Doomsday Deck

Rating:
Summary: Dianas Writing NEVER Fails to please
Review: (mail to [e-mail] please) Once Again (Again again!) Diana comes out Tops with another fantastic Buffy novel. The previous Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Sabrina The Teenage Witch books written By Diana G Gallagher have all been wonderful, exciting and unpredictable storys, and if you have read any of her books (which i hope you have) u will understand what i am talking about. The great detailed descriptive writing, which comes from Diana is a breath of fresh air to read, as sometimes books based on ideas from tv series can often fail to capture what you expericence on screen. Well not in this case (Or any from the Buffy series infact) the books have been very sucsessfull and rightly so. Doomsday Deck is no exception of anything i have said above, and enchanting tale about the lives of Buffy and co. It is the time for the Sunnydale Sidewalk Art Festival and that brings to town, a girl called Jusine, who Xander takes quite a shine too!, She is very interested and gives readings in tarot cards etc. She tells Xander he has alot of energy in his aura. Xander thinks his psychic powers have been awakened. But Buffy is not too sure and refusees to have her Tarot read. And she doesnt think Everything with Justine is all quite right......... And when Buffy tries to even touch Justines treasured Tarot deck, Justine lets loose and shows that fact. She aint all there!..but where is she.....who is she?? you'll have to read it to find out! and esp. as Vampires act oddly around Justine, and something seems up with Buffy's friends......but what? hmmmm im not saying a word!, apart from get this book, and enjoy it greatly, its fantastic and i promoise you wont be able to put it down at all. Well done Diana for writing another fantastic novel, keep it up! (and dont work tooooo hard ;)), take care of yourself. -Lloyd

Rating:
Summary: Could not finish it.
Review: As you can tell from my heading, I couldn't finish Doomsday Deck. It seems like that there was a lot happing, and there was no reason for it. An example of this can be seen with any scenes with the vampires. There was no purpose for them, the were just there for Buffy to stake. It just slowed down the plot.

I also felt that Gallagher didn't have a good grasp on the characters. This just din't have a "Buffy feel" to it. It just seems that Gallagher wanted to write a novel that had a strong female character, and she heard that Buffy was one, and went with it. The characters were put in situations that were never explained to the read. Granted, when one picks up a Buffy book, they are familar with the show and know what's going on, but I just felt that an explaniation was needed.

I know it sounds like I'm trashing the book, but there was one aspect that I did like. Gallagher has a strong grasp on the dealings with tarot card. That was one part of the book that I was impressed with. That's the kind of background that should have gone into the rest of this book.

If your a fan of tarot cards, then I *hughly suggest this book. If your a Buffy fan, then maybe you'll want to pass on it.

Rating:
Summary: Could not finish it.
Review: As you can tell from my heading, I couldn't finish Doomsday Deck. It seems like that there was a lot happing, and there was no reason for it. An example of this can be seen with any scenes with the vampires. There was no purpose for them, the were just there for Buffy to stake. It just slowed down the plot.

I also felt that Gallagher didn't have a good grasp on the characters. This just din't have a "Buffy feel" to it. It just seems that Gallagher wanted to write a novel that had a strong female character, and she heard that Buffy was one, and went with it. The characters were put in situations that were never explained to the read. Granted, when one picks up a Buffy book, they are familar with the show and know what's going on, but I just felt that an explaniation was needed.

I know it sounds like I'm trashing the book, but there was one aspect that I did like. Gallagher has a strong grasp on the dealings with tarot card. That was one part of the book that I was impressed with. That's the kind of background that should have gone into the rest of this book.

If your a fan of tarot cards, then I *hughly suggest this book. If your a Buffy fan, then maybe you'll want to pass on it.

Rating:
Summary: Another excellant Buffy novel by Diana Gallagher.
Review: Buffy and her friends have got their hands full with helping Buffy's mother out with the annual Sunnydale Sidewalk Art Festival and patrolling to make sure vampires don't prey on the unsuspecting artists. Xander is especially eager to help out - a young artist named Justine has attracted his attention. Justine tells Xander she senses psychic powers surrounding his aura. Xander thinks that means he's psychic, and he allows Justine to do a Tarot card reading for him. After that, Xander begins to act more than a little strange. At first, Buffy thinks he's just infatuated with Justine, but he's not the only one acting weird - after Oz gets a Tarot reading, he begins to act like Xander. So Buffy and Willow go to investigate Justine, who acts pretty weird herself. When Willow is next to fall victim, Buffy learns that Justine struck a deal with the evil demon Kali. Justine plans to hand the world to Kali in exchange for becoming a famous artist. What Justine fails to realize is that the only way Kali can be satisfied is if the entire universe comes to an end. And not only that, but Justine's method of handing the world to Kali involves killing twenty-two people by trapping their souls in paintings of the Tarot cards - and Willow, Oz, and Xander are doomed to be her latest victims. But if Buffy doesn't find a way to stop Justine, it won't be just her friends who will be dead - but everyone in the entire world as well. This was another great Buffy novel by Diana G. Gallagher, who also wrote the excellent Prime Evil, which came out earlier this year.

Rating:
Summary: Jhaeman's Review
Review: DOOMSDAY DECK
By Diana G. Gallagher (2000)

RATING: 3/5 Stakes

SETTING: Third Season

CAST APPEARANCES: Buffy, Angel, Willow, Xander, Giles, Cordelia, Joyce, Anya

MAJOR ORIGINAL CHARACTERS: Justine Camille (tarot reader & artist); Rob Chambers (photo journalist)

BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SUMMARY: "It's that time of the year for the Sunnydale Sidewalk Art Festival, and Buffy and the gang have been enlisted to help Joyce prepare for the big event. In fact, Xander's especially eager to pitch in, due to the arrival of a major hottie--a young artist named Justine. She specializes in Tarot paintings, and tells Xander that she senses much energy surrounding his aura. Xander naturally assumes his latent psychic powers have been awakened. But Buffy's not quite ready to call the psychic hot line. She has a nagging suspicion that something about Justine is not five by five--especially after she reaches for Justine's prized Tarot deck, which causes the artist to fly off the handle in a big way. Then there's the fact that vampires appear uncomfortable in Justine's presence. One by one, each of Buffy's closest friends seem to be surrendering their free will to an unknown, unseen force. . . ."

REVIEW

If nothing else, Doomsday Deck contains a great insight into how Xander perceives his relationship with Buffy: he's like an extra stake in her back pocket, "handy to have around, but not irreplaceable." Xander's sense of himself as a relatively extraneous, snack-gathering appendage to the Scooby Gang was a major aspect of his characterization until the end of Season Six, and author Diana Gallagher portrays this insecurity well in the first half of her novel.

The plot of the book is developed better than in many other Buffy novels. Doomsday Deck acknowledges that the reader will inevitably point to any major new character as the villain of the piece, and instead develops an air of mystery around exactly what her malevolent plans are and how they will unfold. In short, artist and tarot-card reader Justine Camille plans to trap one human soul in each of her 22 tarot paintings to fulfill an ancient book's prophecy that doing so will give her heart's desire (in this case, becoming a famous artist in New York). There's also a rather trite and undeveloped use of Kali (Goddess of Chaos) thrown into the mix somewhere, but the book focuses on Justine's visit to Sunnydale and her inevitable conflict with Buffy and Co. Along the way, of course, several of Buffy's friends get their souls trapped in the cards and Buffy has to race against time to free them before their bodies die.

The end of the novel suffers from an over-long climax, and the backstory as to how Justine found the book and decided to use the cards should have been fleshed out more (a failing common to many Buffy episodes, where the supernatural villain or device appears out of practically nowhere and is never seen again after the story is over). The dialogue is passable but lacks the witty one-liners of a good episode. On the other hand, the use of tarot cards is integrated well into the story, and many of the readings that Justine performs for the Scoobies are intriguing. Fans of Buffy's mom (a.k.a. Joyce) will also be pleased to see the more active role the character takes in helping her daughter. All in all, Doomsday Deck is one of the better middle-tier Buffy books, and a good example of how to successfully use something in a story (tarot) that could easily have come off as gimmicky and stupid.

(c) 2004 Jeremy Patrick-Justice ([e-mail])

Rating:
Summary: Different...
Review: Doomsday Deck is a good book. The Tarot is intelligent and the author seems to know alot about this subject. However, I rejected this book a 4 or 5-star rating because it doesn't explain clearly enough about Justine's paintings, the characters just aren't the same and the subject of Tarot doesn't really match slaying vampires excellently. I like stories about witchcraft and psychic people, and although this book's psychic story is interesting, the idea of people who touch Justine's Tarot cards and then become one of her paintings is totally laughable. It's hard to see Buffy taking this idea seriously in the TV show. There is a descriptive, intriguing and overall cracking conclusion that almost forgives all the film's faultS but when you look back, you remember the times when you sighed at the silliness. This is definitely a different idea, but I don't think it matches well with in the Buffy saga. Maybe as a book on it's own, Doomsday Deck would've been worthy of a higher rating.

Rating:
Summary: Kali Vs. Buffy - Slayer Decked!
Review: Gallagher's least-developed Buffy book, but not bad. It shoots out of a gun and rips right through, but everything seems to happen out of the blue without any kind of buildup. It's as light as popcorn and just as satisfying, but hey, sometimes you're in the mood for popcorn.

You can't completely dislike a book with a villainess so venal, she'd sell her soul and risk the destruction of the universe just for her own New York art show. The would-be artist in question is in league with the goddess Kali, utilizing a cursed tarot deck to hasten the apocalypse. Kali! Buffy! One round only! Winner take all!

Yeah, kinda fun, if you're in the mood. You've read better, but you could kill an hour or two out of your life in worse ways.

Rating:
Summary: Kali Vs. Buffy - Slayer Decked!
Review: Gallagher's least-developed Buffy book, but not bad. It shoots out of a gun and rips right through, but everything seems to happen out of the blue without any kind of buildup. It's as light as popcorn and just as satisfying, but hey, sometimes you're in the mood for popcorn.

You can't completely dislike a book with a villainess so venal, she'd sell her soul and risk the destruction of the universe just for her own New York art show. The would-be artist in question is in league with the goddess Kali, utilizing a cursed tarot deck to hasten the apocalypse. Kali! Buffy! One round only! Winner take all!

Yeah, kinda fun, if you're in the mood. You've read better, but you could kill an hour or two out of your life in worse ways.

Rating:
Summary: A short but pleasant supernatural venture...
Review: I'll spare you the basic rundown of the plot and synopsis, as I'm sure you are aware that it involves a sinister Tarot Deck from the other reviews and the description, so I'll get right into my review and criticism.

It's been a while since I've read a "Buffy" novel but this one was a pleasant revisitation to the series and I found it to be a nice change from the general Demon or Vampire going ons in Hellmouth. This novel takes the series into a new dilemma of a Tarot deck and to my knowledge has never been explored by the series thus far, so it was fun to have a change. The characters are essentially the same and Giles role is to a minimum as well, but this is actually a good thing as it spends more time devoted to everyone in general and never really just sets on following the adventures of one particular person. Doomsday Deck is a well written novel that is short and to the point, not taking it's time with much character development or inane dialogue and corny one-liners to fill it's pages, no Doomsday Deck has a goal and it finishes it in a minimal amount of time, which can be for the better or worse. I actually liked the idea of a shorter novel as it helped me finish the novel quicker and the amount of satisfaction was the same. Gallagher did sum this whole Slayer venture quickly and efficiently and accomplishes a fine story that stays true to what the characters personality is and how they might handle a situation in the TV series without going on and on for a good 300 pages. Not that 300 page novels are bad it's just fun to be able to find a "Buffy" adventure that tells an original story and has some nice action sequences and can complete its goal in a relatively short amount of time.

Doomsday Deck is a fine novel that I'm sure "Buffy" fans would get a kick out of and I see no reason why a general reader would not enjoy it as well. I can easily recommend this novel to just about anyone; the only downfall one may find is its lack of length (193 Pages to be exact), but other than that slight fault it should be a novel you would be pleased to read, I know I was. I honestly hope this helps in your decision on purchasing this novel whether you pass or buy, thanks for reading.

Rating:
Summary: Adventure in the cards
Review: This book combines the mystery of the Tarot deck with the lives of Buffy and her gang. Joyce asks Buffy and her friends to help staff the Sunnydale Art Fair. But when a stranger comes to town that even vampires fear, the fair takes a back seat to Buffy's need to save her friends and the universe from the evil visitor. The action is very visual. I can see the gang, Willow, OZ, Anya, and Xander as lifeless zombies and the small meaningful glances between Angel and Buffy. The time line of the story is set in Buffy's senior year so Angel and Cordelia are still part of the mix. The colorful plot really engaged me. I found that I got out my Tarot deck and turned the cards with the artist as she read the cards for each character. I highly recommend this book.