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Clocking in at a shade
under 400 pages and with a stylish black and red cover, Revenant
sees Sunnydale in the grip of a Chinese threat.
To the average citizens
that threat is in the form of the Black Wind, a triad gang which has
recently arrived in the town. Not only do they rob Willy's bar and
threaten the cashier in a drugstore but they also disrupt the Mayor's
game of miniature golf!
But since the novel is
set in April 1999, Mayor Wilkins obviously has other things on his mind
and he only makes a cameo appearance in events here. However,
businessman Chengxian Zhiyong, who was also at the miniature golf course
with the Mayor, plays a much larger role in the action.
Given the novel's
length, there's a chance for almost every season three character (except
for Faith, who's absent as usual) to get a fair chunk of the
action. This even extends to Joyce, through the handy fact that
Zhiyong is using the gallery to import an important artifact.
However, it's the
Scooby Gang themselves are the main focus of attention. The extra
page count allows Odom to split them up and devote the first third or so
to their various encounters with the novel's main protagonists over the
course of a night.
Despite this, the more
detailed than usual descriptions of scenes and characters and the
novel's use of Chinese culture as a backdrop, there are plenty of
familiar elements at work here as well. One of the Scooby Gang has a
new-found friend who provides their link to the main threat, Xander
falls for the new girl in town (a sword-wielding martial arts babe) and
the use of Joyce's gallery, to name but three. Even the use of
Chinese culture isn't wholly original within the Buffy novels and
some of the TV series' more annoying features, such as the tendency for
a character to mishear/mispronounce something for "comic"
effect, rear their heads.
Revenant's plot
is certainly one of the more epic ones seen in the Pocket Books series,
with everyone getting their turn in the limelight. However, it
also tends to stretch things out just a little too much, with several
lengthy fight scenes and some padding.
Nevertheless, it's an
pretty enjoyable read, if perhaps a slightly longer one than it really
needs to have been.
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