Customer Reviews

These Our Actors (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Like other reviewers, the ending puzzled me. I reread it several times and still didn't get it. However, the rest of the book was good enough that it didn't matter as much as it might have.

This was an expanded 'Fool For Love' in a way, the episode in which we first meet William with his doomed love for Cecily. Having that story fleshed out and seeing the consequences of her rejection of William was fascinating. The scenes with the four vampires were very enjoyable.
I didn't miss Buffy; Willow is a strong enough character to carry a story and Spike is too; when you have both of them, that's plenty to keep fans happy.
The book was well written and the characters were true to those on the show.
Just a pity about those last few pages.

OK, Little Things was my favorite, but this book was better by far. The reason? SPIKE. After so many books where he was just mentioned as an afterthought, the writers are finally getting around to him. And this writer clearly knows how to play on his dual character. Other reviewers have mentioned the lack of Buffy and most of her friends, but I was just thrilled by it. Actually, there is less of Willow than the cover suggests. This is a book for Spike fans, and hopefully the first of many, many to come. Unless Buffy is with Spike (or Angel), she is just of no interest. But, when she is with either of these guys, it doesn't get any better. For all you who love Buffy herself, hey, you've got dozens of books.

The only thing I didn't like about this book was the ending. The last 5 or 6 pages left me thinking my book was defective, and something was missing. What the heck actually happened there?

Being a Spike fan, I was excited to see a book that would have him in a prominent role. In this, I wasn't disappointed. However, I can say that the story of Spike's past was the main reason I kept reading the book.

The beginning starts off slowly, and includes some unnecessary information--often repeated throughout the book--that doesn't add to the meaning or plot of the story. Willow's section is the most tedious, partly due to the difficulty in making her a vibrant character on paper. In contrast, the characterizations in the Spike section were very well done, and the sub-plot was engaging.

The idea behind the story was a good one. If the ending had been less confusing and muddled, and had tied the two plotlines together with much more of a dramatic punch, then it would have been an excellent Buffy novel. As such, it's only worth reading if you want to know more about who Spike was before, and immediately after, being turned into a vampire.

Now I've read alot of Buffy books but this is the first one I've ever been compeled to review. It was Fantastic we get to see some of Spike just before and after he was turned. Seeing the differences in his charicter was Amazing.
It was Fun having Willow as the focus of the book, this is a definite must have for Willow fans.
the interaction between W/S was great,good banter.
one Suggestion to the Fans re watch "Fool for Love" before reading the book.

Very interesting storyline - the myth of the origins of the theater and the attempt to go back to these origins by people with very bad intentions - that draw your attention from the beginning to the end, you can't stop reading. Also, the accurate portrayal of all characters makes it a pleasure to go through this book.

For those who are Spike's fans, "These Our Actors" is a treat - in flashbacks, it picks up where the very known scene from episode "Fool For Love" left off, when good William is mistreated by Cecily Addams, and ends up in a dark alley with evil Drusilla - or even before, showing William and his liking for the arts as well as his love for Cecily. We finally have the opportunity to learn what happened right after the bloody awful poet becomes a vamp and joins Dru, Angelus and Darla in their thirst for blood and carnage. Besides, Spike gets to solve some unfinished business in 2000 Sunnydale.

And, if you appreciate the idea of a Spike/Willow spin-off - as working partners, 'cause you know, Willow's gay now - this is the book for you. Set on season 5 (when Willow started attending Drama class, as seen on TV), we can enjoy once more the sweet nerd girl, who dates Tara, uses magick in a non-evil way and don't miss a class for anything, and the snarky chipped vampire who is in love with the Slayer (his feelings haven't been disclosed yet) and helps the Scoobies, although having some reservations about those folks.

To understand better the last chapter, I would recommend doing a quick research on the Internet about Greek Mythology; I did, and it helped a lot.

Then grab this one up, fast. Spike fan? Grab this up faster. (though sorry, no Spuffy action in this one) Love any episode of Angel or Buffy where it goes into flashback of the time where Angel and Darla decide to 'make' some family? Grab this up.

The book (which I didn't want to pick up at first because of the weak title)spends at least half the time (maybe more, I confess after awhile I skimmed the present day story so I could get back to the 1800s) flashing back to when William met Cecily and got his heart stomped on. There's some of the scenes from 'Fool for Love', but it goes much further into the backstory-- you find out what happened to Spike after he rose, Angel and Dru teaching him how to hunt, his plan for revenge against Cecily and her family for humiliating him-- which works out much differently then he planned--... and oh yeah, *exactly* how he got his nickname.

The present day story, involving mainly Willow and a haunted theater (with Spike jumping in to help when he discovers an old enemy is tied in with this) is decent, and has its moments (such as Willow starting to think Spike is hot at one point, then catching herself when she remembers she's gay) but the book is worth buying for the Spike backstory. Angel is around, but only as evil Angelus. Well written, interesting, nasty, and true to the characters. I read 'Pretty Maids All in a Row' a while ago, thinking it was part of a series, and then was really bummed when I found out it was the only Buffy tie-in novel that focused mainly on them. This book is, at least, the next best thing.

So, worth picking up just for the backstory... which would make a great movie, by the way (Joss, are you listening?). You may want to save this one and wait to read it after the series is no more and brilliant back story episodes like Fool for Love are, sadly, just a memory. This one's a keeper.

While I havent actually finished the book yet I can tell you one thing for sure. The author really caught spike's character and since he is one of the best things that ever did blow into SunnyHell...thats important to me. Bad point... the author's style is a little too bla for me. Not bad bla just not what I'm use to or prefer bla. I like my BTVS books written with a little more 'bite' but given spikes central roll I say give it a read you'll appreciate it.

Disclaimer: the authors of this most excellent BUFFY novel are friends of mine; the three of us each had short stories in the 2000 anthology X-MEN LEGENDS.

Now that you know my biases, this is one of the finer examples of BUFFY novel-ness, as it carries on two parallel plots, one focusing on Willow, and also featuring Spike, and one featuring William-turning-into-Spike, also featuring Darla, Drusilla, and Angelus. The book does a masterful job of weaving in and out of the onscreen scenes, building on stuff that was established but not elaborated on (Spike's origin and the awesome foursome of him, Dru, Darla, and Angelus; Willow's Intro to Drama class), retroactively setting the stage for future events (Willow realizing just how bloody powerful she is), and telling a cracking good yarn to boot.

The characterization is spot-on, the dialogue matches the onscreen personae, and the little touches, both regarding 19th-century Victorian life and modern-day college theatre, make the book fire on all cylinders.

My sole complaint is that the 19th-century climax is stronger than the modern one, which makes the latter seem a bit anticlimactic (literally). But that is a minor complaint about what is overall a most frabjous book.

As the front cover indicates, "These Our Actors" by Ashley McConnell and Dori Koogler features Willow the good Wicca of Southern California with the Big Bad Spike. Willow is taking a drama class at UC-Sunnydale and when helping at the theater she discovers the place contains the spirits of characters from plays performed in the past. The class is taught by Professor Addams, who has some interesting ideas on the relationship between drama and magic rituals. Even more interesting, we learn that Spike knows Addams from the days when he was still human. It seems Addams is interested in going back to the time before the first drama, when the point was to literally invoke the gods. Of course, this begs the question as to why Addams would want to do such a thing, but you know it just cannot be for anything good.

"These Our Actors" is one of those plays where we alternate chapters between the past and the present (and if the two authors each took one time line my guess would be McConnell did the story set in the past concerning Spike and Koogler did the tale set in the present with Willow and her drama class). Although I have to profess that I am getting a bit tired of blasts from the past showing up in seemingly every "BtVS" novel, the parallel story lines work well here for the most part. The story of Spike in the past also deals with what happened right before and after Drusilla turned William the Bloody (Bad Poet) into a vampire, an event that was covered in flashback in the episode "Fool for Love." Of course, this finally gives us an opportunity to get around to the obvious scene that was missing from that episode, namely how Spike got his name, as the new vampire takes his revenge on those who taunted them. Under the story telling principle that it is a small world after all, Cecily, the object of William's affection who taunted and humiliated him, is the daughter of Addams. For me the highpoint of the novel was when Spike--albeit it with help from Drusilla, Angelus and Darla--take his revenge on Addams and his daughter. It is really evil, wicked, bad, mean and nasty. I think I actually shuddered when it became clear what was going to happen.

Overall, "These Our Actors" does a nice job of capturing the character of Spike, especially in the story line dealing with the time he became a vampire. I am not exactly sure when the story takes place in the show's chronology, but apparently it was a time when Buffy was still taking classes or at least considering doing so, but also when Willow is comfortable going public with her relationship with Tara. That suggests early (?) in season 6. This only matters because I think the characterization of Willow skews too much towards the "old" Willow who tended to lack self-confidence as a Wicca. But then I usually find that most writers of these original novels based on the hit TV series created by Joss Whedon are so enraptured with the "original" Willow that they resist recognizing her growth and maturity on the series. Drusilla, Angelus and Darla are more central to the story than Buffy, which is fine for this tale, and I especially like the way Dru is depicted in the novel. There is also a treat for students of drama as memorable lines from great plays are sprinkled throughout the book, testing your knowledge of who said what when (e.g., "Attention must be paid").

Finally, I have to take issue with something that was tossed off in this novel. No, it is not the question of how a vampire survives on an ice flow for a month without the sun getting to them or whether Medea the princess of Colchis was ever properly considered a queen when she lived in Greece with Jason, but rather the extremely disparaging remarks Giles makes about Anoulih's version of "Antigone." I do not think the French dramatist can be faulted for using the ancient Greek myth about the ill-fated daughter of Oedipus as a text from which to construct a morality play that would speak to the situation of France under the German occupation during World War II. But more to the point, Anoulih's modern version has the virtue of making the title character the main character of the play. When I teach my students about the key concepts of a Greek tragedy they read "Antigone" and almost always immediately point out that it is Creon, not Antigone, who is the tragic figure in the play. After all, Antigone is executed for obeying the laws of the god and burying her brother (if a handful of dirt on the face can be called burying), but Creon ends up losing his wife and son because of his actions. There are plenty of plays to ridicule, but Anoulih's "Antigone" is not one of them and Giles should have known better.

While not a great "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" novel, "These Our Actors" is certainly well above average without any major faults that make you want to demand a rewrite. The climax is a pretty good payoff for the set up, which is always a good sign in these books. The parallel stories work pretty well, although that usually means you are more interested in one of the two at any given time. But the Spike in the past story line can stand on its own and for that matter so does the Willow in the present once you know how Adams and Spike know (and hate) each other.

This one would more appropriately be headed "Willow the Wicca Witch Woman," than "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" - Buffy, Xander, Giles, Tara and Anya have virtually nothing more than cameo appearances in this story, and Dawn isn't in it at all. It's almost entirely about Willow and Spike - and Spike's earliest vampire family, Angelus, Darla and Drusilla.

The story is two overlapping stories told simultaneously, one being that of Willow discovering some untoward witchiness in Sunnydale U.'s theater in the present day, the other being that of Spike's transition from William, "the bloody bad poet," to Spike the Bloody, the Big Bad Vampire, and his exploits in London of 1880. One of Spike's first adventures as a vampire was to take revenge against those who slighted him, which included the unrequited object of his affections, Cecily Addams - whose father, through black magic, is still alive and well in Sunnydale, a hundred and twenty years later. Spike has unfinished business with Addams, and Willow has to discover and prevent the theatrical ritual Addams presently intends to use for purposes unknown, the result of which will be catastrophic. The whole thing has something to do with the summoning of the Greek Fates and Furies, by whose power the fabric of the entire world could fray and become unraveled.

The plot is good, and so is the writing - but the combined effect of the overlapping stories in two different time frames and the bizarre absence of Buffy (not to mention everyone else) from the entire proceedings weakens the whole, considerably. The actual pairing of Willow and Spike for this particular adventure is credibly enough handled, but it occurs too late in the book to be fully developed or to be of much interest. When all is said and done, not a whole lot really happens in either of the stories being told, and the finale comes out of nowhere and is over almost before it starts, proving to be rather anticlimactic.

This is not one of the stronger entries in the book series. However, it is well-written and an easy read. Fans of the Buffy series' seminal vampire family - Darla and Angelus, Spike and Dru - will definitely love it. Newer readers will want to start with a stronger title, before trying this one.