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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
"BtVS" fans are going to be sorry they read this trilogy, August 24, 2004
This review is from: Wicked Willow III: Broken Sunrise (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) (Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Simon Spotlight)) (Paperback)
There was a flicker of hope for Yvonne Navarro's "Wicked Willow" trilogy at the end of the second volume, "Shattered Twilight." This alternative history of the end of Season 6 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has Darth Rosenberg devoting all her Wicca energies to brining back Tara, who is hanging around as a ghost and at the end of the second book is seemed pieces were finally falling into place. Buffy and the Scoobies had discovered what Willow was really up to and Giles captures the Ghost of Tara, binding her to the Magic Box. Obviously Willow was going to go ballistic as soon as she discovered what had happened, but "Shattered Twilight" ended without her getting a clue but still being enraged. So there was some dramatic tension to set up the last volume, but not as much as there could be or as there should be to get you all excited about the last book.
Then we get to the start of "Broken Sunrise" and in the prologue a WEEK has passed since the end of the previous book and Willow still does not have a clue about why she has not see the Ghost of Tara until a new character conveniently shows up and tells her. Does this make wicked Willow go nuclear? No, not yet. Meanwhile, Giles and everybody else has apparently been settling into a normal routine instead of living in fear that Willow is going to level the Magic Box at any moment. Instead, after a week, Giles comes up with a plan to offer Willow a trade: time with Tara for the return of Oz and Spike. Remember them? They have been Willow's chained pets since the first book, "The Darkening," and if you think something dramatic is finally going to happen with them or the Riley Golem from "Shattered Twilight," forget it. There is not big payoff to any of this, even though you would think there has to be a point to Oz being brought back into the picture. This is true about the subplot involving the two members of Willow's coven that Giles made disappear. Again, we think there is more here than meets the eye, but it turns out there is not.
Eventually Willow gets mad enough to do something and she summons yet another demon (how many is that now?) to take on Buffy and the Scoobies. Now, I have to admit that this particular demon does something particularly gruesome and I was thinking that Navarro was finally going to let Willow embrace the dark side and inject some actual horror into the proceedings. But the bad stuff that happens happens to happen at such a slow pace that it is obvious she is avoiding dealing with the consequences of her idea being played out to it logical conclusion, which is that some of the Scoobies would be dead. Then we have Buffy dashing off to the rescue only to give up because she cannot figure a way to get into a building and going back to the Magic Box, which is not exactly the sort of heroics you envision for the Slayer, but that is par for the course for Buffy in this trilogy.
The one character that comes out ahead of the game here is Anya and Navarro certainly gets credit for dealing with the character as she was during the final episodes of Season Six. Most writers of "BtVS" novels overdo Anya's tendency to say the wrong think, usually with regards to her sex life with Xander, so it was refreshing that the once and former vengeance demon had a substantial role in the story. But Anya having a bigger role than Buffy and Xander in a story featuring Willow is not going to sit well with most readers, especially since Anya is not part of the end game (but she probably should have been, because it would have to be better than what we get).
The final three chapters of "Broken Sunrise" are where Navarro is going to have readers wondering why she bothered with this alternative-history trilogy. Wicked Willow finally does get her chance to at least try and get Tara back, and Navarro comes up with a neat story from world mythology that offers a pointed lesson for Willow on the error or her ways (which also fits what Tara told Willow in the episode "Forever"). But then we have the final three chapters and you will find yourself wondering what was the point of reading this trilogy, why the editors signed off on this ending, and why does David Fury's name not appear prominently at some point since he is really the one that wrote those three chapters.
Well, it turns out that it was the EDITORS and NOT the author who mandated the ending, presumably under the misbegotten notion that the ending had to tie back into the continuity of the Buffyverse. It is hard to blame Navarro for the way the ending defeats the entire purpose of the trilogy if it is not her decision. That mandates makes it extremely difficult, if not well nigh impossible to come up with anything really memorable if in the end you have to go back to what we already remember from the show itself. Joss, what fools these editors be.
Sigh. I honestly think there was a pretty good "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" story here, one that could have worked as a single volume (even a hardback one) rather than a trilogy. Navarro has several interesting ideas, but she does not exploit any of them as much as she should, and she absolutely needs a new ending for the simple reason that is pretty much a prerequisite for an alternative-history story. This story could have been fixed and if it did not end up being a great "BtVS" story at least it would have been above average. The selling point for this series was the question, "What is Evil Willow was never stopped?" But at the end of "Broken Sunrise" it turns out that was not the point of this trilogy at all. "The Gatekeeper" trilogy remains the consensus choice as the best "BtVS" trilogy, while "Wicked Willow" is going to occupy the other end of the spectrum.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A very disappointing ending., September 1, 2004
This review is from: Wicked Willow III: Broken Sunrise (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) (Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Simon Spotlight)) (Paperback)
I was enjoying this trilogy for the most part, until I got to the ending. Then it really fell apart.
The whole point of doing "alternative universe" stories is to shake things up. Witness the marvelous Buffy episode, "The Wish." Yeah, the Magic Reset Button was pushed at the end of that episode but look at what happened in the Wishverse. A simple premise, "What if Buffy Summers never went to Sunnydale?" The status quo was shaken up, with Willow and Xander being vampires, the Master ruling Sunnydale, Buffy being cold, and just about everybody dying at the end.
Now here we have the premise, "What if Dark Willow stayed evil?" And apparently the answer is, "Nothing at all, the Buffyverse remains exactly the same." The only thing this trilogy did was insert some extra story between "Two to Go" and "Grave." To end this story in EXACTLY the same way that "Grave" ended, with very minor changes, is unacceptable for an "alternative history" story.
What was the point of bringing Spike and Oz into this story at all? They were prisoners, then after they were freed they mostly disappeared. I so badly wanted to see Oz go off on Willow for turning him into a werewolf but that scene never happened. Such a wasted opportunity. Spike was completely useless outside of one "deus ex vampira" moment. And both of them were complete non-factors in the ending.
I flipped to the last page, and all I could think was "such wasted potentinal." This book definitely needed a different ending.
Avoid this trilogy. Or at least demand that the author rewrite this book.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
At the end of the day? Not so much., August 24, 2004
This review is from: Wicked Willow III: Broken Sunrise (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) (Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Simon Spotlight)) (Paperback)
Wow, what a disappointing ending to a series that started out so well. My interest waned a little bit with Book 2, as it seemed mostly that nothing much happened, but with the Scoobs capturing TGoT, I felt sure that things would pick up in the final installment. And they did for a minute or two, but those minutes were fleeting at best. When all was said and done, I actually rolled my eyes and said, "That's it?"
After three books, I expected to end up some place other than crayon-breaky land. The use of the powerful ending to "Grave" in this series causes it to lose every ounce of emotional resonance -- it was done great the first time. The second? Been there, done that. And much better, I might add. This book twists and manipulates things completely out of whack simply to force them to line up and be in shape to play out the episode ending, and completely negates anything that's come before it as a result. I had been hoping that because this series was billing itself as being an alternate universe that SOMETHING would happen. No such luck.
Looking at all three books as a single work, things happened which made absolutely no sense and added nothing to the overall body. I'm still scratching my head at why Spike and Oz had to be involved at all. The Scoobies spent the entire series bumbling around -- Giles in particular is left looking like a complete fool as one plan after another fails with almost ridiculous ease. Even Willow's efforts at gaining power cease to make sense when every single attempt only costs her more and more and gains her nothing at all. There seems to be no explanation as to how it is she feels she's able to take on a god at the end when there's no evidence she ever recouped the losses from her very first failed plans back in Book 1. And I still can't fathom how, if she was as drained as we're led to believe after the final confrontation, she is still powerful enough to destroy the world.
I had hoped we would, at least, get a touching farewell between Willow and Tara since it wasn't possible on the show -- but nope, not even that joy. When all is said and done, the only parts of these books that linger after it's complete are those that came from the show itself -- and for that, I'll pop in my DVDs.
All told, a colossal waste of time.
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