Big Bad

This book is a dream come true! It satisfied my fanatic love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You can tell the writer is a mega fan and she crafted this novel in such a smart way that would please any Buffy fan. It has so many elements from the show and it stays original at the same time. I wish I'd thought of this! Read it! You will love it. This book is the holy grail of Buffy novels.

Here’s one quote from this book that will immediately tell you all you need to know: “Angelus took pity on the humans.”This is the second book from the new line-up that falls flat. And the reasons are similar to the first one.But let’s start with the good. There’s always some good.The premise on its own is okay. It’s a parallel universe, and the villains roam free and live together in harmony. Sounds simple enough and even works. The main characters are Johnathan, Andrew and Anya. And the first two even work well as protagonists. You know they’re not entirely evil, but rather misguided. In that sense, Lily Anderson nails the narrative. They are very much similar to their on-screen selves with their fears and insecurities and unhealthy attachment to Warren.And that’s about it.Now Anya, that’s an entirely different story. Unfortunately all the things that make her charming in the show are dialed to 11 and come off as annoying. There’s a reason she’s not in every scene, she’s merely balancing the narrative. Here she’s too much and feels like the writer’s self insert in a bad fanfic.But the “wtf am I even reading” moment truly comes when you meet this book’s version of Angelus. This is the character that views murder and torture as art. If you aren’t prepared to delve into the twisted snd sick of his mind, please don’t attempt to write him. He is not, nor should be ever seen as a romantic hero. He is not sweet or nice or considerate not to humans and not to demons. He is vicious and why do writers keep forgetting that?Same goes for Spike but in this case, he is at least much closer to the original than Angelus.I don’t know about other readers but this particular brand of wishful writing irritates me terribly. If you want to play around with ensouled or chipped Spike or darker version of Angel, go ahead but don’t call them what they aren’t. There is simply no scenario in which Angelus wouldn’t kill everyone or would serve drinks. If you didn’t pay attention — arrogance is one of his issues. If you need a reminder, Watch Innocence, Passion, Eternity, Soulless, Cavalry, Salvage, Destiny, all the flashbacks. This is who you’re dealing with, not whoever’s called Angelus in this book.This becomes only that much worse every time the author is forcing that random ship between Anya and Angelus. A ship that makes as much sense as Fred and Xander. To make this happen the writer even gets rid of Darla (which does feel like fan fiction written by a threatened narrator). Darla is a gorgeous, smart, evil, and deep character but here she’s used for laughs and for enforcing the writer’s ship.Dru much like Oz seems like an easy character to write but isn’t. There’s a thin line between her gothic-crazy and straight up toddler behavior. Unfortunately, this book slides over the line.Now there’s a whole town full of big bads and no one clearly cares how some of them even made it there without the events of the shows but fine, au is au. The problem though, these are all fan-service demons that are supposed to make you go “Ah I remember that one!” You know what was beautiful about “In every Generation”? You went “huh, that’s a new one!” At some point references to the show become tiresome.In general, it’s not bad and written decently. If you can get past the liberties taken by the author, you may even enjoy it. There were moments I enjoyed too but unfortunately, I need to recognize the characters for the book to work.

Lily Anderson’s Big Bad is an absolute love letter to the Buffyverse. Mostly taking place in an alternate reality where the mayor’s sun-shade has brought about permanent night and transformed Sunnydale into Demondale where the big bad in this story is…Buffy, and it’s demon Anya and Jonathan and Andrew (two thirds of the nerd herd) who are cast in the role of ‘heroes’ who are trying to stop her from destroying their universe. The story is so much fun it’s ridiculous. It’s clear Anderson knows the Buffyverse inside and out. Not only does she totally nail the feel of most of the characters, she pulls in an incredible number of them from both Buffy and Angel including Angel, Spike, Dru, Darla, The First, Glory, and even the Smile Time puppets, just to name a few. Not only that she also includes an insane number obscure references. As I said, Big Bad is a love letter to longtime fans. Spike would claim it was effulgent! Thanks so much to Hyperion Avenue and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review an eARC of Big Bad.

Oh, man. What a rude! Like Buffy fanfiction by someone completely obsessed with all the baddies. I loved this. I laughed out loud and really enjoyed all the nostalgic easter-eggs only tried and true Scoobies would get.Now I wanna read more Buffy goodness.Awesome book. Will definitely recommend & read more by this author.

This just doesn’t feel like a Buffy story. More like Fanfic. The author tries to tie the Buffy baddies together, but it doesn’t really ever work. None of the villains sound or act like themselves, least of all Buffy. This one is a most definite miss.

Not terribly familiar with Buffy, but a huge fan of Lily Anderson.

Thank you to Hyperion Avenue and NetGalley for the ARC of this novel. Ignoring the problematic views of the original creator, the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a rich and diverse one. The Big Bads of the series have always been nuanced and really fun to engage with. This was a fun twist with a big focus on Anya which I did not expect, Lily Anderson did a wonderful job of ensuring the characters still acted like themselves and made logical choices. I was also a-ok with Xander not being included but Willow still being her vampire self. This was a great dip back into the world of BtVS.

I confess that I've only seen a handful of Buffy episodes, but I know who most of the main characters are. There have been a few books about the vampire slayer recently, but this one is my favorite so far. I liked that it focused more on the residents of Demondale, a place for vampires and demons to freely exist. It was fun rooting for the dark side, though I still enjoyed watching Buffy kick some butt.Jonathan and Andrew are some of the only humans left in Demondale and they're just trying to survive. They form an unlikely friendship with a vengeance demon named Anya and I loved the relationship. It was odd, but so sweet at times and made me root for them to stop their apocalypse.We got to see familiar faces like Angel, Spike, and Willow, though without Buffy in their lives they're more evil. The story was a fun flip of the show and easy to jump into.I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thank you to Hyperion Avenue and NetGalley for the copy.

Excelente libro. Este multiverso es bastante interesante. Los personajes están muy bien construidos y me gusta la perspectiva de los villanos. Sin duda lograron capturar la escencia del programa de televisión en una nueva y novedosa historia

Padrisimo