Customer Reviews

Mortal Fear (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Despite what the historian tells you, Mortal Fear is set in the seventh season before the appearance of the First but after Selfless. Mortal Fear is one of few books that allows Dawn to play a active role. For those that hate Dawn, this book may confirm your feelings. The plot of the story revolves around Buffy, Dawn, Willow and Xander so don't expect much from Anya or Spike though they do make an appearance.
The main story of this plot is that the scoobies are in a slump. Dawn (hormonally charged teen) is acting distant from Buffy and starts dating a troublesome guy. Willow struggles to hold back her dark side. Xander, although now very successful, is brooding over women troubles. Meanwhile, Buffy is running around town after demon attacks, collecting pieces to a soulsword told to her by a mysterious tipster called Simon. Things start to look up for the scoobies when they like the other Sunnydalers start to feel well...fearless. However without fear, the residents start to turn aggressive and both friend and family turn against Buffy. Vampires are also in the slump as their food turns out to be dangerous and Slayer and vampire work together, quickly before they are both killed by the humans of Sunnydale.
For those that missed the simple day to day life detail of season seven, you'll love this book. It focuses much on the characterization of the foursome and you'll get to see their day to day life and moments that you wished had happened on the show.
Overall a great book with great characterization and plot. Although the plot gets sci fi and complicated sometimes, it is very well written.

Season Seven must present some extraordinary difficulties to the scribes of the Buffyverse. While the names are the same, almost every character has no resemblance to their original appearances before Season 4. Problems of character development are complicated by having to ride shotgun on an underlying story that resembles a Chinese fire drill. That the Ciencins have managed to overcome the dangers of plot drift and produce a coherent and even original story is a compliment to their skills.

Taking advantage of the frayed nerves of all the season 7 Scooby-ites a mysterious mage named Simon manages to trick Buffy into collecting the bits and pieces of a magical sword that, naturally, could bring about the end of life as we know it. As part of the scheme he unleashes a weird magical nanovirus that completely erases fear as well as any compunction to do good. The big victims are Xander, Willow and Dawn (not that Dawn ever needed an excuse to be obnoxious). These three become part of the overall scheme as well as a means to torment our humble Slayer.

Well written, and tightly plotted despite its length, Mortal Fear is one of the better Buffy books to appear in the past year or so. Even so, there are a few devices that stretch ones ability to believe. Especially what has happened to Willow. While the idea is not original to the Ciencin's, I find the device of a split personality Willow a bit tedious. After all, the is only one Willow - one whose naturally sweet nature is unable to contain her anger when her world falls apart. This is a natural, human thing - only larger than life because of Willow's powers. I find Willow-in-denial a bit hard to accept. On the other hand, Xander's anger at Buffy may be irrational, but it is appropriate to the character. And, as I've mentions Dawn was already irritating, so her characterization here is exactly right.

Almost every other character puts in a spot appearance as Sunnydale once again starts to slip into chaos. Once again (for the umpteenth time) Buffy must handle the impossible and save the world. There is a part of me that misses the old Buffy, when the stories were mostly about finding an killing vampires. Yet we all know that Buffy's attraction is that it is far more than hacking and staking. Mortal Fear manages to tread the same thin line between horror and comedy that the best of the TV show does. Certainly worth reading if you are a fan.

Buffy's running ragged around Sunnydale. She keeps getting anonymous tips, concerning demon attacks round and about town - in advance. Her mysterious source stays hidden in the shadows, and cloaked by magic. He calls himself "Simon," and Buffy does whatever he says - though she doesn't much like it. After all, how does this "Simon" character know so much? Is he sending the demons out to lunch on the Sunnydale citizenry himself, just to put Buffy through her paces for some agenda of his own? Why do the slain demons all dissolve into so much goo, and form themselves into more and more pieces of a lost legendary sword? And just what is "Simon's" admitted interest in this particular weapon?

Complicating matters is the fact that Sunnydale itself seems to be growing more collectively insane, by the day. Kids, adults and senior citizens all seem to be developing a remarkable lack of inhibition, leading them to commit outrageous acts on nothing more than the impulse of the moment. Xander and Willow are being subtly targeted and preyed-upon by an unknown force, bent on unleashing their innermost desires and unlocking a strange power within them. And Dawn is literally turning renegade - and superhuman - in the throes of teenage hormones run wild.

Even the vampires are willing to call temporary truce with the the Slayer, until Sunnydale's burgeoning crisis can be contained. They have to - something is poisoning their food supply, at the same time as it drives the mortals of Sunnydale crazy. With Xander, Willow and Dawn ganging-up on her, and no one but the mentally unbalanced vampire, Spike, and Xander's ex-fiancee, Anya, to help, can Buffy decipher the riddle of "Simon's" identity, and stop his - or someone else's - diabolical plan, before Sunnydale erupts in a kind of apocalypse, the like of which even Buffy Summers never could have dreamed?

The Ciencin's write a first-rate Buffy tale, long, involved, well-developed and absorbing. I actually didn't think the plot to this one sounded all that promising, and was delighted to discover my preliminary judgment was greatly mistaken. Mortal Fear is one of the best of the Buffy books. It's well worth the read, and a real keeper.

Fear is used in the title of this book and I found what an appropriate word that is to use. With what happens in this latest entry in the Buffy book world, it is fitting. Characters in this book are torn apart and turn on each other. There is probably nothing worse than that. A person's greatest fear would be to have the ones you love and trust turn on you in a way that you fear for your life and what the very people you once loved and trusted with your life will do to you. That is exactly what Buffy is fearing here. Authors Scott and Denise Ciencin have crafted an in-depth and intelligent epic of a story that ties in very nicely with the Buffy universe and it's characters. The story, according to the authors, takes place during the sixth season of the show. A season that was already dark enough. Buffy is running herself into the ground with new chaos that is taking over Sunnydale. She is getting weird, mysterious messages in the weirdest of forms from someone named Simon. These messages have Buffy running to solve the puzzle and to find different kinds of monsters each time and putting together parts of what is called a "soul sword", and tries to learn of it's use before it falls into the wrong hands and creates even more chaos. At the same time, the others in town are being affected by a strange virus that is running rampant through town. No one is safe, and it turns especially dangerous when it hits the ones closest to Buffy. Her friends Willow and Xander, and her own little sister, Dawn, who is involved a great deal in this story. What happens is a wild adventure that has Buffy turning to the last people(?)on earth she would normally turn to for help when it seems that she has no one else. While the book has an epic like story, the book itself has an epic like length that feels like it might go on a tad too long than it really needs to. It's characterizations and dialogue is in sync with the show and the characters themselves. However, as I said above, the authors say it takes place in the sixth season, but this seems to be impossible since Principal Woods appears in this story, and he doesn't come on the show until season seven. Whoops. The work on Willow and Xander is also well done. They are both looking for some kind of direction in their life. Some kind of purpose. Xander thinks he is making it big in construction and has met a great new client, but it doesn't turn out that way. Things go wrong for Willow in school too. The end climax is a little odd and seems to be a little too extreme even for a book where the imagination can run even more freely than the show itself, which is on a constricted budget. Still, it is a wild and epic adventure that showcases some true elements of excitement, horror, humor, and emotion. A great ride.

I always check what season i takes place iin and it said season 6 then i started to read it and got really confused because they were talking about season 7 stuff. But overall it was a good book.

Living in Sunnydale really sucks. Just ask the movie ticket employee who immediately quits her job upon witnessing Buffy acting nervous at the movie theater. There were many instances where the novel,"Mortal Fear" truly bummed me out. Xander had a glimpse of success as the manager of his own contracting firm where he is respected by his peers. Willow is offered an internship for computer programming at UC Sunnydale and none of it comes to fruition due to living on top of the Hellmouth where the Big Bad always emerges to ruin your day, your life. The authors, the Ciencins, are heavy handed with the analogies throughout the novel. Their writing style shows through in characterization. In this novel, Xander is dark and angry. He threatens to give Anya the middle finger if she didn't shut her trap and Willow enacts cyber and physical revenge upon someone who threatened her reputation. If you are a fan of Dawn, don't read this novel. She resembles one of those teens in the show "Snapped" where the daughter ends up killing her parents over a boyfriend. Once again, Buffy is the dependable warrior who the reader knows will come back and smote thy enemy. No Giles, but Clem makes a charming appearance to lighten the depressing tone of the novel. Towards the middle, you will not be able to put the book down.

For a Buffy book, this is an epic. Quite long. People are starting to act very strangely in Sunnydale, and gain superhuman abilities on top of being whacky. When this includes Xander, Willow and Dawn, Buffy has a ton of problems. So many problems that she gets help from a group of vampires, because having a crazy diseased superhuman food source is not good for them, either.

Also, Buffy has to go all Ilyana Rasputin, as what the master AI digital type bad guy who is using nanites to control everyone wants, is the ancient Soulsword.

Id say that this book is a little mediocre for a Buffy book. Some of the character's personalities just arent the same in this book as they are on the show. The storyline isnt really all that original either. Buffy's on her own because all of her friends are betraying her. It couldnt have possibly taken that long to write this.

I was a little disappointed because I have seen much better from these authors before. I would recommend borrowing this one from the library. It's not a keeper.

As I started reading Mortal Fear I quickly realized that the historian noted was wrong and that the story takes plave in the seventh season. I'm only at chapter 4 but so far the book is really good. I really like the storyline so far.

For better or worse, I've read all of the Buffy novels. Most of the time, I'm satisfied if they achieve the height of a well-written episode. That's what most media tie-in seem to do these days - we rarely get one that adds any character background.

That said, this could have been a neat little story if it'd met an editor on its way to the presses. Another mystic sword paired with the old poisoning the resevoir plot never hurt anyone. But for it's nearly 500 pages, we get little actual development, just pages of in-jokes and unnecessary description. We don't need two paragraphs just to explain what one of the characters is wearing, especially when the clothing in question isn't magickal, mystical or otherwise of import to the story. Likewise, there are way too many geek media references, even for someone familiar with all of them. They just don't fit, and delay the action. The author bio says the couple work on the CrossGen line, so I could excuse an indirect mention of the company's title "Way of the Rat" - but we also get bits of Fantastic Four, Superman, and Y: The Last Man. And while the comic/SF theme is cute, what does Seinfeld have to do with Buffy?

I admit to nitpicking here, but all put together, it really starts to slow down the story, and around page 300 I wondered why I was still paying attention. With that many pages, the authors don't work at all with existing character dynamics, leaving the Scooby Gang pale and puppet-like next to the bratty little new characters brought in. A casual fan probably won't want to slog through a novel quite this long, and someone more familiar with the show is bound to be disappointed.