Monster Island (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) - Softcover

Golden, Christopher; Sniegoski, Thomas E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0689866992 ISBN 13: 9780689866999

Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2004

Synopsis

"You never know until you're tested." -- Doyle, "Hero"

Since he arrived in Los Angeles, Angel's mission has been to help the helpless. He has saved countless innocents in his city. However, one escaped his grasp: Doyle, the half-demon who came to Angel on a vision quest. Doyle sacrificed himself and in turn reconciled his internal conflict toward his own demonic heritage, leaving Angel and Cordelia to carry on with the good fight. And fight they do.

But as the group squares off against evil in the City of Angels, little do they know that back in Sunnydale, trouble is brewing. A shakedown of snitches yields info: Someone other than Buffy has been slaying -- and whoever it is, he or she is strictly after half-breeds, going so far as to lie in wait to attack. It doesn't add up, and the Scoobies are stumped.

But back in L.A. the picture becomes clearer when Angel Investigations is visited by an unexpected guest....

About this title

Review

It's always good to see Angel and Buffy back together on screen or in print and in Monster Island they find themselves facing ghosts from Angel's past and a mysterious killer who is slaying human-demon hybrids. Doyle was part of Angel's original team when he first set up camp in Los Angeles, but Doyle gave his life to save others and left Cordelia the power to see the future in visions. Now Doyle's father has turned up and he is none too pleased to discover that his son is dead. In Sunnydale, Buffy is tracking the party responsible for a spate of murders of half-human, half-demon breeds and it's a trail that leads right to her ex-lover's door in LA. Now Buffy and Angel find themselves teamed up to stop a full-scale massacre being played out on a vengeful scale.

Golden and Sniegoski have already plenty of experience penning Buffy and Angel's book-based adventures and their collaboration is a top-notch effort of slam bang action and great, snappy dialogue that perfectly captures the mood and zest of the TV shows. The plot is rather thin, however, and seems quite stretched at times with scenes and threads that simply pad out the story rather than add to it or push the narrative along. Fans however will be totally thrilled to see their favourite doomed lovers fighting together again, and the continuation of the long-defunct Doyle story line (the character seems to have been forgotten about in the TV show) is a nice addition for die-hard fans. It's a little too long but it moves along faster than a flying stake and has more bite than most of the Buffy and Angel team-up novels that have gone before. --Jon Snow

About the Author

Christopher Golden and Thomas Sniegoski are top genre authors whose previous collaborations include The Buffy Monster Book (with Stephen Bissette) and the script of the Xbox Buffy the Vampire Slayer video game.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0689866992
• ISBN 13: 9780689866999
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 437