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Average Customer Rating: 
Resurrecting Ravana (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) >
Customer Review #1:
People A La Mode
This is an older Buffy novel (by older, I mean circa 2000) that I somehow forgot to review. Coming back to it is something like getting a breath of fresh air. In retrospect Buffys senior year was one of those simpler times. Whedon wasnt quite as determined to take everyone out of character. Most, but not all, of the personal issues were teenage angst sized. All this was soon to end, but sometimes you have to take the good times with the bad.
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lt;br /gt;Although there isnt much good about what was happening to Sunnydale. First cattle start showing up eaten and the eaters turn out to be hell hounds. Then more cattle are munched, but this time there are no easy explanations. The people start going into rages and killing each other - with the survivor turning up as lunch on somethings menu. Giles is stumped, Buffy is faced with a vampire insurgency, and Willow can find no help in either the internet or her spellbook. Did I mention Buffy and Willow? They also happen to be very, very mad at each other.
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lt;br /gt;Of course, its some kind of bad demon mojo, but how its happening and who is calling it up is the problem. You cant hit what you cannot find. Naturally this state of affairs cant last, but by the time Giles knows the culprit its almost too late. All of the Scooby gang are going to be up to their elbows in snarling beasties before the curtain even begins to close.
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lt;br /gt;Ray Garton is more than a churner-outer of Buffy books. Even at the time of this writing he had some 37 books to his credit from Sabrina to serious horror. He has a solid, competent style that leaves out nothing necessary but is wary of waxing on endlessly. Not only did I enjoy the book, but I had a major nostalgia attack while reading it. Buffy, Buffy, where art thou?
Resurrecting Ravana (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) >
Customer Review #2:
 A Mediocre Buffy Adaptation
This novel from the superb TV series has Buffy and the Scoobies battling demons called rakshasas, taken from Hindu mythology, who can turn friends violently against each other and are trying to do the same to the Scooby Gang.lt;pgt;Its a good idea, but the exploration of it here isnt compelling. My main problem is exactly what the last reviewer complained of: Garton doesnt seem to have a real command of the show and its characters. The behavior and dialogue just arent quite right. You could explain that as the effects of the rakshasa magic, but Garton lets slip a few times that he doesnt know enough about Sunnydale. Willow describes a new Sunnydale High guidance counselor created for this story, Ms Daruwalla, as the first real person hired by Sunnydale High since Rupert Giles - ignoring her close friendship with Jenny Calendar. At another point, Willow say she doesnt know anybody whos ever been transformed into an animal, ignoring the transformation of Buffy into a mouse and Xander into a jackal (or was it hyena?). And although the story takes place at a time when Faith is in town, she is never mentioned in the book.lt;pgt;Granted, these little mistakes are only going to upset obsessive Buffy fans like yours truly, but isnt that pretty much the target audience for these books? I really cant see many of them being sold to or read by people who havent seen the series. lt;pgt;The plot does have some nice twists, and the sections where Buffy is playing detective, trying to track down the source and nature of the latest evil, are pretty good. But overall, I didnt think this one had enough bite.
Resurrecting Ravana (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) >
Customer Review #3:
Garton needs to be more aware of his source material
This book is an example of one of my greatest pet peeves. I think it behooves any author of a media tie-in to be well-versed in the show, movie, etc that they are writing about. The story is interesting, and the writing isnt totally horrible (though if I came across one more adverb I was going to scream, he said frustratedly) but the characters and situations are just not what we have come to expect from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I give some leeway for this, because there just isnt anyone with the flair for dialogue that Joss Whedon and the Buffy writers have, but there is no excuse for being unaware of certain basics of the show or the monsters youve chosen to use.lt;Plt;pgt;First, there is a whole section at the beginning of the book about "hell-hounds". These are NOTHING like the hounds in the show. Given the release date of the book, its possible that Garton never saw the hell-hounds in the Prom episode. Even at that, however, he describes creatures that are basically identical to werewolves and never explains how they are different. Also, Buffy goes after them with... get this... a silver-tipped stake. Does Garton not realize that Buffy uses weapons aside from stakes? Wouldnt a silver dagger or a silver-tipped crossbow bolt make more sense? Even a silver steak knife?lt;pgt;Then he introduces the raksasha. These are demons from Hindu mythology, and are pretty scary in their own right. But Garton describes them as tiny, while in the myths they are often taking the form of humans and tigers. Paintings show them as being the same size as people. Also, he has them getting into peoples dreams and causing them to murder friends and loved ones and then the rakshasa attack and eat the killer. In the myths they ate the dead body or bodies that were left after the attack. A minor point, but important. Basically, I think it would have been better to create an entirely fictitious monster than to risk offending people by getting their sacred stories wrong.lt;pgt;As for the characters, they are poorly done. Aside from certain over-used catch phrases and occasional glimmers of catchy dialogue, there was almost nothing in these characters that reminded me of the folks in the show. I have had people read lines to me that were cut from episode scripts (lines that Id never heard in other words) and I have almost always been able to identify what character spoke them without being told. They all have very distinct "voices" which are very recognizable. None of this came across in the book. Also, many of the characters actions were just... well... out of character. Especially Giles and Joyce.lt;pgt;All this aside, though, I enjoyed the book for the most part. But an interesting story does not make up for ignoring your source material when you are writing a tie-in novel.lt;pgt;But thats just me. I could be wrong.
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