Anita Blake is just as good/bad as Southern Vampire (True Blood), for the first 8 books. Then she just stopped trying and writes nothing but an endless series of terrible sex scenes. At least Anita Blake got 8 decent books; her other series was garbage from the very start. Basically the "urban fantasy" genre goes:
Kim Harrison
Laurell K. Hamilton / Charlaine Harris / Jim Butcher
<about a thousand others, of which I've read maybe 15 and none of them were memorable>
Twilight
And last I heard the Anita Blake thing was just a made-for-TV movie due out in 2010, and it wasn't a pilot for a series. I'm sure they'll make more movies if it's successful though. Hamilton tried to sell the rights for a major studio movie a couple years ago, and from what I read she priced herself out of any possibility for it to happen, so I guess that's why she ended up selling to Lionsgate/IFC for TV instead.
