(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

[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.