, and vampire executioners like nobody before. Why? Because as Anita so blithely tells us, “I could not stare down at the remains and not make jokes. I couldn’t. I’d go crazy. Cops have the weirdest sense of humor because they have to” (Laughing Corpse). But while she uses her wry wit and sarcastic view of the world to cope, she does something for us, too—something more than just make us laugh. To accuse a centuries-old vampire of bad breath and have that vampire react to the insult brings Anita’s alternate reality closer to our own. It makes her world seem more real.

So let’s take a closer look at the humor in Anita’s world.  …