Rating: 
Summary: well written story
Review: a mysterious person by the name of simon is telling buffy about demon attacks via phone right before they attack. buffy does not like having people tell her what to do but she knows she cannot let innocent people die either. among her problems, the people that she love start to act funny. dawn has a major crisis. she starts hanging out with a bad crowd and all of a sudden she is a changed girl who won't take orders from anyone least of all her sister. as buffy looks into the problem with dawn, it seems that the whole town of sunnydale has lost their minds. willow and xander are not there when she needs them the most and if she does not figure out what is happening she will have a town full of dead people. this forces her to make strange alliances and it makes for a long but rather interesting book. it is nice that dawn has a better part in the story and is not on the sidelines. i liked the book and hope the authors write more.
Rating: 
Summary: mortal fear takes place in the seventh season.
Review: As I started reading Mortal Fear I quickly realized that the historian noted was wrong and that the story takes plave in the seventh season. I'm only at chapter 4 but so far the book is really good. I really like the storyline so far.
Rating:
Summary: Simon Says, "Apocalypse Now..."
Review: Buffy's running ragged around Sunnydale. She keeps getting anonymous tips, concerning demon attacks round and about town - in advance. Her mysterious source stays hidden in the shadows, and cloaked by magic. He calls himself "Simon," and Buffy does whatever he says - though she doesn't much like it. After all, how does this "Simon" character know so much? Is he sending the demons out to lunch on the Sunnydale citizenry himself, just to put Buffy through her paces for some agenda of his own? Why do the slain demons all dissolve into so much goo, and form themselves into more and more pieces of a lost legendary sword? And just what is "Simon's" admitted interest in this particular weapon? Complicating matters is the fact that Sunnydale itself seems to be growing more collectively insane, by the day. Kids, adults and senior citizens all seem to be developing a remarkable lack of inhibition, leading them to commit outrageous acts on nothing more than the impulse of the moment. Xander and Willow are being subtly targeted and preyed-upon by an unknown force, bent on unleashing their innermost desires and unlocking a strange power within them. And Dawn is literally turning renegade - and superhuman - in the throes of teenage hormones run wild. Even the vampires are willing to call temporary truce with the the Slayer, until Sunnydale's burgeoning crisis can be contained. They have to - something is poisoning their food supply, at the same time as it drives the mortals of Sunnydale crazy. With Xander, Willow and Dawn ganging-up on her, and no one but the mentally unbalanced vampire, Spike, and Xander's ex-fiancee, Anya, to help, can Buffy decipher the riddle of "Simon's" identity, and stop his - or someone else's - diabolical plan, before Sunnydale erupts in a kind of apocalypse, the like of which even Buffy Summers never could have dreamed? The Ciencin's write a first-rate Buffy tale, long, involved, well-developed and absorbing. I actually didn't think the plot to this one sounded all that promising, and was delighted to discover my preliminary judgment was greatly mistaken. Mortal Fear is one of the best of the Buffy books. It's well worth the read, and a real keeper.
Rating:
Summary: *Great Characterization*
Review: Despite what the historian tells you, Mortal Fear is set in the seventh season before the appearance of the First but after Selfless. Mortal Fear is one of few books that allows Dawn to play a active role. For those that hate Dawn, this book may confirm your feelings. The plot of the story revolves around Buffy, Dawn, Willow and Xander so don't expect much from Anya or Spike though they do make an appearance.
The main story of this plot is that the scoobies are in a slump. Dawn (hormonally charged teen) is acting distant from Buffy and starts dating a troublesome guy. Willow struggles to hold back her dark side. Xander, although now very successful, is brooding over women troubles. Meanwhile, Buffy is running around town after demon attacks, collecting pieces to a soulsword told to her by a mysterious tipster called Simon. Things start to look up for the scoobies when they like the other Sunnydalers start to feel well...fearless. However without fear, the residents start to turn aggressive and both friend and family turn against Buffy. Vampires are also in the slump as their food turns out to be dangerous and Slayer and vampire work together, quickly before they are both killed by the humans of Sunnydale.
For those that missed the simple day to day life detail of season seven, you'll love this book. It focuses much on the characterization of the foursome and you'll get to see their day to day life and moments that you wished had happened on the show.
Overall a great book with great characterization and plot. Although the plot gets sci fi and complicated sometimes, it is very well written.
Rating:
Summary: War Amongst Friends
Review: Fear is used in the title of this book and I found what an appropriate word that is to use. With what happens in this latest entry in the Buffy book world, it is fitting. Characters in this book are torn apart and turn on each other. There is probably nothing worse than that. A person's greatest fear would be to have the ones you love and trust turn on you in a way that you fear for your life and what the very people you once loved and trusted with your life will do to you. That is exactly what Buffy is fearing here. Authors Scott and Denise Ciencin have crafted an in-depth and intelligent epic of a story that ties in very nicely with the Buffy universe and it's characters. The story, according to the authors, takes place during the sixth season of the show. A season that was already dark enough. Buffy is running herself into the ground with new chaos that is taking over Sunnydale. She is getting weird, mysterious messages in the weirdest of forms from someone named Simon. These messages have Buffy running to solve the puzzle and to find different kinds of monsters each time and putting together parts of what is called a "soul sword", and tries to learn of it's use before it falls into the wrong hands and creates even more chaos. At the same time, the others in town are being affected by a strange virus that is running rampant through town. No one is safe, and it turns especially dangerous when it hits the ones closest to Buffy. Her friends Willow and Xander, and her own little sister, Dawn, who is involved a great deal in this story. What happens is a wild adventure that has Buffy turning to the last people(?)on earth she would normally turn to for help when it seems that she has no one else. While the book has an epic like story, the book itself has an epic like length that feels like it might go on a tad too long than it really needs to. It's characterizations and dialogue is in sync with the show and the characters themselves. However, as I said above, the authors say it takes place in the sixth season, but this seems to be impossible since Principal Woods appears in this story, and he doesn't come on the show until season seven. Whoops. The work on Willow and Xander is also well done. They are both looking for some kind of direction in their life. Some kind of purpose. Xander thinks he is making it big in construction and has met a great new client, but it doesn't turn out that way. Things go wrong for Willow in school too. The end climax is a little odd and seems to be a little too extreme even for a book where the imagination can run even more freely than the show itself, which is on a constricted budget. Still, it is a wild and epic adventure that showcases some true elements of excitement, horror, humor, and emotion. A great ride.
Rating:
Summary: *Great Characterization*
Review: For better or worse, I've read all of the Buffy novels. Most of the time, I'm satisfied if they achieve the height of a well-written episode. That's what most media tie-in seem to do these days - we rarely get one that adds any character background. That said, this could have been a neat little story if it'd met an editor on its way to the presses. Another mystic sword paired with the old poisoning the resevoir plot never hurt anyone. But for it's nearly 500 pages, we get little actual development, just pages of in-jokes and unnecessary description. We don't need two paragraphs just to explain what one of the characters is wearing, especially when the clothing in question isn't magickal, mystical or otherwise of import to the story. Likewise, there are way too many geek media references, even for someone familiar with all of them. They just don't fit, and delay the action. The author bio says the couple work on the CrossGen line, so I could excuse an indirect mention of the company's title "Way of the Rat" - but we also get bits of Fantastic Four, Superman, and Y: The Last Man. And while the comic/SF theme is cute, what does Seinfeld have to do with Buffy? I admit to nitpicking here, but all put together, it really starts to slow down the story, and around page 300 I wondered why I was still paying attention. With that many pages, the authors don't work at all with existing character dynamics, leaving the Scooby Gang pale and puppet-like next to the bratty little new characters brought in. A casual fan probably won't want to slog through a novel quite this long, and someone more familiar with the show is bound to be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: plentry of untapped potential, but no restraint
Review: For better or worse, I've read all of the Buffy novels. Most of the time, I'm satisfied if they achieve the height of a well-written episode. That's what most media tie-in seem to do these days - we rarely get one that adds any character background. That said, this could have been a neat little story if it'd met an editor on its way to the presses. Another mystic sword paired with the old poisoning the resevoir plot never hurt anyone. But for it's nearly 500 pages, we get little actual development, just pages of in-jokes and unnecessary description. We don't need two paragraphs just to explain what one of the characters is wearing, especially when the clothing in question isn't magickal, mystical or otherwise of import to the story. Likewise, there are way too many geek media references, even for someone familiar with all of them. They just don't fit, and delay the action. The author bio says the couple work on the CrossGen line, so I could excuse an indirect mention of the company's title "Way of the Rat" - but we also get bits of Fantastic Four, Superman, and Y: The Last Man. And while the comic/SF theme is cute, what does Seinfeld have to do with Buffy? I admit to nitpicking here, but all put together, it really starts to slow down the story, and around page 300 I wondered why I was still paying attention. With that many pages, the authors don't work at all with existing character dynamics, leaving the Scooby Gang pale and puppet-like next to the bratty little new characters brought in. A casual fan probably won't want to slog through a novel quite this long, and someone more familiar with the show is bound to be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: I had problems right off the bat
Review: I always check what season i takes place iin and it said season 6 then i started to read it and got really confused because they were talking about season 7 stuff. But overall it was a good book.
Rating:
Summary: Loved the Book
Review: I loved this book it was great espically when dawn was being bad and i liked when buffy had a date and trying to fix everything right again oh but they had a mixed up though the story taked place in the 7th season and they wrote 6 season because the story they wrote was in the 7th season.
Rating:
Summary: Average buffy book
Review: Id say that this book is a little mediocre for a Buffy book. Some of the character's personalities just arent the same in this book as they are on the show. The storyline isnt really all that original either. Buffy's on her own because all of her friends are betraying her. It couldnt have possibly taken that long to write this. I was a little disappointed because I have seen much better from these authors before. I would recommend borrowing this one from the library. It's not a keeper.
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