The Burning: The Unseen Trilogy, Book 1 (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel crossover) [Mass Market Paperback]

Nancy Holder (Author), Jeff Mariotte (Author)

Book Description

Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Angel Unseen | Publication Date: May 1, 2001

First of a gripping new three-volume crossover series which uses characters and settings from both Buffy and Angel. Salma de la Navidad, a friend of Buffy's from Sunnydale High, turns to the Slayer for help. Her family are recent immigrants to America, and now she fears that her brother, in an attempt to gain social acceptance, has stumbled into gang warfare. Not just any gang warfare, either: this battle has a supernatural dimension. To make matters worse, an unknown creature is stalking the streets of Sunnydale - a creature that Buffy is sure has its roots on Angel's home streets of L.A. Meanwhile, in the City of Angels, Cordelia stumbles upon a cult of runaway kids who worship vampires and Angel investigates an invisible presence which has been causing havoc in the local prisons. As Buffy and Angel pool information about their respective discoveries, it soon becomes clear that there has to be a connection...With action taking place in both Los Angeles and Sunnydale, THE BURNING is the beginning of a fabulous new crossover series which will continue with Unseen 2: THE DOOR TO ALTERNITY in August 2001 and Unseen 3: THE LONG WAY HOME in October.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

NANCY HOLDER is the author of numerous Buffy and Angel bestsellers and co-author of The Watcher's Guide volumes One and Two. Her Simon Pulse books include the New York Times bestselling Wicked series and the new Crusade series.

JEFF MARIOTTE is Senior Editor at DC Comics. In addition to tie-in novels for both Buffy and Angel he is co-author of The Watcher's Guide Volume Two.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 274 pages
• Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment; First Edition edition (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074341893X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743418935
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #643,045 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fighting a War on Two Fronts, May 18, 2001

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Burning: The Unseen Trilogy, Book 1 (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel crossover) (Mass Market Paperback)

What a treat! No sooner did I finish "Book of the Fours" when yet another Buffy thriller by Nancy Holder appears. "Unseen: The Burning" is co-written with Jeff Mariotte, who has crafted several Angel novels. They have teamed up to write the exciting first volume of a trilogy where Buffy and Angel must work in tandem for the first time since Angel left for Los Angeles. The novels will be set in relatively recent Buffy history (just pre-Dawn).

In Sunnydale: Salma de la Navidad's younger brother Nicky has disappeared, Leaving behind several books that the reader will recognized as seriously bad magic. Terrified that something horrible has happened she turns to Buffy and Willow for help. At the same time, Giles, pursuing his new hobby of listening to the police radio band, realizes that a fresh horror has moved into town, something that lurks in the shadows and can totally Cuisinart its victims. Buffy suspects the cases are related, but the solution eludes her. Following Nicky's trail leads her eventually to Los Angeles as the source of the mystery. Angel's territory.

In Los Angeles: Cordelia discovers a group of runaway girls living under the library that are anxiously looking forward to becoming vampires and feels compelled to help. Meanwhile Angel is drawn into helping Isabel Flores and her son Carlos. The boy's father has been arrested for a crime he did not commit and suddenly a poltergeist is haunting the Flores family.

The more Angel and Buffy press, the more all these strange cases seem to be interrelated. As the threads become entangled they find themselves and their friends headed on a collision course with a hungry evil that reaches out invisibly from the darkness. "The Burning" introduces enough complication to last for even more than a trilogy. Expect quite a bit of fun before the mysteries are resolved.

The relationships between Willow and Tara, and between Buffy and Riley are dealt with in these novels for the first time. The writers don't yet seem totally comfortable with either of the new characters, but Tara is portrayed a bit more sympathetically than Riley. Holder and Mariotte overplay Riley and Tara's weaker character traits, though, which makes the relationships seem artificial. Hopefully this will take care of itself in later volumes. This detracts a bit from the book's overall rating, but not enough to cost it a star - yet.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The First Crossover Trilogy Is A Winner!, July 1, 2001

By 

Slayerman2001 (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Burning: The Unseen Trilogy, Book 1 (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel crossover) (Mass Market Paperback)

P>This is the first collaboration Nancy Holder did with Jeff Morriette, and I was very impressed with the team effort. They managed to capture all characters quite well.

There are a few adult themes in this story, which helped liven it up, and it was easy to follow along despite the constant switch from Sunnydale to L.A.

The characters were all very true to form (especially Kate, a character Holder did a very poor job capturing in an Angel book I read a few weeks ago), and the way all the events are connected is quite astonishing.

If you are a Xander, Anya, Giles, or Spike fan, you may be disappointed by the lack of these supporting characters, but everyone is included in the action and the end will leave your mouth watering for the next installment.

Kudos to the authors! It's a great story!

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now that's what I'm talking 'bout!!, May 13, 2001

By 

MJosephB (Corpus Christi, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Burning: The Unseen Trilogy, Book 1 (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel crossover) (Mass Market Paperback)

Now this is what I like to see -read- in a Buffy book. Extra kudos for finally getting out of season three for one thing. More props for bringing Anya, Tara, -yes, even Riley, you nay-sayers! If you're going to fill a Buffy or Angel book with an overload of characters at least they're mostly cast regulars, though I didn't mind the few original characters in this book because they were only just enough pages dedicated to them to establish them for the story. Even with the multiple plots -which compliment each other better than all the goings-on in the Gatekeeper Trilogy- the story is always moving and there's really no time to get bored, and most of the characters are given things to do but these tasks do not lead them to do things that are out of character, which seems to happen more often than not in the Buffy books -- Re: Paleo, Return to Chaos, Power of Persuasion, in order of bad to really bad. And I loved how they were able to slip Gunn in there with a cameo without contradicting canon -that Wesley and Cordelia don't actually meet him until the 2nd season premiere. And since this is the first in a trilogy, I don't mind the fact that it ended in a cliffhanger -though I do mind the two months we have to wait for book 2! A promising start for the trilogy and hopefully it does better than the Gatekeepers trilogy, where book 1, OOTMH, turned out to be the only really good one.