Reviews for Tales of the Slayer: Volume 4

The average rating for Tales of the Slayer: Volume 4 based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-01-22 00:00:00 Shannon Keen One of the most painful episodes for me in the entirety of the Buffy series is the season 3 episode "Helpless." The relationship between Buffy and Giles has been and will always be my favorite, and (to me at least) is the cornerstone of the entire show. So, when I opened up the fourth and final volume of short stories that makes up Tales of the Slayer and saw they all revolved around the rite of passage called the Tento di Cruciamentum, I was both intrigued and skeptical. Honestly, I didn't see how they could possibly think up enough variations for eight different stories. I thought the only real potential plot lines were: Slayer lives or dies, Slayer is angry at her Watcher or not, Slayer has many years of slaying under her belt and the trial comes easy or she's more green and it's difficult. I am happy to announce that I was wrong. All of these stories were endlessly fascinating, and yes, sometimes the relationship between the Slayer and her Watcher was affected, but most of the time that was not the focal point of the story. It's All About the Mission by Nancy Holder: To start the collection, we begin the story with a Slayer familiar to anyone who has seen the show -- Nikki Wood, a Slayer we know is eventually killed by Spike and who is the mother of rogue vampire hunter Principal Wood in season 7. That means that we know going into the story that she will survive her Cruciamentum, but her Watcher (whose head we are in) does not. We also are introduced to a younger Quentin Travers, and yes, he always was something of a jerk. Undeadsville by Michael Reaves: A darker tale than the previous story even while set in the same major city (though nearly 20 years earlier than the preceding.) This story utilizes all three forms of pov, and while it can be distracting in certain places, it works overall. The only thing I did not much care for was the way Reaves insisted on writing the story in early 50s colloquialisms. Not only that but beat poetry style, which I have always found tiresome to slog through. I feel awful the Slayer in this one though and she deserved so much better. Alone by Scott Allie: This one was decent, but possibly the most forgettable of all the tales in this volume. And that makes me sad because I was really excited to read this one when I read that it took place in Ulster. However, everything about the Slayer in this one was stereotypically Irish and she is portrayed as somewhat weak, even without her powers having been suppressed by her Watcher. I commend her for the lengths she had to go through as a Potential and later as a Slayer to establish a rapport with her Watcher in a time when she would have to marry a man to be as constantly in his company. However, in this story she is sexually abused by her father, still has to beat up vampires without her powers, and her Watcher just kind of leaves the story about five pages before the end and that's where the story ends. I understand open endings for stories usually, but this one left me kind of lost as to how I was supposed to feel at the end. Sideshow Slayer by Greg Cox: I was predisposed to love this story for two reasons. 1) It's written by Greg Cox and he's one of my faves. 2) It has to do with the old traveling shows, which kind of died out with the popularity of cinemas in the late 1920s. It's an era of the history of entertainment that has always fascinated me, and having the Slayer have to fight a vampire in an old school funhouse was both thrilling and fun. A simple premise, but executed very well. Survivors by Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Dot is one of my new heroes, in terms of Slayers that aren't Buffy. The story seems rather cut and dry to begin with, and I had some thoughts about the twist early on, but I still found the story intriguing. Dot was no-nonsense and devoted to her Watcher, and that is something I can appreciate. Also, all the talk about the coming prohibition was a fun touch to the narrative. Back to the Garden by Robert Joseph Levy: I did not care much for the Slayer in this particular story, even though I definitely understand where she's coming from emotionally. As a pacifist, I would be most upset to discover that my destiny in life was to kill a bunch of beings. However, her naivete was annoying; if you refuse the powers of the Slayer and there is no one to check on the rising forces of darkness, do you really think those forces are never going to cross your path? I also don't understand how a specific character died. Beryl got to the site first and yet the person was dead further inside the cave? Either the writer forgot a key detail somewhere or it got lost in translation. The Rule of Silence by Kara Dalkey: I think this may be my favorite story in this collection (beating out even Jane Espenson's contribution.) A Slayer in Seville, Spain during the height of the Spanish Inquisition. Giving the setting, you can guess from the off some of the difficulties the Council has planned for her during her Cruciamentum. The rite of passage for this Slayer seems almost *beyond* what should be expected of anyone, even a girl with supernatural abilities. I think even Buffy would have possibly died on this one, so Esperanza is another new character hero for me. By the end of the story, I was hoping that if she managed to survive that she just murdered the entirety of the Watcher's Council because while the Cruciamentum is beyond inhumane, what they forced Esperanza to live through was absolute hell on Earth. Yeah...this one was DARK. Two Teenage Girls at the Mall by Jane Espenson: This one read almost like a dark comedy. It was just as brutal as the others, but the pov was hilarious and somehow heartbreaking simultaneously. Of course, given that it took place in 1983 and the Slayer's name was Peri, I kept picturing Nicola Bryant as the Slayer which was AMAZING. And given that Espenson is a Whovian, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that it's who she pictured, too. All of these stories focus at least a bit on the relationship between Slayers and Watchers, with variations on the strength and devotion of those relationships. I would recommend reading it for the reason alone, but also because these are some of the best stories in all 4 collections. A nice strong end to multiple volumes of anthologies about Buffy's predecessors.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-04-10 00:00:00 Masaru Hashimoto This volume contains 8 "shorts" about previous slayers. I have never read any of the other volumes but I figured that wouldn't have much impact on my understanding of the story since I figured out that each volume has different stories, each penned by a different writer. Not like it is a linear tale of each slayer that came before Buffy in chronological order. "It's All About The Mission" by Nancy Holder. I like Holder's writing and since she has written so many Buffy/Angel tales, I trusted this story to be worth my time. I was surprised to see the story was about Nikki Wood, but it was nice to see a familiar name to ease into some non-Buffy stories. Fans of the show know how she meets her end but it was kinda cool to to get know a little more about her and to see her watcher. "Undeadsville" by Michael Reaves This short started off slow for me but I liked how the Watcher/Slayer relationship didn't exactly mirror that of Giles and Buffy. Plus, it was refreshing how the story played out as it was the only story in the book that changed direction and ended on a different note than all of the others. "Alone" by Scott Allie This contribution to the volume bored me. I liked the idea behind it all but it wasn't handled very well in my opinion. Granted, the dynamic between the Slayer and her Watcher was quite different in this entry but overall, the story lacked something that grabbed my attention. The ending was rather abrupt to me. "Sideshow Slayer" by Greg Cox. The setting of this story was interesting to me. The Slayer calls a carnival home and the cat and mouse game of the Cruciamentum takes place in a fun house. Definitely a different set up, which was nice. "Survivors" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch This story was not a bad one but it wasn't great either. An unstable Watcher was a nice touch but overall the story wasn't as good as it could have been. "Back to the Garden" by Robert Joseph Levy Finally, a female Watcher to shake things up a bit. Granted, I was slow to warm up to this entry but after realizing that Beryl wasn't even an actual Slayer in the start, just a potential was a nice twist on a plot point that was growing old at this point in the book. For the most part, I liked this story and the different plotting that Levy brought to the book. Another abrupt ending but I understand that eqah story has to end at some point. "The Rule of Silence" by Kara Dalkey This tale really shook things up. A completely different country and time period made for a interesting shake-up. I liked how her Cruciamentum was set up differently than previous ones, more intense with more than just one angry vamp to defeat. It started to run a little long for me, but I enjoyed it for the most part. "Two Teenage Girls at the Mall" by Jane Espenson I saw Espenson's name and figured that this would be one of the better chapters but I was wrong. This had to be the weakest of all. It wasn't just the viewpoint of the vampire but the repeating that Espenson used in her writing as well as the ever present and annoying "blanking" that the vamp said. Once was enough, the rest just took me out of the story. Plus, the layout of the story left this reader with more questions than answers by the time it was all said and done. A vamp sired a vamp just for the Cruciamentum? The vampires are working with the Watcher's Council? I don't understand the point of Gregor and why he throws his newbie to the Slayer. I don't have to like every Slayer but this story made her seem like a pre-Sunnydale Buffy that was an idiot bitch. Perhaps this was done so that you were basically rooting for Julie to win? I don't know but it wasn't well thought out or written. A bad note to end the book on, for sure.