Taake reads old Buffy books

So I was sick today and just remained on the couch most of the day, reading. Got through this season 2 book

After image
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It is a book of two parts. The first part felt a bit off and slow, but after half of it I was well into it and really regretted the demise of the villain, I wanted to see him again! He had Ethan potential. But then the books are usually monster-of-the-week style

That said, ok, so at first the author wants us to believe that Giles has NEVER HEARD of a drive-in movie theatre. Because it is an American thing and how could a middle aged Brit know about it? What? Having Xander explain the concept of a drive-in to Giles was wild.

The book also states that Angel has an eidetic memory and that this is due to his vampire abilities… is this part of the show? I really can’t remember. Does that mean that all vampires do?

I was annoyed by Swedish nurse ”Inga” and the fact that Willow twice referred to her in context of ”the Alps” (you are thinking of Switzerland, dear)

Getting the characters voices was a labored effort that was felt in the first half.

The writer kept refering to Buffy using a boka, I tried to look it up but couldn’t find it.

There were also strange contradictions like the writer stating that Buffy moved unnoticed with an ”easy grace”, only to follow that with that her shoes ”gritted audibly” against the ground. Is she quiet and graceful, or loud and noticeable, sir? Make up your mind.

I did like that Buffy reflected on how while Giles can’t fill the gap of her father, he makes his abscence less felt.

There is also a lot of Angel, which I liked. I liked that he tried to explain Punch and Judy puppets to Willow and Buffy, then lamented that Giles wasn’t there, that it is a ”European thing”. Liked the general call backs to his Angelus days. Good stuff.

I liked Joyce in it. However it establishes that Buffy has a voracious Faith like appetite, which felt off.

Oh and, these books are starting to make me like Cordelia! They’re giving her all these great moments, while staying true to character, that is really warming me to her. This was another good book for her, in case Cordy fans need some more Queen C in their lives.
 
How do you read these so fast?!
I’m a pretty fast reader and these books are easy to get through, it’s why they’re great when you’re sick ☺️ (I also spent about five hours on the couch with it). I’m gonna take a little Buffy break now though I think, but I am determined to read all of the Buffy books I’ve bought at some point this year!
 
Plasma
Plasma
That makes sense! Also: feel better soon!
Retour au chaos (Return to chaos)
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Ah, a Buffy book to remind me why I stopped reading these. One of those books where you feel like the author probably never watched the show.

This book was ok. The main plot is druids come to town - are they good or bad?

But the druids bored me to death and I felt like the subtitle could’ve been ”aren’t teenagers stupid”

Example 1: Oz thinks that it would be great to get rid of his lycantrophy because then he could take MOONLIGHT WALKS WITH WILLOW. Look Oz is a pretty deep guy, even as a teenager I am pretty sure he’d be eager not to be a werewolf mostly because NOT being a werewolf would mean that he wouldn’t risk killing other people three days out of the month. But sure, sure, moonlight walks by all means.

Example 2: Buffy meets the druids and after barely half a conversation with one of them all she can think about is kissing him. (It even ends with them kissing - him never to be heard of again - while Cordy and Xander have the umptenth fight of the book in the background. Like this is some lame sit-com. You could practically hear the laugh track)

Also, supposedly it is set in season 3, but the previous book had Angel and this one only mentions him. So this feels like it is before his return, yet it mentions he has returned and it is after a book where he is well embedded with the Scoobs again. Sure, not confusing at all. Clearly they tried to pretend Angel just wasn’t around for two weeks so Buffy could have insta-love with a new guy, but honestly that felt really forced. (And shouldn’t she be with Scott at this point? This is why the books written AFTER the show are generally better)

No Angel is an immediate minus for me, but if the books were more consistent, it wouldn’t have bugged me as much.

The positive: It has some druid backstory but doesn’t get bogged down by it like Blood & Fog did.

By the end I thought the Naomi-Gloria-Bryce-Cordelia plotline was a lot more fun than the main druid plot. (Cordy gets kind of mind controlled by an old rival turned vampire and it is genuinely tough to see her go through it)

Something to read if you - like me - suddenly get the mood to read through this entire series. Otherwise, easy pass.
 
Plasma
Plasma
Oooo fancy new avatar
Oz thinks that it would be great to get rid of his lycantrophy because then he could take MOONLIGHT WALKS WITH WILLOW.
Presumably nothing was stopping Oz from taking moonlight walks with Willow, with the exception of three days out of the month. That makes him seem even more shallow that just any moonlight walk wouldn't work, it has to specifically be under a full moon. A nice Waning Gibbous can be perfectly romantic.
 
Taake
Taake
Oh man, I didn’t even think of that, now that annoys me even more
thetopher
thetopher
He's very particular about his moon; all or nothing is Oz's view. :)
So, I actually started to read an Angel book (”Monolith”) and in case anyone needed a reminder how old this franchise is by now, Cordelia just said this:

”I Googled them (…) Carole was keeping a blog - that is, a Web log, kind of an online journal…”

Basically, yeah, Google was a thing, but the concept of a blog needed explanation.
 
So, I actually started to read an Angel book (”Monolith”) and in case anyone needed a reminder how old this franchise is by now, Cordelia just said this:

”I Googled them (…) Carole was keeping a blog - that is, a Web log, kind of an online journal…”

Basically, yeah, Google was a thing, but the concept of a blog needed explanation.

Don’t they act like Willow is some computer genius in the early seasons when all she really does is scan stuff in and essentially Google information lol 😂.

Granted, there is that completely unexplained “hacking” that happens with the disc in S4 (hilarious by the way) but that seems to be the extent of her “mastery”
 
Don’t they act like Willow is some computer genius in the early seasons when all she really does is scan stuff in and essentially Google information lol 😂.
Didn't she hack into the city water supply or something in the second episode? When they were looking for Luke or whomever.
 
To whom did she say this to?
Fair enough, to Angel. But it reads as the audience being informed.

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Anyway, I finished Monolith by John Passarella and it was a good Angel novel. I think the first I’ve read. That said, I think you need to like Connor to like the book (at first he was grating but there was some genuinely touching insight to his psyche, childhood trauma and relationship to Angel).

A good monster of the week ”ep” in a tricky setting (right before Apocalypse Nowish) with a fairly credible end of the world threat and interesting set up.

But, because it is in s4 the author struggles with how to write Angel and Cordelia (through no fault of his own) and since I detest Cangel, I like his solution of trying to avoid the Angel-Cordelia-Connor triangle at all costs. There are a few nods and an info dump page of what is going on, but beyond that, the interactions between these three are kept pretty sterile and vague.

There was one cute Cordelia joke, but really the interactions feel a bit like s1, where the characters are still getting to know each other.

Sadly, the author kept kicking me repeatedly in my Frunn shipping heart, but it was very well written, Gunn’s anguish and Fred’s distance.

Wesley… well, Wesley is a bit s3 Wes, so there I felt like there was a struggle to find the right ”tone” for grim season4 Wes.

All in all, the author seems like he genuinely likes writing the characters, and he hits on really good emotional spots. (Angel mourning the loss of being there for Connor’s childhood e.g.) While getting plenty of action in.

Basically, if you like season 4, I think you’ll like this book.


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Now. The reason I started reading Monolith was because I started reading a Buffy novel (Danse de mort/Visitors) but I was so bored! A book the features (and wastes) Ethan Rayne has no business being this boring. I don’t really have anything nice to say about it, it is one of the shorter ones (like 160 pages or something) but it felt like 700. I skimmed towards the end (I was so bored, I picked up a Heidegger book instead!)
 
Fair enough, to Angel.
See that makes a lot more sense her talking like that about it with Angel as he is a luddite and has no idea what a blog would be. Didn't she also have to explain what WWW site was to him or something?
 
Taake
Taake
Rings a bell
Soul Trade - Thomas Sniegoski

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First of all, these books do a great job coming up with interesting demons that would’ve been too expensive to do on TV. Both Angel books I’ve read has had an episodic feel, but just on a grander scale. I’m into it.

This book was a fun monster of the week, about human souls being traded and turned into drugs for demons. Moving victim story.

Character points:
*Angel reflects on his relationship to his sister way back when

*Harry makes an appearance and we get some good Doyle has issues with his demon side stuff

*This book randomly and hilariously decides that Cordelia has a fear of lawn gnomes since childhood

”Every day she studied them, and every day she grew more convinced they were coming closer, moving towars the garden fence, readying for escape… [they disappear] …They were probably off somewhere with other missing lawn gnomes from all over the planet, planning some horrible fate for the worlds’. Apocalypse gnome, she thought.”


Pet peeve: Doyle always says ”ye”, ”yer” and ”fer”. I get what he is going for but it is mostly annoying and feels forced.
 
nightshade
nightshade
I remember this one
Angel book:
Not forgotten / Le seigneur des bas-fonds - Nancy Holder
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A season 1 Angel novel, complete with Doyle, Cordy and Kate.

It is a pretty confusing case though with lots of characters and little conclusion. There is a woman - Meg - who apparently looks just like Cordy, but nothing comes from her story. There is no real conclusion.
Instead, confusingly, Angel comforts a dying woman who tells him her regrets and you think it might connect to the plot, and Meg, but it doesn’t. It is just there to show that Angel is the one who cares about helping the helpless.
There are two villains who occur early on and is in most of the book, but are then insultingly killed off by a random character off page.

Overall, it was ok, but a bit jumbled.
What I didn’t like: Cordy gets robbed and ends up in a homeless shelter from where she calls Angel and Doyle. What I don’t like is that Cordy looks att the bums around her and thinks that she used to think that was what Xander would end up like. Ehm… a homeless bum? She is a bully, yeah, but that seems low even for her.
Also she references Willow’s magic and how her ”wards” would fail as if her magic got ”tired”. But Willow didn’t do that much magic in s3? So this feels like a weird comment.

What I liked: adds to Angel’s backstory

This might be divisive but I really liked that Liam has an encounter with a banshee, two weeks before he becomes a vampire. It is pretty spooky and effective, he thinks it is a sham, but she says he can wish for something, when he won’t she tells him that he’ll die for murder some day and ”suffer for all you’ve done, in ways you cannot fathom and I cannot even tell”

He interprets that as that he’ll hang for murder, so in a moment of spite he says


”Then I’ll not die,” he flung at her. ”I’ll never die. That’s my wish.”


At which she laughs at him and tells him that all God’s children die, and those who don’t ”they belong to the devil”
I just thought that was a nice way to build on the Angel story without effecting canon. I thought it added something.


Also liked that the characters felt true to the show, overall.
 
Angel
"Redemption" - by Mel Odom
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This is actually my favorite Angel book so far, I thought it weaved past and present plotlines well and I thought it was fun to see Angelus as a "2 year old" vampire with very similar bravado and characteristics to a young Spike. I like getting insights into events that have been part of the characters changes and maturation.
The plot is essentially that a young actress is being hounded by a group of zealots intent on killing her for being a "vampire", this young woman looks an awful lot like a young woman Angelus met back in 1758, so is she a vampire? Dun dun dun.... no, no she isn't.

She's actually possessed by a banshee and is indeed the same woman from back when, it gets a bit convoluted and the exposition is clunky as all that, but it was still a fun ride.

There were some cute Angel and Kate moments too that I enjoyed.
Darla is on point. The other characters feel just like themselves. The ending is rushed and clunky, so is the exposition for what's really going on, but things always tend to rush towards the ends of these books. It's like it's an episode and they run out of time.

The one thing I didn't like was Angel's perspective towards the end, where he kind of seemed to want a woman to go on the run from the law? Which seemed uncharacteristic of him. Essentially Whitney/Moira has murdered lots of men while possessed, she doesn't remember it, but she claims responsibility and thinks that prison is the place for her, where she can earn her redemption. Angel seems to think this is unfair since she technically didn't commit the murders...but his plan for her was unclear, for her to fight the charges? To go on the run? It just seemed like someone had to think it was unfair so we could get the character herself to volunteer to do time, thus starting her redemption.


Being a vampire in the modern world:
One thing that I find funny is that in "Not forgotten" Angel is stopped for speeding and gets a ticket, it specifically mentions that he hands over his license and registration. This book they have Angel visiting a jail, and he's not let in because now he doesn't have ID and no last name....

...but why doesn't he have a last name? Both he and Spike were human. Not that long ago. They remember their first names. Why wouldn't they use their last names when needed? Do we know Angel's (Liam's) last name? Surely to sign any papers he can't just sign them "Angel" and have that be enough?
 
The one thing I didn't like was Angel's perspective towards the end, where he kind of seemed to want a woman to go on the run from the law? Which seemed uncharacteristic of him. Essentially Whitney/Moira has murdered lots of men while possessed, she doesn't remember it, but she claims responsibility and thinks that prison is the place for her, where she can earn her redemption. Angel seems to think this is unfair since she technically didn't commit the murders...but his plan for her was unclear, for her to fight the charges? To go on the run? It just seemed like someone had to think it was unfair so we could get the character herself to volunteer to do time, thus starting her redemption.

So, kinda like Sanctuary?
I could see Angel believing that jail is not the answer for someone in her circumstance, and she sounds way more innocent of her crimes than the clearly guilty Faith.

Btw, really enjoying the book reviews. Bring me another! 🙂
 
So, kinda like Sanctuary?
I could see Angel believing that jail is not the answer for someone in her circumstance, and she sounds way more innocent of her crimes than the clearly guilty Faith.

Btw, really enjoying the book reviews. Bring me another! 🙂

Kind of yeah, and she is, but also not. We're talking centuries of murders and the police have a case against her. Just seems like prison is exactly the place for her, as she invited the banshee to possess her in the first place (to get revenge on Angelus, she becomes an unkillable killing machine, it's a pretty effective storyline). It's not unlike Angel redeeming his actions as Angelus.

I shall, sir! 🙂
 
The Gatekeeper Trilogy
Ok, first of all, I'm kind of annoyed. See I started reading these in French, but happened to have the English editions of book 1 and 3 and noted that they have smaller print yet are about 50 pages longer than the versions I was reading. So after reading the first one I glanced through the English version and noted that one chapter started differently, checked it out more closely and realized that the French translation had just skipped three whole pages, before starting the same chapter. I then noted that there were a lot of chunks of text just completely skipped over, which is irritating. Translating doesn't have to be abridging. But whatever.

I liked this trilogy, I think it uses the format to its advantage by creating scenarios they couldn't have gotten away with on TV, and by also splitting the group up and letting each character shine in some way. That said, the backstory for the villain Fulcanelli and the Gatekeeper is sometimes a bit dragged out and so is the central drama/world-ending-threat.

But there is a part where Buffy decapitates a clone of herself, could've made for cool visuals on TV.

But, it is fun to go into alternate worlds, it's fun to see Buffy, Angel, and Oz on a European roadtrip together. It's fun to see Giles get a new sort of love interest. It's fun to explore magic and secret societies. The third book was probably the best, adding Ethan was a really good idea. He is a lot of fun, though sometimes his dialogue felt a bit odd. The second book has Spike and Dru but it feels mostly like they're there for the heck of it.

What is also nice is that there is a lot of focus on Buffy's and Joyce's relationship, which feels really sweet.

Less nice: I kind of hated Xander in these books. In the first one he's just arguing with Buffy, in the second one he is portrayed as not really caring about Cordelia while she's nuts about him (and want them to go to college together... while he's all "I don't love her". I don't know, I'm not sure I bought the Cordy side as portrayed here), and in the third he gets to be a hero but I was too tired of him to really cheer him on at this point. And then Cordy gets all "my man is the so and so" and while it doesn't feel out of character, it also feels like Cordy would be realist enough to know not to be thrilled about what is happening (more of a curse than a blessing).

There are also parts where it feels like they're dragging the plot out just for suspense and it doesn't really work because it is so obviously dragged out...

Also, sometimes they recap the previous chapter at the start of the next chapter... basically, anyone who wants to read these, as I started and they were setting up the drama I thought it would be necessary to read it all, but really, they recap everything all the time so one can pretty easily read these as stand-alones and get caught up with ease.

All in all, this was fun. I kind of skimmed some of the villain backstory, because I'm more interested in the Scoobies, but overall these were well written and as mentioned, they explore stuff they couldn't have done on TV (massive monsters, constant location changes, etc) which is exactly what they should use books like these for.
 
Ethan Reigns
Ethan Reigns
Anything translated from English to French will be about 50% longer. That may be why some things were glossed over.
Also fun fact for fanfic writers: the third book Sons of Entropy was published in 1999 and it mentions that Buffy smells like vanilla, a standard in fanfic. Maybe this is partly where it comes from. It also says the she smells like lavender, which, gross.

There are also some moments for the Angel and Willow shippers. Where Angel has to carry Willow and she blushes, then thinks of his body against hers as: ”it was neat, in a girl-responding-to-boy way” and that she wouldn’t dare tell Buffy about it. If there are Angel and Willow shippers out there 😉
 
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