Product Description

One werewolf's personal journey in seach of truth and enlightenment; When Willow first dated laconic laid-back Daniel Osborne, guitarist with hip campus band Dingoes Ate My Baby, it didn't matter to her that he turned into a werewolf every time there was a full moon. After all, as she said to him, 'Three days of the month I'm not much fun to be around either.' But when Oz's savage instincts threaten to overwhelm him and he fears he can no longer control his impulses even outside the full moon, he decides that he's no longer safe for Willow to be around. Leaving a devastated Willow behind him he drops out of college and vanishes out of her life, telling her only that he will return when he is confident he can control the wolf within. Viewers of Buffy Season Four will know that he does return and that thanks to a sage in Tibet he did indeed learn to master the wolfish part of his nature. Christopher Golden's fabulous tale fills in the gaps...where he went in his search for knowledge and whom he encountered, what happened to him on his travels and exactly how he learned to find that inner strength and peace.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1181976 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 288 pages

About the Author
Christoper Golden was voted the third most popular science fiction author of the year 2000 by the readers of SFX magazine. He is the author of several dark fantasy novels and comic books in addition to numerous Buffy the Vampire Slayer adult novels and reference books which have made him a major UK bestseller.

Customer Reviews

Oz: Into the Weird
I try to write balanced reviews. I try to delineate what an author does well and where he screwed up in even doses whenever possible. Well, that's just not going to be possible with this book, because Christopher Golden did nothing right with "Into the Wild". This book is a disappointment from beginning to end.

Let's start with Oz himself, our favorite cold-blooded jelly donut. Oz is an intense presence, a sponge who soaks up everything around him, cogitates and usually returns a thoughtful gem of truth. The guy in this novel was fairly chatty, never insightful and kind of dorky.

The story: novels about self-discovery have rules, one of the most important being, the person must discover HIMSELF. Oz does not truly come to know himself during the course of the story. he hops a ship, chats with some folks, meets some demons, gets chased by a werewolf hunter. But he never approaches the elusive self, the animal within. Twice Christopher Golden uses the hoary old werewolf plot device, the full moon countdown..."Dateline: Two Days until full moon". If used properly, this can be an effective suspense builder; we know Oz is a good guy and, in the past, the Scooby Gang has always been there to make sure his honor stays intact and he doesn't kill any innocents. But here, alone, without friends, what will the animal inside do? How will he cope? How will we deal with seeing our boy Oz as a savage killer, remorseful and even more driven to curb his wild side? Well, we won't. Because Golden cheaps out and Oz manages to find someone to lock him up JUST IN TIME! It's a copout the first time Golden does this to us; it's insulting the second.

For some inexplicable reason, Golden introduces us to a hot-tempered Fire Demon chick who rides Oz's coattails to Tibet, where she, too, will learn to control her talents. So, somehow, Golden manages to divert the focus from Oz onto this dull, petty, whiny little sprite without enough sense to duck when people are hurling things at her.

And don't get me started on the Tibetan werewolf monks. Jeez. I'd rather live in any town in any "Seven Samurai" remake than hook myself up to these clowns. It's like they hung a sign on the door that says "Come in and kill us. We'll leave the light on for ya".

The pacing was awful, the writing was awful, the characterization was awful. And, oh yeah, the book was awful.