The Saga of the Noble Dead - or what Twilight isn't...

 ****SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*****

1.  Dhampire
2. Thief of Lives
3. Sister of the Dead
4. Traitor to the Blood
5. Rebel Fay
6. Child of a Dead God

****SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*****

 I am writing this in response to the incredible and outrageous adoration of the Twilight (Twishite) series - a set of books woefully written, with some of the most ridiculous and two dimensional characters ever to disgrace a page (he loves her because she smells like food. That's it. No really - that's the entire romantic plot. She smells like food, so her loves her. Romeo and Juliet must feel soooo threatened!).

This rant is directly only at the books, as the films are destined to become camp classics for me. (In fact I got quite a few angry looks at the cinema during New Swoon, as I chortled every time the hairballs with hormones appeared on the screen!).

****SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*****

The first and most offensive aspect to me is the writing itself. Whole passages, let alone descriptors and phrases, are repeated verbatim - presumably to avoid having to strain for more depth - and characters are mere sketches, appearing only to progress the painfully thin storylines, with one personality trait each and no more. Less in fact for the primary roles. It feels like fan fiction, rather than the more polished and edited (with more than affection and enthusiam) books usually peddled to the tween market.

The fact that Wuthering Heights was re-released with a Twilight appropriate cover and tags like 'Edward and Bella's favourite book' (cause Edward is soooo like Heathcliffe...in his non-existant dreams!) just depresses. 

As I may have mentioned before, I didn't exactly click with the characters. Edward is the most emo wimpy hero ever (and therefore perfectly represented by the anaemic Robert Patterson), and manages to carry some of the most atrocious dialogue in the books (Edward: "And so the lion fell in love with the lamb." Bella: "What a stupid lamb." Edward: "What a sick, masochistic lion.").
Bella is a battered wife to be. Despite being a total mope, loaner and self admitted social moron, she instantly becomes the darling of her new town, and falls into a love so self serving and delusional as to be harmful. Have you ever seen Secretary with James Spader? It's that level of BDSM, just not detailed on the page.

In the second book, Edward leaves town (because she has a paper cut. No, really, it isn't any more dramatic than that. She cuts her hand, he and family freak out and LEAVE THE COUNTRY) and she literally pines away for him. It was kinda like one of those pro-ana sites, advocating insanity so as to fit in with the happily ever after Disney raised us on!).
She then sort of loves someone else (but not really coz he isn't Edward) mostly because he's there, but later it turns out to be ok, as he was programmed to love her unborn, un-conceived vampire human half-breed. So it's sweet really.

What the...?

I can't go into the series any further. To do so would only make me angry. And I'm kinda like the Hulk when I'm angry. I get loud and I break things. Usually other people's feelings.

However, there are two other points that just scream for attention.

****SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*****

Do not read these books if you want convincing resolution to a protracted and convoluted, though fluffy story.
Do read these books if you're a fan of the super-Happy-Happy endings in Wayne's World and Austin Powers. Every character has a happy ever after.
Every single one.
Even the bad guys. They are either killed, or they realise the error of their ways. And the biggest baddies of all ever show up at the end of the final book...and ...apologise and go home.

Seriously.

Ed gets Bella. She gets to be vamp, but also breed, and not be as mopey as the rest of them. Jacob gets the deus ex machina who happens to be like 4 weeks old, but already flirting...(niiiice)
And the vamps and weres go back to being enemies, but not like fighting enemies, more like 'You suck!' enemies.

Actually, that's pretty much it. No one else really has that much of a storyline.

The last rant, well, this is a more personal one, and not something that I expect for everyone to get all hot and bothered about.
It's the abstinance programme that seems to run the whole way through the series. If Edward has sex with Bella before they are married, he could KILL her.

Again, I only wish I were making this up.

But fear not, gentle reader, if you would like to read intelligent, well crafted and pace-y books featuring those legends of the night, I'd really recommend JC and Barb Hendee's Saga of the Noble Dead.
These I'm not willing to spoil. They are worth reading, and discovering all for yourself. And while they might not float your boat, you won't want to tear your hair out while reading it!