Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Creatures of Habit

Rating:
Summary: Please write more of these!
Review: Buffy is having increasing difficulty adjusting to her return to the living in the sixth season. No matter how hard she tries, she has been unable to reconnect with her life and friends. During her absence, everyone seems to have developed a completely new set of problems. Giles cannot decide if he is leaving. Xander and Anya are engaged, but do not seem very happy about it. Tara is increasingly distressed about Willow's compulsive quest for increased power. Spike is in love with Buffy and not handling it very well. And Dawn, well, Dawn seems intent on becoming a juvenile delinquent. Nobody seems to have much time for Buffy, except maybe Spike, and he has too much time.

Now Dawn has taken up sneaking out at night with her friend Melinda and hanging out at the local rave. This is a tough scene, and the guy Dawn likes best, Skeeter, makes a hobby of drug dealing. This is bad news, since Skeeter is hung up on Velatti the DJ. Velatti has one major flaw, her other night job is drinking blood. The beautiful vampire convinces Skeeter to team up with Parnassus another bloodsucker, with a new drug to sell. This concoction gets its human users high and then turns them into a whole new flavor of vampire intoxicant. Dawn and Melinda, teenagers anxious to be cool are drawn right into the middle of this vampire's version of a meth lab.

While Buffy frets about Dawn, and tries to figure out how to get her life back, Willow discovers an ancient volume called 'The Book of Tears.' Unable to control herself, Dawn delves deeply into the book's spells and somehow unleashes a new horror on Sunnydale. Parnassus suddenly finds himself entranced by the Queen of Tears. In return for a promise of the ultimate high, he begins the process of opening a portal to the Queen's dimension. The main ingredient for this is the sacrifice of a virgin. Enter Dawn, once again.

With the entire Scooby gang dealing with one kind of addiction or another, Spike turns out to be the hero of this piece. He is the only one who realizes that there seems to be a disaster in the making. Unfortunately, no one wants to listen to him until it is nearly too late. By that time, Dawn has vanished and everyone is clueless.

On top of the show, we have Buffy comics, graphic novels, plain novels and now, illustrated novels. One has to admire the determination of the BTVS marketing folks for continually finding something new for Buffy's fans. Brian Horton and Paul Lee have combined forces to provide some excellent color and ink work. This makes up a bit for a novel that reads a bit too much like a comic book. Fassbender and Pascoe are good with snappy dialog, but they lack the skill of someone like Chris Golden when it comes to making an entire novel hang together. Still, it's good reading, but not to die for.

Rating:
Summary: Blood, Buffy, and Tears
Review: Buffy is having increasing difficulty adjusting to her return to the living in the sixth season. No matter how hard she tries, she has been unable to reconnect with her life and friends. During her absence, everyone seems to have developed a completely new set of problems. Giles cannot decide if he is leaving. Xander and Anya are engaged, but do not seem very happy about it. Tara is increasingly distressed about Willow's compulsive quest for increased power. Spike is in love with Buffy and not handling it very well. And Dawn, well, Dawn seems intent on becoming a juvenile delinquent. Nobody seems to have much time for Buffy, except maybe Spike, and he has too much time.

Now Dawn has taken up sneaking out at night with her friend Melinda and hanging out at the local rave. This is a tough scene, and the guy Dawn likes best, Skeeter, makes a hobby of drug dealing. This is bad news, since Skeeter is hung up on Velatti the DJ. Velatti has one major flaw, her other night job is drinking blood. The beautiful vampire convinces Skeeter to team up with Parnassus another bloodsucker, with a new drug to sell. This concoction gets its human users high and then turns them into a whole new flavor of vampire intoxicant. Dawn and Melinda, teenagers anxious to be cool are drawn right into the middle of this vampire's version of a meth lab.

While Buffy frets about Dawn, and tries to figure out how to get her life back, Willow discovers an ancient volume called 'The Book of Tears.' Unable to control herself, Dawn delves deeply into the book's spells and somehow unleashes a new horror on Sunnydale. Parnassus suddenly finds himself entranced by the Queen of Tears. In return for a promise of the ultimate high, he begins the process of opening a portal to the Queen's dimension. The main ingredient for this is the sacrifice of a virgin. Enter Dawn, once again.

With the entire Scooby gang dealing with one kind of addiction or another, Spike turns out to be the hero of this piece. He is the only one who realizes that there seems to be a disaster in the making. Unfortunately, no one wants to listen to him until it is nearly too late. By that time, Dawn has vanished and everyone is clueless.

On top of the show, we have Buffy comics, graphic novels, plain novels and now, illustrated novels. One has to admire the determination of the BTVS marketing folks for continually finding something new for Buffy's fans. Brian Horton and Paul Lee have combined forces to provide some excellent color and ink work. This makes up a bit for a novel that reads a bit too much like a comic book. Fassbender and Pascoe are good with snappy dialog, but they lack the skill of someone like Chris Golden when it comes to making an entire novel hang together. Still, it's good reading, but not to die for.

Rating:
Summary: the art gets a 4, the story a 3, maybe a 2
Review: The art in this book was really good. I didn't like the black and white drawings as much, which is why I don't think the artwork deserves a 5, but the paintings are excellent. The drawings didn't always look much like the characters from the show. For instance, the drawings of Anya hardly ever looked like her. The paintings, though - some of them looked almost looked like photographs, put through photoshop filters or something. Very nice. I found myself wishing that some of the BtVS comics could look that good.

Now, the story. It takes place during one of those bleak times in the series - after Buffy died for the second time, before the musical. Willow and Tara have some rough relationship moments because of Willow's overdependence on magic, and it's this problem that starts the monster troubles in this book. Buffy's still trying to get over the fact that she was torn out of heaven, Dawn is doing her best to become a deliquent, and Spike loves Buffy. Oh yeah, Xander and Anya are having relationship disagreements as well while they plan their wedding. Basically, this book doesn't tell you anything about the series or characters that you don't already know. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad this, if the story had been better. I didn't think the story was all that interesting, and it was only because the book was so short that I managed to get all the way through it at all. I would recommend this book for the art, but the story isn't worth it.

Rating:
Summary: the art gets a 4, the story a 3, maybe a 2
Review: The art in this book was really good. I didn't like the black and white drawings as much, which is why I don't think the artwork deserves a 5, but the paintings are excellent. The drawings didn't always look much like the characters from the show. For instance, the drawings of Anya hardly ever looked like her. The paintings, though - some of them looked almost looked like photographs, put through photoshop filters or something. Very nice. I found myself wishing that some of the BtVS comics could look that good.

Now, the story. It takes place during one of those bleak times in the series - after Buffy died for the second time, before the musical. Willow and Tara have some rough relationship moments because of Willow's overdependence on magic, and it's this problem that starts the monster troubles in this book. Buffy's still trying to get over the fact that she was torn out of heaven, Dawn is doing her best to become a deliquent, and Spike loves Buffy. Oh yeah, Xander and Anya are having relationship disagreements as well while they plan their wedding. Basically, this book doesn't tell you anything about the series or characters that you don't already know. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad this, if the story had been better. I didn't think the story was all that interesting, and it was only because the book was so short that I managed to get all the way through it at all. I would recommend this book for the art, but the story isn't worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Please write more of these!
Review: This book was put out in a different format. Mostly story line, but a few pictures. I absolutely loved it, and hope more will be coming. So much better than the comics, where there are just a million pictures of monsters, and almost no story. Glad to see Spike taking a more prominent role. Any story with Spike (or Angel) is worth a look, and this is one of the better ones.

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing Buffy tale...
Review: This is an an intriguing, well written Buffy novella by the soon to be former creative team of the Buffy comic book.

There's a new vamp in town, and he's got a plan to get the ultimate blood high. add to this the undercurrents of subplot from the jsut-finished sxith season of the tv show, and this is an enjoyable quick read. FYI: There is also a sequel to this story: issue #46 of the ongoing Buffy comic series.