Many aspects of this felt and read like a real Buffy episode, such as each characters quirks, the dialogue, and just the overall atmosphere. I could really see this playing out in front of me - everything from the Renaissance Festival to the final showdown. Golden has done a solid job of capturing the characters and their personalities.

That being said, boy oh BOY could this book deal with some paring down and editing! It just keeps going and going and going and going... at some point it starts to feel like everyone is trapped in an endless loop of standing around talking, getting capturing, driving in circles, and inner monologuing. Also, there are so many random asides from secondary and even tertiary characters that add nothing to the story: like do we really need three pages on how Xander's mom still sleepwalks and smokes and eats leftover chicken wings? No. No we do not.

It was a fun read, and I particularly enjoyed the moments where the reader is directly in Cordelia's head, but nothing that was a big standout. I have the Gatekeeper Trilogy on hand to read next, so here's hoping that one is a little more cleaned up! ( )

It's many years since I watched Buffy though I enjoyed it at the time so the constant references in this to events in the series may have sometimes gone over my head. It's clear though that this is set after Angel has gone bad and then been redeemed, but not before killing Giles' girlfriend, the teacher Jenny Calendar. Willow is still with Oz and Xander and Cordelia are an item. Buffy has returned after running away - I do recall something about her working as a waitress maybe in LA - but although her mother now knows she is the Chosen One/Slayer, things at home haven't got much easier. Buffy also seems to be at odds with Giles quite a bit of the time and there was a lot of internal monologues of people expressing their general angst. Although Xander attempted to crack jokes they fell a lot flatter than I recall them doing in the TV show, and the book was generally dark, with not much light and shade. It picked up in pace once the various characters finally have to battle the real baddies - there are two different sets of them - and that was more interesting, but I think I'd prefer to go back and watch the programme, hence 2 stars only. ( )

I had terrible taste back when I read this book, but this is one of the Buffy novelizations (and just one of the many works of junk) I definitely remember reading, so it had some kind of sticking power. This one, I recall, introduced me to the mythology of the Wild Hunt, which I've had kind of a soft spot for ever since, so it has that going for it.

Buffy and her friends discover something shady going on with the local Rennaissance Faire. Simultaneously, Giles uncovers portents that the mysterious Wild Hunt will soon arrive in Sunnydale. The two events are inextricably related and both issues must be dealt with in order for the team to survive the day.
The idea of the Wild Hunt and its link to past Slayer Lucy Hanover was interesting to read about, though not as fleshed-out as I thought it could have been. The eventual resolution to the conflict seemed pretty convenient, but then, so did a lot of episodes of the show. I like how this one only used "Buffy-speak" in dialogue and only by characters who were likely to speak that way. I have read some novelizations of the show where the snickety-snarkety is pretty overboard. This was a decent addition to the BtVS mythology, and Golden is one of the best writers of such fare. ( )

This book was just so overstated. ( )