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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780312987015
ISBN number: 0312987013
Label: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: 2004-05
Publishing house: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Release Date: April 29, 2004
Sale Popularity Level: 29421
Studio: St. Martin's Paperbacks
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Product Description:
Minion: The Special Huntress Edition
In this exciting new edition of the very first book in the Vampire Huntress Legend series, both fans and newcomers alike will experience a Minion that includes:
* An Exciting New Beginning
* Never-Before-Read scenes
* Fast and Furious Action-readers better hold on to their seats!
Fans wanted more and now they've got it! In this special author's edition of Minion, readers will uncover more intrigue, more heat, and most importantly, more Damali Richards, vampire huntress.
All Damali Richards ever wanted to do was create music and bring it to the people. Now she is a Spoken Word artist and the top act for Warriors of Light Records. But come nightfall, she hunts vampires and demons-predators that people tend to dismiss as myth or fantasy. Damali and her Guardian team cannot afford such delusions, especially now, when a group of rogue vampires has been killing the artists of Warriors of Light and their rival, Blood Music.
When strange attacks erupt within the club drug-trafficking network and draw the attention of the police, Damali realizes these killings are a bit out of the ordinary, even for vampires. Instead of neat puncture marks in the neck showing where the blood has been drained from the body, these corpses are mutilated beyond recognition, indicating a blood lust and thirst for destruction that surpasses any Damali has encountered before. Soon she discovers that behind these brutal murders is the most powerful vampire Damali has ever met-a seductive beast who is coming for her next...
Amazon.com Review:
In fiction, film, and TV, vampires are a dominant trend of the young millennium. Is it is because the blood-suckers are a perfect metaphor for corrupt politicians and corporate executives? Because alternative sexualities are gaining acceptance? Because the idea of living forever (even if undead) is so alluring? The reasons are unclear. What is clear is that the hottest subgenre (in both popularity and sensuality) is the vampire-huntress subgenre, thanks to Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter and Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With L.A. Banks's debut novel, Minion, a tough, sexy new vampire huntress challenges the dominance of Anita Blake and Buffy.
Damali Richards is a rising star of Warriors of Light Records--but her fans would never guess that she is also the most important vampire hunter in a millennium. However, unfortunately for the inexperienced young huntress, the vampires and demons have both discovered her existence. An age-old war escalates to unprecedented heights of violence as the dark forces strive to slay Damali before she comes of age and gains her full powers.
Damali is an appealing heroine, the concept is intriguing, and the series is promising. However, the very first novel is rocky. Damali is a vampire-killing martial artist, and Minion presents an epic struggle between good and evil, yet the novel neglects to include a climactic battle between Damali and the bad guys (or much of a climax at all; a sequel is obviously forthcoming). Another problem is that Damali's teacher withholds crucial information from not only the huntress, but also her guardians, who should have learned everything many years ago. In contrast, the characters frequently tell each other things they already know. Readers craving the twisted erotic charge of the Anita Blake novels or the Buffy-Spike relationship may be dissatisfied that sexual tension is less important to Minion; and readers seeking Hamiltonian melodrama may also be disappointed. --Cynthia Ward
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Rated by buyers 
-
I'm a big fan of novels of the preternatural. Anne Rice, for example, was probably one of the very first writers that created vampires that broke out of the stereotypical role very first created by Bram Stoker. Laurell K. Hamilton has done a great job in her own right in her portrayal of her preternatural creatures in the Anita Blake series, as has Stephenie Meyer for the YA crowd in the Twilight Saga.
I was looking forward to sampling a new vampire series, and had heard a lot about LA Banks, so I started with Minion. I'm well over a third into it, and will not finish it -- I figure that if a book doesn't click with me by 100 pages, it probably won't. Here's why:
I love character-driven fiction, but I can't identify with Damali in any way. She doesn't have the spunk & vinegar of Anita Blake, and by page 100, we have yet to meet any vampires, except in passing. We don't know their minds, as with the novels of Rice, Hamilton & Meyer, and there's little to relate to in any of the other characters that are made of fairly flimsy cardboard.
I was also disillusioned to read that the edition of Minion that I was reading was "new & improved" based on readers' input to Banks. More sizzling erotic scenes, she promises, and a speeding up of the action. I have trouble respecting creative output that depends on what the "fans" want. An author needs to be true to him/herself, and write the story as they envision it. Anything else is pandering, and results in invalid work.
Finally, I realized only after buying the book that Minion has a cliffhanger ending. Hmm. Pretty manipulative in my opinion ... this means that you have to buy the subsequent book, and who knows how many others? Even within a series, I believe that each book should stand alone, with a satisfying ending for the reader.
I brought Minion along for a beach read on my vacation ... and even as a beach read, this book didn't make the cut. It'll be on my pile for donation, and perhaps a reader more appreciative than me will have fun reading it.
Rated by buyers -
Bottom Line: Try before you buy
When I read the synopsis of this book, it seemed really cool. Sort of a different take off Buffy, chick slayer, with a larger group of sidekicks.
However, I could not, for the life of me, get into the characters, at all. They did not seem believable. Added to that, their dialogue, their 'lingo' seemed just lacking...and dumb. It felt like the author was trying to hard to be 'hip', trying to hard to get it down, that special dialogue or lingo that really close friends or close co-workers use, that seems to be signature or representation of their world.
If the characters aren't strong enough, they alone cannot carry a weak story. You have to have both. Strong characters intrigue people, and make them interested in the story, and the story carries the reader along as events happen or unfold to the characters.
It's too bad...could have been really hot.
I'd recommend Kim Harrison, Laurell K. Hamilton, Rob Thurman, or Keri Arthur.
Rated by buyers -
I have a thing for a good vampire novel, so I thought I would go ahead and start this series, the book has been sitting on the shelf for some time...and I now know why I was hesitant to start lol. This book is a pretty good "set up" book. I didn't find it that hard to read, but it was a bit slow..until the end. I hope that the other readers are correct when they say that the second book is far better and maybe...if we are lucky..it gets better with each book. Worth the read, but don't expect to finish in one sitting.
Rated by buyers 
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So, as soon as I finished the anthology "Hotter Than Hell", I had to go out and try some of the authors that were in the book. L. A. Banks was one of them because I loved her sexy, spine tingling story about the Greek Goddess, Artemis. As you can see by my rating, I did not love this book. Actually, I wish I could choose no stars.
I won't bore you with describing the book, many have already done that for me. What I will say is, Banks seems to be trying something out that she has no feel for. I like the story and the plot that she is building, but the dialogue is very lacking. Not only do the characters not have anything special to say, but they repeat themselves WAY too much. Don't even get me started on the slang. Banks makes it feel like George Bush talking about his bling.
I do understand when a writer needs to end on a cliffhanger to get you to read the subsequent book, after all, I am a fan of the Meredith Gentry books. However, this one seemed to stop in the middle of a thought and did not leave me wanting more. Frankly, I don't know how Banks got the funding for a second book.
That is my soapbox speech.
Rated by buyers -
In the interest of accuracy, let me note that the edition of Minion that I have is the "Special Huntress Edition." This is a sort of "director's cut" that contains scenes not in the original edition of the novel. I have not read the very first version and do not know which scenes are new.
Minion tells the story of Damali, a young African-American woman, and her friends, who together make up a rap band and, secretly, a vampire-hunting team. Damali has been chosen Buffy-style as the champion of Light against the forces of Darkness, and her friends are the Guardians sworn to protect her until she comes into her full powers. There is a second plot as well, dealing with Damali's ex-boyfriend, Carlos, who was once a Guardian candidate but has fallen into a life of organized crime.
L.A. Banks draws many parallels, throughout Minion, between vampires and those who prey upon the urban poor in real life: the gang leaders and drug kingpins. On one level, Banks's vampires are a metaphor for these human predators.
The characters speak in urban slang, and whether you like this aspect of the novel will likely depend on whether you like authors to write out their characters' accents.
Minion contains heavy Christian themes. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The bad news is that the novel feels a little preachy at times. The good news, though, is that it works well within the plot. The characters' deep Christian faith gives them motivation to fight evil, and also gives meaning to the cross-and-holy-water methods of warding off vampires. There are some vamp novels in which religion is never mentioned except when the characters are splattering holy water across the scenery. One might wonder whether it would even work if the wielder didn't actually believe in the deity and was just using the water because "everyone knows" it works against vampires.
What didn't work for me: First, the aforementioned preachiness. This tone isn't limited to religion, but also includes diet and music lyrics. On the positive side, much of the sermonizing comes from a single character and can just be chalked up to her personality.
More importantly, Minion is just too "talky" overall. It starts with some action and some tragedy, but sinks into a morass of endless talk among the characters. Much of this talk is preachy, filled with bickering, or worst of all, info-dumpy. Characters take up a lot of page space telling each other things they already know in order to convey that information to the reader. There was probably a less clumsy way to do this.
I also wish more had been done with the group's musical interests. They theoretically have a band, but we only see Damali perform once (briefly), and never see any of the other characters play music. There is talk about the power of music to help people save their souls, but while jamming together might have helped the group keep up their morale and reinforce their bond, we never see them so much as rehearse.
Finally, I had been told that Minion ended on a cliffhanger. It's more like it screeches to a halt about two miles back at the very first sight of the "Caution: Cliff Ahead" sign. There is an event that the entire plot is building toward, and we never get there.
Banks shows promise in this very first VAMPIRE HUNTRESS novel, but doesn't do enough with it. The plot may thicken later in the series; however, the very first installment is the one that needs to hook the reader.
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