Halloween Rain is fun for fans of the show, and the Halloween setting is seemingly perfect for a Buffy story. Yet this one isn’t quite as good as the premise would suggest because of the execution by the authors. This is one of the very early Buffy books, based on the television series which bridged the gap between kids and adults, making fans at both ends of the spectrum. I really enjoyed Blooded, which was also penned by these two authors, Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder, but in Halloween Rain they seemed to still be feeling their way into the mood of the show, and the characters. Because of that they’ve tried to capture the humor and sarcasm much too often — usually through Xander’s voice, but sometimes even Buffy’s — and it’s too much, giving the dialog a strained, trying-too-hard-to-be-funny vibe.

Caveat aside, it’s still a pretty fun story, as you would imagine from a story-line centering on a Sunnydale legend about dark magic being released through a scarecrow when it rains on Halloween. But of course this is Sunnydale, so the legend is true. But this year it’s worse, because an evil spirit named Samhain, who is the demonic spirit of Halloween, is “that” guy. He is the King of the ancient Druid rituals, and Giles discovers he murdered a slayer in the seventeenth century. Having the Pumpkin King, who can see through the eyes of jack-o’-lanterns, trying to kill Buffy gets a whole lot creepier really quickly. A man named O’Leary who is viewed as the town kook, enters the Bronze while our intrepid trio are there, warning everyone that the dead are being raised. Yep, it’s zombies.

There’s a bit of vampire action at the Bronze, and a couple of them have the hots for Willow and Xander, but mostly this is Giles and Willow and Xander trying to figure out how to help Buffy fight off zombies and defeat the Pumpkin King before he kills another slayer — Buffy! Halloween Rain is enjoyable, but Golden and Holder haven’t yet captured that special balance of humor and action the show did, so it’s not quite as smooth and fun as it could be for fans. It’s definitely worth a read if you’re a huge fan and nostalgic about Buffy, but the forced attempts at humor have me giving this one a 3.5. It does move along nicely and comes in at 160 pages, making it a nice tweener between meatier books, however. I’ll stick with three stars on this one, because I did like it, and Buffy is never a waste of time, but there are better books in the series to track down. ( )

The authors capture the cadences of the Scooby gang. A vampire tells Buffy that they take the day off on Halloween---as is true in future episodes of the TV series---but he lies! There is an ancient evil; also too many zombies. Probably not the best choice for bedtime reading, on account of all the grossness (too many zombies). ( )

I found this, along with several other Buffy novels, in the thrift shop and I just couldn't resist.

A fun read, basically fanfiction that got published. It's funny, though, that since this book takes place during the first season of Buffy, it is pre-season-two canon (which establishes that vampires, demons, and monsters all take Halloween night off).

I enjoyed this book more because it's a completely new story. It takes place where the first season Halloween episode would have been if one had been made. It's interesting to see what the authors do to play within the limitations of first season while making sure to not spoil the character's lack of knowledge about other aspects of Halloween that become important plot points for the season 2 episode. ( )

Disappointing. It's written exactly as the series, but in the series it works. In the book, not so much. ( )