Customer Reviews

The Suicide King (Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Simon Spotlight))

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Once upon a time when I was much younger there was a short lived fad for do it yourself adventure books where you made decisions and, usually, got hammered. Fortunately, the fad was short-lived, even in those days when paperbacks were three for a dollar. One of the problems with this genre, if you can call it that is that, in a book of less than 200 pages, the story occupied about 50 pages. You wound up having to reread the book 5 times to get anything that resembled your money's worth.

Surprise! Do it yourself adventure stories are back, this time with you starring as Buffy. Unfortunately, I'm a senior citizen, and my normal reaction to choosing between staking a vampire and chopping its head off it 'run away, run away.' I don't want to be Buffy, I just want to read about her and admire Willow from afar. And unfortunately, the story in The Suicide King is so chopped up, and so short that it failed to satisfy my vicarious pleasure.

A new force has come to Sunnydale, one that feeds on the suicides of teenagers (or anyone else it can possess). After five suicides at the high school (four students and the grief counselor) Buffy decides to investigate. She finds that K'adolh, an ancient nasty imprisoned in a paper scroll, is about to be returned to this dimension by a sect of disciples. From there, the plot is yours to pursue. You can fail, win, render Willow a babbling idiot, or any one of a dozen or so endings.

Mostly though what I did was scratch my head and wonder why Buffy and her cohorts, who are part of one of the more interesting productions ever to grace television, who have be carefully developed dramatic characters, have suddenly been turned back into simpleminded 16 year olds. Especially since one of the best parts of the show was the respect it paid to an age group that most often only get to be in situation comedies.

I'm inclined to tell you to go out, buy a Mr. Pointy and stake this book. But no, there are people who will enjoy this, who won't mind that they just paid full price for a 54-page short story. But if you love what BTVS became, you may just want to pass this by.

This book was so much fun! It's like one of those old Choose Your Own Adventures, and you get to "play" Buffy. The story is really compelling, and unfolds like a classic whodunnit. The writer really nails the characters (especially in the dialogue, which could have come straight from the show-- it's like a lost Season Two pre-Angelus episode). Watch out for those Serpentines...

If not for anything else, you have to at least give the powers that be credit for trying something new and different in the literary world of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Shaking the foundations a little bit. The latest releases in the world of Buffy books takes you, the reader, on a slayer adventure where you choose the outcome. This is the first book in a new series called "Stake Your Destiny". The premise of these is that you are Buffy. You choose what actions you take. And when I say you are Buffy, I mean that literally. Buffy is not mentioned as "Buffy walks into the room" and so on. It is written like "Giles turns to you and says...", or "Xander grabs you by the arm...". It is written from Buffy's point of view, and you are Buffy. First things first, let's get into the story. The story doesn't give the exact time of the series it is set in. Here is what we know. It takes place in the high school years, since everyone is at Sunnydale High, but when exactly?. Jenny Calendar is there, so is Principal Snyder. So it is definitley after the majority of season one. A moment in the story I read had Giles and Jenny going off on a weekend together, so that would pin it in the first half of season two, when they were getting more intimate with each other. Plus, Xander and Cordelia are bickering a bit and not overtly flirting and coupling, so it could also happen pre "What's Your Line". But once I read the other choices you can pick, Spike and Drusilla pop up. Drusilla is described as sickly, so the story definitley takes place in the first part of season two, before Drusilla gets her strength back in "What's My Line?". Angel is also in the picture, but in the path I chose, he only makes a very brief cameo at the end of the story. And doesn't feature too prominently in others. Written by Robert Joseph Levy, whose only other Buffy work was a story in one of the "Tales Of The Vampire" volumes, the book follows a string of sudden and mysterious teen suicides. Now those suicides are hitting close to home when Sunnydale High student body begin to fall by their own hands. Enter Buffy and the gang. After a guidance councelor takes his own life as well, The Scooby Gang get into research mode when these 'suicides' begin to not add up. Buffy quickly learns(as do you the reader with the story path I chose since it is so fast and abrupt), that an ancient demon can move from one person to another thru paper. Yep. Paper. I won't really say much more than that because it delves into the usual mumbo jumbo. At the end of each little chapter you are given three different choices to make. The sections end on a little cliffhanger where Buffy(you)has to chose a plan. Now, whatever choice of action you choose isn't going to result in a conclusive ending. There is only one ending with a resolution and an epilogue. You have to choose wisely, because wrong picks can lead to an ending of nothing being stopped and you dying. The idea itself is quite fun and creative, but with it's limited run, it just comes as so light. And therein lies the problem with the idea of these new "stake your destiny" books. The actions I chose started on page 1. By page 55, of what is already a very thin book, I was done. As the story goes on, some of the choices get a bit riskier and more serious, but not by much, and it is all over so very soon. You could read the story you chose, and go back and read the others, all in one sitting. It all add up to a fun little excursion, but hardly the stuff of great Buffy books. That being said, the story is steeped in the early days of the slayer and her gang, and the author does a fine job of re-creating those moments. It does have the feel of the show at the time, and at times you can sense walking down those old hallowed halls of Sunnydale High. Levu has the lingo down to a T. Especially Xander with his sarcasm and jokes, and Cordelia in all her tactlessness. That is what makes this book a joy. A very nice, and welcomed, return to those wonderful early days of the gang in school. I don't know how many of these new kinds of books are being planned, but they will only make fans hunger for more of the big books. I know there is another one coming out in May called "Keep Me In Mind" by acclaimed Buffy writer Nancy Holder. This book isn't without it's charm, but it won't satisy die hard fans of the adult books.

At first I wasn't sure that the "choose your own adventure" genre would be a good fit for Buffy. But then I read this book and it was non-stop fun, from start to finish(es). Clearly the author knows the ins and outs of the characters while spinning a compelling plot. This book should not be limited to the bangels-all should enjoy!

This book is awesome! It's totally like being in a lost of episode of Buffy back in the High School days. You get to make all the decisions, as she (I mean... you) tries to stop the Suicide King before he decimates Sunnydale. The plot and the characters feel just like the show, and you REALLY feel like you're in it. It was so good that I had to bust out my Season 2 DVDs after finishing it. Favorite line (Cordy, of course): "WHY OH WHY DO DEMONS ALWAYS HAVE TO TALK IN ALL CAPS!"

A *must* for any Buffy fan.

Based on some of the other reviews, I can't believe how seriously some of you are taking these choose your own adventure books-- and I'm a huge Buffy fan. It's supposed to be fun read, and, guess what, mission accomplished-- the characters are dead-on, the writing is smart, and if you read through the whole book, the entire plot is expertly revealed. Enjoy it for what it is-- a clever and new format for Buffy books.

Before I even got to the first point in "The Suicide King" where I got to make a choice I was having second thoughts about this "Stake Your Destiny" adventure for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." The prologue ends with the suicide of a Sunnydale High student, thereby setting the stage for the rest of the story, where Buffy and her friends try to stop a rash of suicides by their classmates. However, compare the final sentence of the suicide and the specific manner in which this student kills herself with the first sentence on the next page. If it were a monster who had just died then being cute about the manner of their death would be one thing. But this is author Robert Joseph Levy doing a nudge-nudge, wink-wink to his readers about the suicide of a 17-hear-old girl. However, this tone also extends to the characters in the rest of that section as Buffy makes a reference to Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," and wincing twice in the first two pages of the story is not a good sign.

It may be that the subject matter is just too touchy because as soon as the back cover of this paperback talks about a "rash of student suicides" I am thinking about real world cases I am acquainted with where high schools have seen several students take their own lives over the course of a few weeks in a ghastly chain-reaction that authorities and parents seem unable to abate. One of the chief charms of "BtVS" during the early years (and this story is set during the first half of the second season) was how it took the slings and arrows that made high school hell and personifies them as monsters and demons. Maybe externalizing the internal forces that drive some teenagers to suicide is too much, because Buffy and the Scoobies are not dealing with a major problem for their age group but a monster who mimics such things. Of course that is an additional justification for such a monster to die at Buffy's hands.

My other complaint about the format of this book is that it prevents readers from playing the game straight up. That is because it does not do you much good if, in the parlance of the bumper sticker philosopher, you ask yourself "What would Buffy do?" There are several points where you are given a choice between what appear to be one smart and one silly option, and there are times when doing the smart thing gets you (or rather Buffy) killed. I understand that the right thing to do should not be too obvious, which is why hedging your bet by taking into account whether your choice sends you to the next page versus the back of the book or somewhere in the middle is equally risky. But if the goal is for the reader to "be" Buffy and play the roll, this adventure story has some problems (which are certainly inherent in computer role playing games where silly objects end up being significant: e.g., the Christmas tree ornament in "Phantasmagoria"). When coin flipping is a better option than rational thought based on committing seven years worth of "BtVS" episodes to memory, then something is wrong.

There are over a dozen endings to "The Suicide King," most of which ending in Buffy's untimely death, to go along with the two happy epilogues and a couple of surprising resolutions. If there is anybody out there who can start at the beginning and work their way through all of the permutations to get to all of them without just flipping through the book and looking for sections ending with "The End" that you have not read, then congratulations, because I got a bit more than halfway before I got tired of running into the same endings over and over again. With "The Suicide King" the gimmick overwhelms the story, but given the gimmick it may well be that any other outcome would be difficult.

As a big Buffy fanatic, I have to recommend The Suicide King just for the characterizations alone-- you really do feel like you're inside the world Joss created. The book takes place when the gang is still in high school (Jenny Calendar is still alive) and are after a mysterious demon that is causing people to kill themselves. This is a choose-your-own-adventure type book, so if you're not into that then you probably won't like this, but I really enjoyed it (especially all the different endings). Spike and Dru cameo alert!

THE SUICIDE KING
Robert Joseph Levy (2005)

RATING: 4/5 Stakes

SETTING: Second Season

CAST APPEARANCES: Buffy, Angel, Xander, Willow, Cordelia, Giles, Spike, Drusilla, Snyder, Jenny Calendar, The Mayor, Jonathan, Sheila Rosenberg, Willy the Snitch

MAJOR ORIGINAL CHARACTERS: Diana Fitzgerald (student), Douglas Teal (grief counselor), K'adolh (demon), Anna & Ilon (cultists)

BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SUMMARY: "A rash of student suicides sweeps through Sunnydale High, jolting the community. When the newly arrived grief counselor ends up killing himself, Buffy and the gang begin to suspect there's something supernatural to blame. Soon one of their own begins to show signs of debilitating despondency, and it becomes a race against time for the Slayer to defeat the ancient threat known as the Suicide King."

REVIEW

The Suicide King is the first in the new "Stake Your Destiny" series of Buffy choose-your-own adventure books. For those unfamiliar with the format, the story is told as if the author were speaking to Buffy ("You race down the hallway, knowing vampires are right behind you"). Every few pages the reader has to decide what Buffy should do next, and is then directed to certain pages to continue the story ("Do you stake the vampires? Go to Page 42. Do you keep running? Go to Page 95").

With the anime-style cover, high school setting, and choose-your-own adventure format, the series is obviously aimed towards a younger demographic than the show drew near the end of its run. However, that doesn't mean it's tame: the story starts out with a girl plunging a knife into her own skull!

The plot is original and interesting, something many of the standard Buffy novels lack. Why are so many students and teachers killing themselves? Who's behind it and why? The answers take Buffy into conflict with (depending on the reader) cultists, demons, and even old friends like Spike and Drusilla. The story is well written and contains good humor and characterization.

Perhaps my only complaint is how hard it is! The first time I tried it I got killed very quickly. A friend suggesting I needed to think "What Would Buffy Do?" I tried a second time, and ended up getting arrested and shipped off to live with Dad. On my third and last try, I got killed again! Indeed, flipping through the book, there are far more bad endings than good (or even mediocre) endings. Still, the book was fun, light reading and I'm looking forward to checking out other ones in the series.

[...]

I'm glad this series is continuing; it's so unusual and reminds me of not as good books from childhood. You can spend an hour following all routes and leads. The only thing is- we all know Buffy usually makes the "wrong" decision, then makes the right one eventually, and wins. In the book, we die and start over. grr.