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After
three rather average installments, it was always unlikely that
The Lost Slayer serial novel would finish with a bang,
but there was always a chance that it at least finished above
the medocrity of the first three books.
Sadly,
there's none of that, and the series concludes with yet another
average installment.
In
fact, the series concludes twice, as Golden ties up both the
situations in 2000 (the start of season four) and five years
into the future, although neither is anything to write home
about.
Many
Buffy novels have suffered from the writers' insistence
of including tons of fight scenes, despite the fact that these
are difficult to convey in print, and Original Sins is
yet another novel to fall into this trap. Most of the lead-up
to the conclusion in the "future" is action scenes,
and the result as far as I was concerned was boredom.
The
need to wrap things up back in 2000 also meant that there's
virtually no aftermath to this part of the plot, although that's
probably just as well. Any collaborators in Sunnydale seem likely
to get the "oh, well, so you helped the vamps" treatment
rather than the lynching that anyone who's watched Secret
Army might have expected. Of course, because of the need
to keep within the TV series's continuity, these events never
actually happened and before long we're being treated to the
"other" ending, where Buffy doesn't make the same
mistake twice.
As
predicted, some magic bollocks from Willow helps Buffy back
to the past, with some silliness surrounding the actual timing
of her return thrown in for good measure. Oh, and Lucy Sodding
Hanover pops up again to send us all back into a coma before
Buffy finally learns the lesson about compartmentalising her
life into "Slayer" and "Buffy" sections.
Overall,
The Lost Slayer has been a disappointing series. Clocking
in at just under twelve quid for all four parts, it's definitely
not worth this sort of cash, and the average marks each installment
has scored in these reviews are perhaps on the generous side
if the truth be told.
If
you haven't started buying the serial novels, then I'd wait
for a single paperback volume if I was you, because there's
no way it's worth double the price of the average spin-off novel.
BACK
TO THE TOP
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THE
LOST SLAYER
PART THREE: ORIGINAL SINS
Written by CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN
POCKET BOOKS
$2.99 / £2.99
RATING: 5/10
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