 | By: Nancy Holder Binding: Paperback Publisher: Pocket Books ISBN: 0743400453 ISBN-13: 9780743400459 Released: 05 Nov 2001 RRP: Average Rating:  |
Some of the Slayers & their Watchers described here are barely competent & I couldn't help wondering if we had had a history of such in the Buffyverse then the whole planet would be overrun by vamps by now! The writers also seem to have a perverse desire to finish their Slayer off in one story which is a shame as some of the characters are interesting enough for a second outing.
Also I began to get irritated by the writers consistently pinning their stories to great historical events. I'd like to see them create their own history.
I'll certainly purchase the next volume but here's hoping for a more upbeat approach.
Like any collection of short stories these tales are a mixed lot & anybody who reads them will like some more than others & visa versa. I liked "Silent Screams" by Mel Odom, set in 1923 Germany, although it, ironicallly is the story least about a Slayer of the seven tales. At the other end I would put the first tale, "A Good Run" by Greg Rucka, set in 490 B.C.E. Greece, which tells of the Slayer Thessily Thessilonkikki at the Battle of Marathon. While I like the idea of a Slayer obsessed with doing something important & memorable to justify her brief existence, I would have like to have seen something more creative than a footnote to the Greek battle against the Persians, not to mention something dealing with the Greek conception of vampires. But the biggest problem seems to me to be the story is 18 pages long, hardly enough time to set up let alone deliver the payoff. In contrast, Odom's story proceeds at a crisp pace & while it makes an ironic contrast to what Hitler was doing in Munich in 1923 he comes up with an even better twist on the German Expressionistic film movement in general & the classic "Nosferatu" in particular. Yes, it will remind you of "Shadow of the Vampire," but it is making a different point.
I reallly liked the historical figure who turns out to be the Slayer in Christie Golden's "The White Doe" (and I appreciate the story even more having read the About the Authors section at the back of the book) & the encounter the Slayer & Elizabeth Bathory in Yvonne Navarro's "Die Blutgrafin." Nancy Holder deals with questions of class in "Unholy Madness" while Navarro's second tale deals with the issue of race," both of which touch on the idea that people might not be happy with who the Slayer is & where she comes from (Holder's story also offers the most chilling point in the book, bottom page 119). Doranna Durgin's "Mornglom Dreaming" also has an intriguing premise, a Slayer who does not know she has been callled, which is the story I most would have liked to have seen as a novel instead of a short story. Conversely, Odom's tale is perfectly suited to this format. I suppose my compromise suggestion would have been fewer stories developed with more depth (i.e., novellas). Still, these stories reflect what you would hope from such a mixed bag of tales: Slayers learning they have been callled & their final battles, with only one tale comfortable with the idea of exploring the middle rather than the beginning or the end. Yes, there is high drama to be found in the birth & death of Slayers, but the mother lode is going to be in between & that is what needs to be mined in Volume 2.
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