I really enjoyed the first story, Coyote Moon, but I felt the other two were lacking. They didn’t really feel like Buffy stories. ( )

A collection of three stories et in the early timeline centred on Buffy and the Scoobies as they once more battle the forces of evil in their own inimitable way. The first of these was Coyote Moon which sees a carnival arrive in town staffed with suspiciously attractive young men and women with the exception of one grizzled old veteran. Coincidentally at around the same time a pack of coyote’s are hunting and killing pets in the surrounding local area. With both Willow and Xander being caught up with the carnies, Buffy decides some investigation is in order. A poor story with bad characterisation and if I never see the word werecrocodiles again it’ll still be too soon.

Night of the Living Rerun takes us back to the time of the Salem witch trials with Buffy, Giles and Xander all experiencing vivid dreams from various participants points of view. When three famous people with connections to the spirit world happen to converge on Sunnydale then there must be something amiss. Can Buffy and the gang find out what it is in time to prevent the Master from rising once again? Another story I was fairly indifferent to especially when the zombies appeared to turn it into a kind of Night of the Living Dead pastiche.

It’s a good job that the first two stories were short enough to plough through with enough energy to move on to the third which proved to be the most enjoyable of the three. Portal Through Time sees another attempt to prevent the Master’s demise at the hands of Buffy when Lucien, a vampire magician, finds a way to travel back in time. When initial plans to kill Buffy before she becomes the Slayer fail (twice) he is advised to prevent Buffy from ever becoming a Slayer by killing previous Slayers to alter the timeline so that she was never activated. Buffy and the gang have to follow Lucien through time and prevent his nefarious plans. First stop is off to see the Welsh Druids in 60 C.E. and then on to ancient Sumeria and get to meet Gilgamesh before a dangerous encounter during the American Civil War and finally to Paris during the French Revolution where Darla and Angelus happen to be while cutting a bloody swathe through Europe of their own. This entry probably recreates the characters, hi-jinks and pop culture references of the source material better than the other two so makes the book readable as a whole but doesn’t qualify it for greatness. ( )

A trio of stories based on the series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and probably set sometime after the first season. I'm not sure if this is fan fiction, but the first two stories certainly read like it. The third is the pick of the litter, a more ambitious time-travel story that, shades of "Terminator", has Buffy and crew going back to various pivotal points in time to prevent a team of vamps from preventing her own eventual existence as a Slayer. This one is also more mature in level of writing and emotional exploration of the characters, no mean feat given the limitations of the novelization framework the author (Alice Henderson) had to work with. All in all, a guilty pleasure partly redeemed by the last story, "Portal Through Time" (I would have picked something cheesier like "The Buffinator", but that's just me). ( )

Coyote Moon by John Vornholt: Absolutely ridiculous. The story was ludicrous (werecoyotes?? ...and Giles confirms the past existence of werealligators??) and Vornholt had clearly only ever watched one episode of BtVS, ever... and that episode was probably 'Go Fish'. The characters most out of whack were Giles and Xander, but Buffy and Willow were not that far behind. This story read like the author had what he thought was a good idea for a YA book, and somehow got the green light on using the Buffy characters and just stuck them in.

Night Of the Living Rerun by Arthur Byron Cover: Slightly less ridiculous, but not by much. It actually starts out rather promising, with Buffy having a very in-depth dream about the Slayer in Salem in 1692 at the height of the witch trials. It's when Giles also starts having the dreams and Xander dreams that he's a witch named Sarah that the entire thing falls apart. Cover's love of and nod to Night Of the Living Dead is completely misplaced and completely derails the entire plot of the story.

Portal Through Time by Alice Henderson: This fine woman can write a BtVS novel. The longest of the three in the collection, it takes up roughly half of the books pages and nearly makes up for the clusterfuck that is the other two stories. The story takes place mid-season two (before Angel turns) and begins with two vampires that have discovered a way to time travel. They keep going back in time to kill Buffy before she is called in an attempt to change the course of events so that the Master rises, instead of being killed by Buffy. When their attempts fail, they decide to go back farther (like ancient Sumeria farther) to kill past slayers to disrupt the slayer lineage in hopes that Buffy will never be called and therefore THEN the Master will prevail. Buffy and the gang are hot on the vamps heels as they whirl their way through not only Sumeria, but also Wales in 60 CE, Tennessee during the Civil War, and finally Paris on the Night Of Terror during the Revolution (where they meet a few unexpected foes). Henderson knows her BtVS AND she knows her history and she blends them splendidly. I couldn't put the book down during this one. ( )