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 Want to hear about the latest Buffy book? Read our exclusive review here... 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer – The Monster Book' It is exactly what the title says! Any officially sanctioned BtVS non-fiction book is welcome, and this weighty new tome sits comfortably alongside Pocket Books’ essential 'The Watcher’s Guide', (and, no doubt 'The Watcher’s Guide Volume 2', due in November). The two books are the same size, and share a similar design, although this time most of the photo’s have a ‘weathered’ look that we’ve seen used to vignette some of the BtVS trading cards. The book begins with an introduction that examines the childhood influences of many of “Buffy”’s key contributors, and begins to acknowledge the usually downplayed debt that 'BtVS' owes to the TV series and movies that have preceded it. The bulk of the text is broken down into nine chapters, grouping the series’ various creatures into categories like “Demons”, “Ghosts” and “Bogeymen”. Each of these sections examines the specific examples that the series has produced, and then a more detailed look at the mythology of each group in literature and legend, and, since the series’ writers all seem to stem from the baby boomer generation, more relevant examples from films and TV series. Most of Bufffy’s foes have only sketchy details revealed on-screen, so the book’s authors have fleshed out their profiles with extra details revealed in the original scripts, and, in many cases, comments from the script writers. The book has few faults, but it does suffer from one that’s rather irritating: repetition. Often a profile will reiterate points extrapolated from dialogue snippets already quoted in the body of the profile. Nevertheless, there’s an enormous amount of trivia here for the “Buffy” fan to digest, including script extracts, quotes and interviews. It should keep most readers busy for a few days at least, and it’s the sort of book you’ll probably find yourself dipping into each time a new episode is shown. There are frustratingly few photo’s from the first couple of seasons of 'BtVS' - it’s a union thing! – and it’s no surprise that most of the ones in 'The Monster Book' are already very familiar. (Many also appeared in 'The Watcher’s Guide'). The situation is gradually improving, but cannot, of course, be rectified retrospectively: the book occasionally has to resort to the odd frame blow-up for creatures for which no proper photographic record was taken! (It also has to use frame enlargements when creatures are created by CGI: the Lurconis creature from 'Band Candy', for example). Oddly, several photo’s turn up in the book more than once, usually in black and white and colour variants. (The book contains thirty-two pages of colour stills). At least the book has managed to tap into an alternative resource: photographs taken by the wizards at make-up studio 'Optic Nerve'. Their terrific photo’s include several revealing layouts showing how actors are transformed into vampires and demons. It’s not clear whether the copy of the book we have is an American import or a bona fide British copy, since it has the price for each territory on the back. What is evident is that the text is littered with American spellings, and annoyingly uses American titles for many British movies. (The text often acknowledges both titles, but several photo’ captions do not.). The book also has many photographs of authors like Clive Barker and Peter Straub, all seemingly taken by Beth Gwinn, whose numerous contributions would seem to merit a credit on the cover! Oh, and one last thing, what is that photo captioned 'The Fly' on page 241? It shows a man in a gorilla suit, a hunchback, an astronaut and Frankenstein’s monster leaving an United Air Lines (sic) plane, with a sign that reads 'The Fly Special' on the steps! Most bizarre! 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer – The Monster Book' is now beginning to appear in stores. The 372-page book is written by Christopher Golden, Stephen R. Bissette and Thomas E. Sniegoski. It’s published by Pocket Books, it costs £10.99, and the ISBN number is 0-671-04259-9. NB: Viewers watching 'BtVS' unfold as it is transmitted by the BBC should be aware that this book covers episodes from the rest of the third, and most of the fourth seasons, and contains numerous spoilers. All images are copyright 2000 20th Century Fox. |
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