Customer Reviews

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: OZ

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

 

 

Oz was a beloved character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. His departure broke Willow's heart as well as the hearts of many viewers. "Oz: Into the Wild" is a blessing for Daniel Osbourne fans everywhere. The book is set in Season 4, right after Oz
leaves at the end of "Wild at Heart," and follows his trip around the world, in search of ways to both calm and understand his inner wolf.

The book format lets you go deeper into Oz's character than the show ever could. We always knew that he was intelligent and thoughtful; he chose his words carefully and was stoic for a reason. However, television relies a great deal on dialogue, and with Oz being not too vocal, he was often quiet on the series. This novel is privy to his thoughts, so you truly feel his concerns, his emotions, his reaction to killing Veruca and his recovery afterwards.

Two thumbs - or perhaps paws - up to this wonderfully written book. It's a trip around the world. . . It's a search for self.

I love Christopher Golden, let me just say that right off the bat. I adore his work, and in fact this has been the first novel of his that has seriously disappointed me. I'm in the minority on this, judging by the other reviews, but, oh well. I can understand why. This was a good *story*. It just wasn't a good story about *Oz*. I didn't believe in the characterization, not in the least.

Why?

I think Christopher Golden, while writing this novel, forgot one major aspect of Oz's character: he's not a typical guy. And while I did believe in the dialogue, the thought processes were completely off. See Buffy ep: 'Earshot' if you wonder why. Someone who idly wonders if telepathy means he'll cease to exist as himself and instead exist only in the one who can read his thoughts does *not* spend all his time thinking about the surface problem. Yet not once did Oz's thoughts wander to anything more than missing Willow and solving his werewolf issues.

And that's just not who Oz is.

I did have one other problem with this novel besides that -- the obligatory 'serious battle'. Oz's journey was an inner one as well as an outer one, and I think Golden underestimated his readers by assuming he had to throw in several enemies to be defeated, when the more interesting story was Oz himself. A little more internal time in Oz's thoughts could have fixed the characterization, and, in my opinion, been a lot more interesting than yet another battle.

A story about what Oz was up to between when he left and when he returned in 'New Moon Rising' is a damned good idea.

I just wish someone who could have done the story justice had had it first.

~Erana

Christopher Golden presents us with an interesting view of the life of one of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"'s more well loved characters. It's filled with adventure as well as painfully touching scenes in the character's life. A real find for all Buffy fans!

Did you ever wonder where Oz went when he left Sunnydale? Or how he managed to gain control of his changes? Here, issuing from the fertile mind of Chris Golden (one of Buffy lit's best writers) is as good an explanation as one could ever want. With the help of Giles, Oz makes his way from Sunnydale to the frozen Himalayas, where there are rumours of a master who can give him back his self control. But to accomplish thathe must face his own demons and battle a few others who have different plans for him.

First he goes to Los Angeles, and then by boat to Fiji and Sidney, Australia. A plane takes him to Hong Kong where he meets Qing, the butcher, and his family. They are Kaohsiang fire demons, and friends of Giles. They are able (barely) to keep Oz locked up during the full moon. Then Oz heads off for magic transport to Tibet and discovers he has an unexpected companion. Qing's beautiful daughter, Jinan, also wants to study under Master Shantou, who is a great mage as well as the world's only werewolf therapist.

Even as Oz struggles to deal with his inner beast, he also finds himself hunted by Gib Cain, the werewolf hunter from Phases (BTVS - Season 2). And everyone is locked in a life and death struggle with Lord Muztag, a demon who makes grim a household word. "Patience is a virtue," Muztag exclaims, "And I don't have any of those." Count on a lot of seat of your pants excitement as Oz struggles with both his insides and his outsides.

This book is unusual (at least for me) because it is a novelization of a graphic novel, which was a compilation of a series of comic books. All written by Chris Golden, naturally. In the book, Golden spends considerable time filling in the originally sketchy beginning. This includes the entire trip to Fiji, and the Gib Cain subplot. As one might expect, the details are finer and the vistas wider. It is surprising that neither format suffers in comparison to the other. The extended text of the novel is just as enjoyable as are the comic graphics.

What is most special though, is the look we get into Oz's head. In BTVS, Oz is so laconic that we are lead to believe that he is the world's most laid-back werewolf. In 'Into the Wild', we find that is hardly the case. Becoming a werewolf has turned Oz into something he doesn't quite understand and he desperately wants to return to being the old Oz again. But there's no way back from that precipice. Now he must find a way to be more than man or beast. When Jinan tells him that she understands, because she too is a monster with a human veneer, Oz exclaims "No. You don't. What's in you? It's still you. The thing inside of me? It'll kill you if you give it a chance... You're running away from home when all I want is to finally be able to go home."

A Buffy book that I actually liked, which I think is saying a lot because I dont like a lot of the Buffy books out there. Its a shame that you knew what would happen to Oz, but this book is still really good and kept me hooked the whole time!

Summary: After the Veruca incident, Oz goes on a search to find a way to tame his inner wolf. As he searches, he goes to new places, makes new friends, and is forced to doge both old and new enemies. Will Oz ever be able to find the peace and balance he needs to come to terms with the animal inside him and with himself?

I will admit that Oz is sometimes out of character with the cursing and all, but this is still an awesome book! I wish that Oz and Jinian hooked up, but you cant always get what you want. I think Christopher Golden is one of the best Buffy and Angel authors ever!

I try to write balanced reviews. I try to delineate what an author does well and where he screwed up in even doses whenever possible. Well, that's just not going to be possible with this book, because Christopher Golden did nothing right with "Into the Wild". This book is a disappointment from beginning to end.

Let's start with Oz himself, our favorite cold-blooded jelly donut. Oz is an intense presence, a sponge who soaks up everything around him, cogitates and usually returns a thoughtful gem of truth. The guy in this novel was fairly chatty, never insightful and kind of dorky.

The story: novels about self-discovery have rules, one of the most important being, the person must discover HIMSELF. Oz does not truly come to know himself during the course of the story. he hops a ship, chats with some folks, meets some demons, gets chased by a werewolf hunter. But he never approaches the elusive self, the animal within. Twice Christopher Golden uses the hoary old werewolf plot device, the full moon countdown..."Dateline: Two Days until full moon". If used properly, this can be an effective suspense builder; we know Oz is a good guy and, in the past, the Scooby Gang has always been there to make sure his honor stays intact and he doesn't kill any innocents. But here, alone, without friends, what will the animal inside do? How will he cope? How will we deal with seeing our boy Oz as a savage killer, remorseful and even more driven to curb his wild side? Well, we won't. Because Golden cheaps out and Oz manages to find someone to lock him up JUST IN TIME! It's a copout the first time Golden does this to us; it's insulting the second.

For some inexplicable reason, Golden introduces us to a hot-tempered Fire Demon chick who rides Oz's coattails to Tibet, where she, too, will learn to control her talents. So, somehow, Golden manages to divert the focus from Oz onto this dull, petty, whiny little sprite without enough sense to duck when people are hurling things at her.

And don't get me started on the Tibetan werewolf monks. Jeez. I'd rather live in any town in any "Seven Samurai" remake than hook myself up to these clowns. It's like they hung a sign on the door that says "Come in and kill us. We'll leave the light on for ya".

The pacing was awful, the writing was awful, the characterization was awful. And, oh yeah, the book was awful.

this book is absolutely great. it picks up the thread from the
fourth season when oz leaves the show in a search for a way to control the werewolf in him. his travels take him to the figi islands, australia, hong kong and even tibet. his quest is long
and hard and filled with lots of dangers that he thought he would not find so far from the hellmouth and sunnydale. the book is completely oz's story so if you are looking for the old gang
including buffy, you will be disappointed. but it is well written
and it fills in a void that the tv show did not really expand on.
i bought the book thinking that it would not be that good but i
can gladly say that it was definitely worth it.

The Oz in this book didn't really seem like the Oz from the show, as another reviewer pointed out quite well. Not only did he not seem to think like himself, he didn't look like himself either, and I had a lot of trouble remembering, as I was reading, that this was a book about Oz. With other comics I read, the art isn't as huge an issue for me, but with a comic based on a show I like, I was expecting the two characters from the show (Oz and flashbacks of Willow) to look more like themselves. I've seen BtVS art that was really accurate before, so I was expecting better than what I got with this book. Also, from the few details I got from the show about Oz's journey to take control over the werewolf, I always figured it'd be a really internal thing. In the show, Oz was never really a big fighter anyway, which made the fight scene in this comic odd. I don't think it was necessary to find a way to get a fight in this book - I've seen comics where most of the action was internal, and many of those were done very well. I wish it had been that way with this one.

This book definitely hits one of the few sour notes in an otherwise high-quality 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' comicbook series. To start off, readers are given a somewhat generic story of Oz wandering through Hong Kong and Tibet in search of answers on how to control his werewolving ways. The story is predictable and a yawner, offering little in the way of furthering character development in an ancillary Buffy character - Oz. Equally dull is the artwork with little in the way of flair or panache to further stimulate visual interest. I'd recommend reading this only if you can come across a copy on the cheap or for the most hardcore Buffy/Oz fans. Otherwise they are plenty more worthwhile volumes in this series worth your coin and reading time.

I enjoyed the book. It wasn't spectacularly insightful, but it didn't leave me bored, either. Those who complain that the character is not Oz seem to be completely discounting what we saw in the character in Season 4-- when he left and when he came back. Not to say the characterization wasn't a bit off some places (I can't see Oz "swearing loudly"), but not to the degree other reviews would suggest.