Christopher Golden

Many aspects of this felt and read like a real Buffy episode, such as each characters quirks, the dialogue, and just the overall atmosphere. I could really see this playing out in front of me - everything from the Renaissance Festival to the final showdown. Golden has done a solid job of capturing the characters and their personalities.

That being said, boy oh BOY could this book deal with some paring down and editing! It just keeps going and going and going and going... at some point it starts to feel like everyone is trapped in an endless loop of standing around talking, getting capturing, driving in circles, and inner monologuing. Also, there are so many random asides from secondary and even tertiary characters that add nothing to the story: like do we really need three pages on how Xander's mom still sleepwalks and smokes and eats leftover chicken wings? No. No we do not.

It was a fun read, and I particularly enjoyed the moments where the reader is directly in Cordelia's head, but nothing that was a big standout. I have the Gatekeeper Trilogy on hand to read next, so here's hoping that one is a little more cleaned up!… (more)