(no subject)

[doyle]

My adventures with the Buffy tie-in novels continue apace. Thanks to my local library and a couple of charity shops (for 40p I don't *care* how bad the book is) I have in my grubby paws Seven Crows, These Our Actors, The Xander Years (1 AND 2!), The Angel Chronicles 2, City Of, Stranger to the Sun, Unnatural Selection, Resurrecting Ravana, Shakedown, Oz: Into the Wild, Pretty Maids All in a Row, Unseen, and Endangered Species. That's a stack of paperbacks to go with me to Belfast this week, then.

I've read one chapter of Resurrecting Ravana (by Ray Garton) and it's fairly painful going, what with the stilted, redundant writing.

She slammed the stake into its throat. The hellhound sat up with a startled growl. The stake remained in Buffy's hand... with the silver pointed tip pointing at her. She'd stabbed the hellhound in the throat with the wrong end of the stake.

I love how in the last sentence he recaps what she just did, the fact that it was to a hellhound, and that it was with a stake. Because we wouldn't otherwise know that from the previous two sentences. I'm having flashbacks to Sunset Beach (cue the sound effect of flashbacking)

Seven Crows (John Vornholt) is a book I should like - it's Rileycentric - and at least it acknowledges it completely screws with canon. The preface says it takes place in 'an alternate season 7', by which they mean the summer after Grave, except Angel's not stuck under the sea and Cordelia and Connor... well, so far, they don't seem to exist, but maybe they get a mention later on. Bored with the first couple of pages, I flipped ahead, read the section where Buffy whispers "goodnight, sweet prince" after Angel leaves their motel room, and hurt myself giggling.

These Our Actors - it's centred around Spike and Willow, set in season 5 but with a good chunk of it set prior to Spike's turning. so far, I'm loving it. Fingers crossed.

Comments

[maggiesox.livejournal.com]

I was VERY curious about These Our Actors, but I thought I'd wait for someone else to read it first, because the last one I read, Apocalypse Memories was good, but I've been better filled with fanfic. Please let me know if you ultimately like it, in the end.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

"These Are Actors" is one of the few books I could honestly say that I enjoyed. The author is Dori from BAPS and you can tell she actually watches the show and pays attention. Kudos for her.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I love that it has Willow taking the drama class we heard mentioned. It's so obvious the author's a fan of the show (whereas with Seven Crows, I'm also certain that John Vornholt has never seen an episode of Angel)

[liliaeth]

or Buffy for that matter.
If you read Seven Crows without watching the show, you wouldn't even know that Spike exists. Or Cordy, or anything other than B/A.

Vornholt seems to have little or no clue of what Buffy is about and just wrote something that had little or no actual connection to either shows...

(well he might, just might, have seen one or two eps with Riley, but I'd say that's the most of it.)

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I just wish they'd get people who are actually fans of the shows to write these things...

[katemonkey.livejournal.com]

The Oz book isn't half bad...it's kinda adorable. Mellow. Like him.

And very Giles/Oz. Despite trying to bring in a semi-romantic interest.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I was hoping there'd be some Giles/Oz! Or that Giles was mentioned anywhere, really. Because in my head, that could be construed as Giles/Oz.

[katemonkey.livejournal.com]

He goes to places Giles tells him about.

Which means they're regularly keeping in touch.

Which in my mind, equals permanent full and total love.

Um. Yes.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes it does.

Since the books are 'alternate' versions of canon anyway - leaving out Faith, Riley, Connor, or whatever else the author doesn't like - why the hell aren't there slash novels? On the other hand... they'd probably be bad. So never mind.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

These our Actors is good.

[octopedingenue]

Of those listed, I've only been brave enough to read These Our Actors, which I thought was cute but kinda pointless. The plot trails off in a muddle, and the friction between the authors' attempts to make Spike sympathetic and the official restrictions of Spike Must Be Ev0l Dammit are painfully obvious. The book's probably funniest if you're passing-familiar with the Tabula Rasa list--one of the authors is/was a frequent poster there (she did the Spikefeeds) and there are a dozen injokes and shout-outs to the list worked into the book.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I'm on Tabula Rasa, I'll have fun looking out for the injokes *g*

[octopedingenue]

re-read that post and thought it came off too critical--while I don't think These Our Actors is the best fiction or (official) fanfiction I've read, it's sooooo much better than all the other official fanfiction-books I've flipped through aaargh my bleeding eyes.

[buffyx.livejournal.com]

Bored with the first couple of pages, I flipped ahead, read the section where Buffy whispers "goodnight, sweet prince" after Angel leaves their motel room, and hurt myself giggling.

LMAO. Oh, man. Why do Spuffies campaign for the authors to write S/B books?! They'll only market out more crap like this! Argh! ::headdesk::

I did buy These Our Actors because Dori, one of the authors, is well-known in fandom and I wanted to support her. It wasn't bad-- personally I found myself skimming the flashbacks a little because I wanted to read more Spike/Willow interaction. Still, not a waste of time at all. I liked it.

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

Those books always make me giggle. I used to read Star Trek ones when I was younger.

But alas, when I go on trips, I take a few novels, but also a folder or two filled with fanfic that I abused the work printer for.

[thesecondevil]

I flipped ahead, read the section where Buffy whispers "goodnight, sweet prince" after Angel leaves their motel room, and hurt myself giggling.

Can't. Stop. Laughing. Hee!

I've had These Our Actors for ages but I still haven't read it, I think I might just get round to reading it now.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I perversely want to read a bit of Book of Fours now to see how bad it is *g*

What I've read of Christopher Golden's stuff, I've liked. I'm about a 1/3 of the way through Immortal and enjoying it so far.

[janeway216.livejournal.com]

eta: reposted to fix my HTML. Bad 216! Bad!

I've read a couple of these.

Seven Crows -- I like the plot, but the characters in the book only vaguely resemble Riley, Sam, Angel, and Buffy. It's like Vornholt had an idea for an original novel and thought, "Wouldn't it be great if it were Riley doing this?" Vornholt has also written Star Trek novels. They were actually worse. I think Vornholt's schtick is to write for shows he doesn't actually watch.

These Our Actors -- I had to reread the last chapter a few times because I had no idea what happened and thought my copy was missing a few pages. I think some important exposition must have been cut or something. Dori was responsible for writing the flashback bits with Spike and Ashley McConnell wrote the modern day stuff.

Pretty Maids All in a Row -- Chris Golden's better than most. This one got Jossed out the window by the advent of S7, but it's really not bad.

Unseen -- Nancy Holder is saved from herself by the intervention of Jeff Marriotte. I really dislike Nancy Holder's work. First off, she refuses to type out either "because" or "cause" in favor of the Internet slang "cuz". "Cuz" is one of my least favorite words, right up there with "ne1" and "sum1". Secondly, she hasn't a clue what Buffy characters should sound like.

The one Buffy novel -- really it's a series of novellas -- I will recommend is the Lost Slayer series by Chris Golden -- an alternate future where vampires have taken over Southern California. Conversely, the one I think you should STAY AWAY FROM AT ALL COSTS is The Book Of Fours by Nancy Holder. With a plot that makes no sense and bad writing and characterization to boot, it's one great sinkhole of suck.

[m-phoenix.livejournal.com]

'These Our Actors' was the most enjoyable Buffy tie-in novel I've read, though not up to the standards of a really good fanfic. Fun at the time, though I've pretty much completely forgotten anything that happened in it.

'The Lost Slayer' was good. Quite a dark and interesting AU; bleak loner Buffy, high body count, lots of violence, the writing was readable though nothing special. But the big point in it's favour was vampire Giles.

Then we come to 'The Book Of Fours' by Nancy Holder. Arrrg. My eyes, my eyes. I struggled through about a quarter of it before I gave up in despair. It has to be one of the worst books I've ever had the misfortune to open. I'm still trying to blank it from my memory. After that I decided to stick to fanfic.

[tillytilly.livejournal.com]

Spouse attended a talk by one of the authors of these things at the Slayage conference. He said that she reported that the deadlines they get to write these things are incredibly short - which may explain the quality of the writing.

Also projects apparently get fucked over by canon regularly - often meaning whole books get chucked out becuase they decide they are going to do something different on the actual show.

I have Seven Crows - someone bought it me as a birthday joke because I <3 Riley. But I have never read it - bad moi.

[hezzabeth.livejournal.com]

Oh I just finished these our actors a while ago and loved it, the ending was rushed but other then that it was great.