Buffy the Vampire Slayer: GateKeeper #1: Out of the Madhouse

Rating:
Summary: The best Buffy story you can ever download begins HERE
Review: "The Gatekeeper Trilogy" does one thing that the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series has been unable to do, namely get the Slayer and the Scooby Gang to hit the road. The Hellmouth is a convenient excuse for all sorts of vampires, demons and big evils to come visit Buffy and the gang in Sunnydale, but a road trip has long been in order. Unbound by considerations of stage space and shooting budgets, "Out of the Madhouse" manages to get the Slayer and most of her cohorts to Boston, with the promise of even bigger trips down the road.

The plot has to do with the Sons of Entropy trying to unleash chaos on the world at the behest of Il Maestro, who works mainly behind the scenes in Book One. Suddenly all sorts of wicked things come to Sunnydale and it turns out that there have been released from the Gatehouse where the Gatekeeper is dying, leading up to an initial showdown in Boston. The other recurring concern throughout the book is more personal, dealing with what Buffy, Xander, Willow and the gang are going to do when they get finally graduate high school, so there is a concern for the entropy of the group along with the potential destruction of all human life on the planet. Implicit in their concerns is the unspoken knowledge that Buffy is fated to die young as a slayer and their realization that whatever hopes and aspirations they might have seem somewhat secondary to saving the world from big evil.

Authors Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder are perfectly suited to the task of constructing a literary epic for Buffy. Not only because they are far and away the best writers working on the Buffy books but also because they have researched the characters and the attendant mythos of the series, having written/edited the Watcher's Guides and Monster reference books for the show. They have come up with a plot line well suited to a three volume tale and you only have to read a couple of chapters to acknowledge this book is so far above the vast majority of the Buffy books. Furthermore, they get beyond the surface level with all of the characters, although admittedly they are guilty of putting too many quips into dialogue. Oz sure talks a lot more than he ever did on the television series, but Golden and Holder do have an especially nice feel for the emotional attachments of these characters to one another. They get the important stuff right. It has been several years since "The Gatekeeper Trilogy" first came out and you still will not find a better Buffy the Vampire Slayer story to download. "Out of the Madhouse" is where the fun begins.

Fascinating Trivia Note: In flashbacks early on in this novel we meet Catherine de' Medici, wife of Prince Henri the Dauphin of France in the year 1539. You might not have heard of her, but you might recognize the name of her husband, seeing as how he is the prince in the movie "Ever After" from a few years back. However, neither Henri, King Francis, Leonardo di Vinci, or Danielle appear in the flashbacks. Ever notice how history is never like the fairy tales?

Rating:
Summary: The best Buffy story you can ever download begins HERE
Review: "The Gatekeeper Trilogy" does one thing that the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series has been unable to do, namely get the Slayer and the Scooby Gang to hit the road. The Hellmouth is a convenient excuse for all sorts of vampires, demons and big evils to come visit Buffy and the gang in Sunnydale, but a road trip has long been in order. Unbound by considerations of stage space and shooting budgets, "Out of the Madhouse" manages to get the Slayer and most of her cohorts to Boston, with the promise of even bigger trips down the road.

The plot has to do with the Sons of Entropy trying to unleash chaos on the world at the behest of Il Maestro, who works mainly behind the scenes in Book One. Suddenly all sorts of wicked things come to Sunnydale and it turns out that there have been released from the Gatehouse where the Gatekeeper is dying, leading up to an initial showdown in Boston. The other recurring concern throughout the book is more personal, dealing with what Buffy, Xander, Willow and the gang are going to do when they get finally graduate high school, so there is a concern for the entropy of the group along with the potential destruction of all human life on the planet. Implicit in their concerns is the unspoken knowledge that Buffy is fated to die young as a slayer and their realization that whatever hopes and aspirations they might have seem somewhat secondary to saving the world from big evil.

Authors Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder are perfectly suited to the task of constructing a literary epic for Buffy. Not only because they are far and away the best writers working on the Buffy books but also because they have researched the characters and the attendant mythos of the series, having written/edited the Watcher's Guides and Monster reference books for the show. They have come up with a plot line well suited to a three volume tale and you only have to read a couple of chapters to acknowledge this book is so far above the vast majority of the Buffy books. Furthermore, they get beyond the surface level with all of the characters, although admittedly they are guilty of putting too many quips into dialogue. Oz sure talks a lot more than he ever did on the television series, but Golden and Holder do have an especially nice feel for the emotional attachments of these characters to one another. They get the important stuff right. It has been several years since "The Gatekeeper Trilogy" first came out and you still will not find a better Buffy the Vampire Slayer story to download. "Out of the Madhouse" is where the fun begins.

Fascinating Trivia Note: In flashbacks early on in this novel we meet Catherine de' Medici, wife of Prince Henri the Dauphin of France in the year 1539. You might not have heard of her, but you might recognize the name of her husband, seeing as how he is the prince in the movie "Ever After" from a few years back. However, neither Henri, King Francis, Leonardo di Vinci, or Danielle appear in the flashbacks. Ever notice how history is never like the fairy tales?