Mom! Something's Sucking on My Neck!

by Cathy Clampon the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series

“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 … read more»

Recent Free Essays (Still Available!)

Available Until
Thu 8/29

Why We Love . . . Lyla Garrity

by Jen Chaneyon Friday Night Lights

Lyla Garrity is a girl we should have hated. She was a cheerleader. She got straight A’s at Dillon High. She’s the epitome of the cute-meets-sexy female fantasy, the one every guy hopes to see naked in his bedroom as well as fully clothed, across the dinner table, when it’s … read more»

Available Until
Wed 8/28

Team Shay

by Diana Peterfreundon the Uglies series

“Team David or Team Zane?” was a popular question on Westerfansites and forums (and even an Amazon Poll) during the span of the Uglies series’s initial release. Readers enthusiastically debated whether Tally should be romantically linked with David, the self-sufficient, wild-born young man who first leads her into the Smoke, … read more»

Available Until
Tue 8/27

Lisbeth Salander and the "Truth" about Goths

by Lynne McDonald-Smith, Robert Young, Ph.D.on the Millennium Trilogy

One of the first things that we learn about Lisbeth Salander is that she stands out. Her dress and appearance are visually striking, and Stieg Larsson provides several vivid descriptions of her in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first book in the Millennium series. For example, we learn … read more»

Available Until
Mon 8/26

John Winchester and the Magic Bullet Theory

by Tracy S. Morrison Supernatural

Back in 1835, When Halley’s comet was overhead, same night those men died at the Alamo, they say Samuel Colt made a gun. A special gun. He made it for a hunter. A man like us, only on horseback. Story goes, he made thirteen bullets. This hunter used the … read more»