This was such a great little Buffy book. It wasn’t ground breaking or anything, it was just a perfectly balanced story which is rare with these.
It sets up the Scoobies doing three different things (Buffy is with Giles patrolling and looking for an artefact, kind of. Willow is baby-sitting and faces something terrible. Xander has a new friend he is hanging out with), and Odom combines these three plots into one cohesive story where it is all linked. It is done very nicely too. Again, it is not crazy special or riveting, it is just sweet, entertaining, and satisfying.
Monsters of the week: vampires, fairies and changelings.
Groundbreaking Part: they use cellphones in this one! Oz and Giles appear to have phones and call each other during the battles/searches to keep up to date and for the Scoobies to find each other.
Recommended to anyone who wants a simple high school years story.
It happened, it happened!
One of these books finally acknowledged the existence of Faith! She's not in it, and is just mentioned briefly as being a Slayer too, but still, it was nice to have her as an acknowledged inverse existence.
This was another of these books that was surprisingly good, I can't help but compare it to Holder's "Blood and Fog" and what made this one better... see, in this one Gallagher uses Scooby research + possessed or already established characters to introduce the threat and its lore. It works because there isn't a lot of info dumps and it isn't convoluted. Most importantly, everything and everyone is directly connected in some way to the Scoobies, so you never feel like the plot completely leaves Sunnydale in order to engage is some tedious inter-fae people political backplot.
Introducing and focusing on new characters can be a bit of a hit or miss in an established universe, even if you understand the need for it. I mean there's only so much you can do with pre-established characters + not being able to disrupt the events of the series. But for this story I thought it worked, as the characters felt introduced in an organic way. With Dem (is that a real name?) and Lucy, and - brownie points - Mr. Trick (yay!), as the main vessels of the villanous plot, I was consistently engaged with it.
The only thing that felt a little bit off was that Cordelia engaged quite a bit with the gang, even though this is post-break-up with Xander. It's not really bothersome, but it felt like Gallagher just really wanted Cordelia in it and therefore made her hang around with Willow quite a bit.
Also, isn't it Mayor Wilkins not Wilkens? Can't remember.
College angst was a theme in this one, with graduation looming.
All in all, I enjoyed it. Nice add on to the high school years, another evil twharted, when do any of these kids have time for school? 😛
I'm starting to dread Angel's departure though, as it is clearly about to happen, and hope that I'll enjoy these books even without him in it.
Am I the only person who hates it when certain novels go on for pages with narrator/character monologue, instead of just getting on with the action and dialogue?
NotASlayerTry reading Atlas Shrugged. That has a 50+ page monologue!
Oh, fellow shippers, here I am to tell you they nothing is sacred in the Buffy-verse… this book will have you know that Angel and Clem walked, so that Spike and Clem could run!
This is a s2 book written after the series ended, which tend to be some of the best books in the BtVS book series. Here one gets Clem, a Doublemeat palace mention, oh and Ethan Rayne.
It also has a fun plot that lends itself to pretty intense chaos as the Scoobies are all infected by the seven deadly sins
which has Cordelia so consumed by greed that she commits a violent robbery, and Giles… oh Giles, he is infected by rage and summons a demon to kill Buffy, while Angel just wants to make with the smoochies with Buffy and Miss Calendar, oh and some poor guy bludgeons his mom to death, yikes
Fun facts from this book
Sunnydale has 12 cemetaries
Buffy smells like vanilla
Angel and Giles were ready with two kittens to feed Clem with for information (at least Spike was soulless during his kittenpoker days)
Giles is mean to the kitties under his spell, humpf.
Calling high school a ”Gulag” is a bit much, Holder
Again, Willow being a ginger is associated with magical powers
A Bulgarian gypsy asks if Jenny is of ”Gypsy blood”, she denies this in front of Angel and Willow
Giles’ condo burns down which I don’t like, he has so much rare stuff, books and the like, that it is a pretty big deal, not just a throw away line.
Holder is maybe a Spuffy, because in the first 22 pages she has Buffy thinking about Spike three times and he is not in this book
Holder is definitely not a Cangel because she makes a point that even under a lust spell Angel went goo-goo for Buffy and Miss Calendar, but was never attracted to Cordy.
All in all, read this in a day and it was fast paced and really fun, it was interesting to see which sins affected whom and to see Ethan there to make bad chaos worse.
A definite recommend to people who like the high school years and want a book without too much magical mythology. It is a carnival, it devours souls, hence Carnival of souls. Plain and simple.
One of my faves, along with One thing or your mother
Skanky VampMaybe Mr. Giles' apartment would be less flammable if he had a kindle and not so much kindlin sitting around in those musty, dusty books.
I’m struggling to find it but I remember their being a really good series of the smaller slimmer books where Buddy was in a parallel universe which was fairly Horrifying, I think Giles might have been a vampire… can anybody help me out? I’m sure it was season 3 based.
I liked 'The Lost Slayer' books - there were 4 volumes. I can remember reading one of them while sitting by a swimming pool in Mallorca.
This also inspired me to write a BTVS fanfiction based around the season 5 era, although admittedly, my storywriting skills were pretty dire back then.
I liked 'The Lost Slayer' books - there were 4 volumes. I can remember reading one of them while sitting by a swimming pool in Mallorca.
This also inspired me to write a BTVS fanfiction based around the season 5 era, although admittedly, my storywriting skills were pretty dire back then.
Due to personal reasons I haven’t read much this summer and neglected the bookclub books. The last weeks however I did read some others of these old books
Power of persuasion - Elizabeth Massie
This was fun, a bit like Greek myth meets Jennifer’s body, meets Buffy. The girls at school, including Willow, are swept up in a wave of strident feminism around a pair of sisters who’ve just enrolled, while boys are mysteriously killed. Even Giles falls under the thrall of whatever is going on, so Buffy must rely primarily on Oz to solve this conundrum.
It was great to see Oz and Buffy work together. Fun to see Cordelia’s fury at mental feminists taking over the school and taking her role as Queen C. And rather fun seeing Giles go mental over another woman who’s arrived in town.
Basically a fun high school story, quick to read and not too convoluted in the villains backstories. The only oddity was Angel having been sent away on a mission by Giles. Convenient but seemed odd for s3.
Intérêt commun /Shakedown - Don Debrant
Angel helping materialistic snake demons? While contemplating his own loneliness/lack of group belonging thanks to Cordy.
A book that cruelly dangled a Kate/Angel date in front of me, then made it really awkward… sigh.
The best parts of this was that it had Angelus flashbacks which felt genuinely menacing. Sometimes it feels like they chicken out of describing his evil deeds, but this was unsettling and well written.
I didn’t care much for the main mystery and the short intercut scenes between the demons and Angel inc. It was too choppy.
And although I guess it makes sense, and I’ve seen it before, I don’t like it when the good guy faces off with someone who was less reputable than he thought and kind of goes ”get out of my town. I won’t stop you doing shady dealings elsewhere, just don’t do it here”… meh.
All in all, the character work in this book is excellent, but the main plot is so so. Basically, this is for the fans who really care about these characters, not for the casual reader.
Close to the ground - Jeff Mariotte
It is ok. I didn’t like the main villain and skimmed his sections. Its an old magician who sees Angel as his key to regain youth.
Meanwhile, Angel is baby sitting a Hollywood executives wild child teenage daughter… but not everything is as it seems *dun dun dun*
Essentially, the daughter actually died at the start of the book in a bank robbery, but in an exchange for success the father allows a fae - or whatever it was - to take over her body. This so she can lure Angel out and the magician caddie can get to him. Angel figures it out st the end and releases the ghost of the real daughter after violently threatening the dad.
This one was so so, Angel towards the end didn’t seem like Angel at all. But there is a flashback to his first attempt at rescuing someone after getting his soul (and failing) but that was nice to read. Overall, pretty fun, but the Angel plot, the magician, and then a Kate plot with bank robberies … it all felt a bit scattered.
Vampire fairies! The little things are vampire fairies. Lol.
Also, Buffy has a toothache.
To say that these youth oriented books are a bit shallow is well, true. That said, this is something as strange as a pretty lighthearted season 6 book. It makes it a fun read if you don't over think it and how the characters really ought to be acting. I suppose one can use Buffy's toothache as a symbol for her current state (as she tries to hide it from her friends, only tells Spike, and even then doesn't want help)
"Spark and Burn"
Oh dearie me... this is the book equivalent of a clip show on sitcoms. It takes different scenes from episodes and combines them in order to re-tell Spike's story. There isn't anything new in there, so it is mainly for hardcore Spike fans. However, for some reason, the author thought "where should I start my Spike book?" and decided to start with the AR from Spike's perspective... ehm, that was, a choice. 😳
Dark Mirror - Craig Shaw Gardner (another author erroneously credited on some covers for whatever reason)
This was a really fun Angel novel set at the start of season 4. Basic plot is demons that spray people with a sort of mist and afterwards are able to not only assume their shape, but know their whole history etc up until that point. Essentially, they are "dark mirrors" of the person they clone as they are demons with evil intents.
This would have been a rather fun episode actually as most of the AI team get cloned, but no extraneous time is spent on confusion, they figure out pretty quickly when it's the real person and when it's an evil clone and things keep moving about at a pretty quick pace.
The author also gets nods of appreciation for hinting where we are at in the canon, namely concerning Cordelia. For example, to make sure they're not clones they sing for Lorne and he notes something off about Cordelia, but dismisses it as her just returning from another realm. Later on in the novel it is hinted again that something is a bit off about Cordelia, but it isn't a part of the story, it's just a nod to the audience who knows exactly what's going on with Cordy. It's nice to see in a novel that can't disrupt what goes on in the shouw, but still anchors the events in it, so it feels like an organic part of the story.
Also included, that Cordy and Connor are close. Cordy being the only one he really trusts.
Also some Wes and Lilah stuff for the shippers.
Les sirénes demoniaques / Deep water - Laura Anne Gilman and Josepha Sherman
I really enjoyed this one too. Willow is part of a environmental group that's cleaning up the beach when she finds a "child" that's a bit off and she brings it to the library and Giles. It turns out it is a "selkie" - a creature that can shift between being a seal and having a human form - and the gang have to figure out how to clean its seal skin and help it return to its seal shape and the sea. Meanwhile "merrows", mean mere-people, decide to hunt on the ground and it becomes something of a war between mere-people and vampires.
Also there is a professor who thinks selkies are evil and the gang must navigate his intentions and keep him away from their "Ariel", as they call her. Lots of Giles and Willow caring for this child, quite funnily, she can't speak English but only Gaelic so Giles has to struggle through with that.
Surprisingly about this book is that the real MVP of the story (though some reviews credit it as a "Willow book") is Cordelia. She is actually a compelling character here, even though they at times push it (the idea that she would be at school at like 5 am or so seems very OOC), generally she is accidentally the most helpful and clever of them here. She gets information out of the professor, she cares about Ariel, and is just generally, well helpful but mostly still feels like Cordelia and semi-reluctant to be involved at all.
Buffy shook her head, denying what she saw, what was happening to the grave where she’d laid the most important woman in her life to rest. Her feet kicked the lawn, pushing her back away from the grave.
”Mom… no…”
A book based on the game?
Yeah, I had to check it out, and actually, it holds up really well. The set up takes about half the book, but that set up is mainly action, so it isn’t slow.
We have Ethan Rayne, Faith, Sid, and Kakistos all returning to the plot. Ethan is the most fun, because Ethan is the scheemer that sets the whole plot up and gets the characters into the game setting, if you will.
It set in season 5. Joyce is dead, Tara and Willow together, Spike unhappily in love, Buffy alive, Glory not really a thing for the plot to concern itself with
Starts the Scoobies section with Xander wondering what if things had been different and he and Buffy had gotten together…
Ends with Buffy taking a human life and noting that it is the first time she has had to do that.
And then also A CAN O’ WORMS of The First lore is opened. Because for the Kakistos of it all, the First is really the villain… it has to be defeated with ”hope’s dagger” (is that in the game?) which is the ONLY thing that can kill/neutralize the First *cough cough* s7 calling…
They say about the First that
”It is a power that transcends reality, time, and space. Which means it can tap into all possible realities as well as all times accessing the past and future.”
Which makes it seem way more powerful than it is in s7?
If it can access the future, why muck about with the Sunnydale crew for months and months?
It is a fun read though and made me wish I could play the game again, I prefered the first game but Chaos Bleeds was fun as well, especially as you got to play different characters. If you liked the game back in the day, you’ll probably think this is a fun read
Buffy kills Ethan but he is the resurrected so it counts for nothing really
Resurrecting Ravana / La Resurrection de Ravana (Buffy season 3)
Now this is a s3 book for those who wants more of Giles doesn’t like Willow practicing magic stuff.
Willow here wants to cure Oz’ lycantrophy magically, she uses magic to unlock a door, and she specifically asks Buffy to hide from Giles that she is practicing magic. And Giles yells at her about it.
Beyond that, have you ever wished Buffy and Willow got into a fight to the death before season 6? Well this is the book for you.
Essentially a short of Indian chaos demon is emerging in Sunnydale and is spreading discord between friends wit the goal of them eventually killing one another and becoming food for demons.
Willow and Buffy are caught under this spell (a bit of a stretch since all the others affected have been friends for 20-40 years, but whatever)
Note that I said chaos demon? Oh yeah, Ethan Rayne makes another return! Though he is barely in it, so Ethan fans aren’t missing much.
Some nice moments with Buffy and Joyce.
A fun book even if I didn’t love the Buffy/Willow falls apart. But they didn’t drag it out for too long.
Avatar / Maléfices (Angel season1)
This one took advantage of the format. We have a demon who shapeshifts into the person people desire (to lure them to their deaths), so when it faces of with Angel it takes the shape of Buffy. I like when book writers do stuff like this because they’re not constrained by the actors.
Interestingly, when it approaches Cordelia it takes the shape of Doyle, which is sweet.
There was kind of a lot going on here:
A) a demon using a sad human and that scary thing called ”chat rooms” to lure victims out and consume them with the goal of retrieving a corporeal form
B) a cult that wants to enslave this demon
C) a news reporter who wants to use Angel for her news program on cheating spouses and then when he says no, keep coming around wanting to date him instead. It takes the entire book and a date for him to finally rebuff her and it all just seems oddly placed
D) Kate ❤️ But not enough good Angel/Kate moments
It was ok overall, but it seemed a bit oddly paced and the wrap up was very fast. I liked it, but it wasn’t a favorite
The best part was all the internet stuff. Cordy wanting to set up a webpage and them all being big question marks about the how’s and why’s of it all. And of course how shiny and new the concept of chatrooms were.
Resurrecting Ravana / La Resurrection de Ravana (Buffy season 3)
Now this is a s3 book for those who wants more of Giles doesn’t like Willow practicing magic stuff.
Willow here wants to cure Oz’ lycantrophy magically, she uses magic to unlock a door, and she specifically asks Buffy to hide from Giles that she is practicing magic. And Giles yells at her about it.
Beyond that, have you ever wished Buffy and Willow got into a fight to the death before season 6? Well this is the book for you.
Essentially a short of Indian chaos demon is emerging in Sunnydale and is spreading discord between friends wit the goal of them eventually killing one another and becoming food for demons.
Willow and Buffy are caught under this spell (a bit of a stretch since all the others affected have been friends for 20-40 years, but whatever)
Note that I said chaos demon? Oh yeah, Ethan Rayne makes another return! Though he is barely in it, so Ethan fans aren’t missing much.
Some nice moments with Buffy and Joyce.
A fun book even if I didn’t love the Buffy/Willow falls apart. But they didn’t drag it out for too long.
Avatar / Maléfices (Angel season1)
This one took advantage of the format. We have a demon who shapeshifts into the person people desire (to lure them to their deaths), so when it faces of with Angel it takes the shape of Buffy. I like when book writers do stuff like this because they’re not constrained by the actors.
Interestingly, when it approaches Cordelia it takes the shape of Doyle, which is sweet.
There was kind of a lot going on here:
A) a demon using a sad human and that scary thing called ”chat rooms” to lure victims out and consume them with the goal of retrieving a corporeal form
B) a cult that wants to enslave this demon
C) a news reporter who wants to use Angel for her news program on cheating spouses and then when he says no, keep coming around wanting to date him instead. It takes the entire book and a date for him to finally rebuff her and it all just seems oddly placed
D) Kate ❤️ But not enough good Angel/Kate moments
It was ok overall, but it seemed a bit oddly paced and the wrap up was very fast. I liked it, but it wasn’t a favorite
The best part was all the internet stuff. Cordy wanting to set up a webpage and them all being big question marks about the how’s and why’s of it all. And of course how shiny and new the concept of chatrooms were.
Alice Henderson is a good Buffy writer too. Can’t remember Choose your own adventure ever being a thing here, so I don’t really grasp how it works in practice
Alice Henderson is a good Buffy writer too. Can’t remember Choose your own adventure ever being a thing here, so I don’t really grasp how it works in practice
Usually you read a couple pages. And then you get to a decision to make. It tells you what pages to turn to for each decision. So you don’t read it front to back, you jump around.
So I got my editions of the Gatekeeper trilogy in the mail today. The seller listed them as Very Good. These are BRAND NEW editions that came in plastic sleeves.
I cannot wait to read them! Often on old editions there are creases in the spine. Or the spine is bent from reading. But these feel like they’ve never been read, or read only once.
I am so excited to read them!
I remember starting the trilogy about a decade ago. But I never finished it, and ended up selling the copies I had in a move. But I’m so glad I did because these are better copies!!
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