Average Customer Rating: 
Crossings (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) >
Customer Review #1:
 Gamers Paradise
This story takes place shortly after Season Five BTVS episode "The Body". Buffy finds herself in the most frightening role of her life, trying to be a good mother to Dawn, while still finding time to battle the forces of evil.Meanwhile Xander treats Anya to a Star Trek movie marathon, but when one of Xanders friends busts in, intent on killing everyone, it seems that the hell mouth has opened again. But Xander discovers that instead he is dealing with a new Virtual Reality system most of his friends are testing, and the virtual reality is far too real. Shortly after Tara and Giles attend a taping of Taras favorite TV psychic, and can only watch helplessly as hes attacked by supernatural forces. Over all this is a very well written addition to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. Mel Odom continues to be my favorite author. Its fun to see how all his diverse plots will intermingle at the end. For all you MANY Spike fans out there, while he doesnt get as much screen time as Xander in this particular novel, he is strong, compassionate towards Buffy, and riding around on a motorcycle. Yum. Lastly, for those of us that are comic book fans as well as Buffy fans there are more comic book and RPG references in here than you can shake an adamantium claw at. :> Highly recommended for fans not only of Buffy, but of Xander, Spike, and gaming!
Crossings (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) >
Customer Review #2:
Joystick Free Demon Chasing
When a Craulathar demon begins to collect people parts, the outcome is always bad. Buffy and Willow are following a trail of discards in an effort to track the demon down before it works some awful spell. Faced with a demon in the process of opening a gateway to some particularly malignant dimension, they are going to need help to shut the door. Whom do you call when you need an expert on serious badness...? Spike! Meanwhile... Xander and Anya are engrossed in a sci-fi film festival, popcorn in hand, when Robby Healdton, a gaming friend, plucks a fire axe of the walk and threatens to chop the audience into geek cutlets. Xander to the rescue (barely). Later, at the hospital, Xander discovers Robby isnt just acting as if he wasnt himself; he really isnt Robby at all! Even more meanwhile... Giles and Tara are in the studio audience watching Derek Traynor, a popular medium and spiritualist perform. Suddenly Traynor makes contact with the dead spirit of another friend of Xanders who is lost in another dimension. However, the boy still appears to in this world, alive and well! The Scooby gang realize that these tangled problems are the visible loose ends of a magic that has somehow managed to convert virtual reality into a tool to subjugate the world. Xander has disappeared, Dawn is giving Buffy a major headache, and a guitar playing New Orleans demon slayer shows up in Sunnydale with an agenda of his own. Soon Buffy is wishing she could go back to the old See it, put a stake in it days. Mel Odom does a good job with this plot, but there is a lot of complex action in a very short novel. This is his forte, but sometimes the plot is a little hard to follow in the space allotted. Certainly, the book could easily have been longer, or there should have been one or two plot arcs less. To be honest, I find the Buffy/Dawn conflict is a bit overworked lately. The potential relationship between Bobby Lee Tooker (the Cajun demon duster) and Buffy never has a chance to develop with everything else going on, and he is a very interesting character. I hope that this is not a trend. What makes BTVS something else besides a monster kill-a-thon is the focus the show puts on its characters. Books like this that are heavily action focused are in danger of drifting away from a successful formula. All this criticism aside, the story is an active, upbeat book with some unusual twists to the use of magic. I enjoyed reading it, and would have enjoyed another fifty pages even more.
Crossings (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) >
Customer Review #3:
 It isnt a game anymore...
Crossings is Buffy at its best. Someone arrives in Sunnydale and hes recruiting video gamers to test a new virtual reality game. All the gamers know is that he calls himself Dredfahl and that the game is the greatest and most realistic theyve ever played. Xander finds out whats going on one night when a friend of his goes insane at a movie theater. Turns out hes being possessed by a demon, and Dredfahl isnt quite who he seems... In Crossings, every character gets something to do, even the smaller characters. Buffy, Xander, Anya, Willow, Giles, Dawn, Spike and Tara all have things to do, as well as some new characters. One of the things that I liked best about this book is that pivotal information comes from everyone, not just one or two characters like usual (i.e. - usually Giles and/or Willow come up with a lot of the info). Everyone gets in on the action, and it actually works. The plot is pretty easy to follow, yet I dont ever remember being bored while reading. If you want a great Buffy book, go with Crossings. Its a major step up, especially following the dreadful Sweet Sixteen. I highly recommend Crossings to any fan of the Buffy series.
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