Product Description

First of a gripping new three-volume crossover series which uses characters and settings from both Buffy and Angel. Salma de la Navidad, a friend of Buffy's from Sunnydale High, turns to the Slayer for help. Her family are recent immigrants to America, and now she fears that her brother, in an attempt to gain social acceptance, has stumbled into gang warfare. Not just any gang warfare, either: this battle has a supernatural dimension. To make matters worse, an unknown creature is stalking the streets of Sunnydale - a creature that Buffy is sure has its roots on Angel's home streets of L.A. Meanwhile, in the City of Angels, Cordelia stumbles upon a cult of runaway kids who worship vampires and Angel investigates an invisible presence which has been causing havoc in the local prisons. As Buffy and Angel pool information about their respective discoveries, it soon becomes clear that there has to be a connection...With action taking place in both Los Angeles and Sunnydale, THE BURNING is the beginning of a fabulous new crossover series which will continue with Unseen 2: THE DOOR TO ALTERNITY in August 2001 and Unseen 3: THE LONG WAY HOME in October.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #103236 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 274 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Burning is the action-packed first volume of the "Unseen" trilogy. It's also the first crossover novel linking "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel". Buffy, Angel and their friends become involved with several apparently separate problems involving black magic, runaway teenagers, street gangs and police corruption. In Sunnydale, Nicky de la Natividad, the brother of a friend of Willows, has become involved with a powerful gang, the Latin Cobras. He invokes ancient Aztec magic to render himself invulnerable to harm, but his meddling unleashes dangerous forces. In order to fight them Buffy and Willow travel to LA, where Buffy is not looking forward to encroaching on Angel's turf. Meanwhile, Angel is called in to investigate the case of Rojelio Flores, who has been wrongfully arrested for murder. Both the jail and Rojelio's home appear to be possessed, with objects flying around by themselves. While Angel is trying to protect the Flores family, Cordelia meets a group of runaway girls who want to become vampires. The book ends with Buffy and Angel arguing as they face danger together, nicely set up for volume two: Door to Alternity. There's a lot going on, and as yet very few answers, but Nancy Holder and Jeff Mariotte are both veterans of the Buffyverse, and the reader is free to enjoy the ride, confident that everything will come clear by the end of volume three, Long Way Home. If the other two volumes match this one, it will be an exhilarating experience. --Elizabeth Sourbut

About the Author
NANCY HOLDER is the author of numerous Buffy and Angel bestsellers and co-author of The Watcher's Guide volumes One and Two. JEFF MARIOTTE is Senior Editor at DC Comics. In addition to tie-in novels for both Buffy and Angel he is co-author of The Watcher's Guide Volume Two.

Customer Reviews

Buffy and Angel take on magical monsters and an L.A. gang
Buffy and Angel do not learn that they are in a crossover story until fairly late in "The Burning," the first book in the "Unseen" trilogy by Nancy Holder and Jeff Mariotte, which is to be expected since there are two more books to go (Yes, I did not start the first book until the third one was published because I do not like to wait for the next volume). It is the summer after the downfall of the Initiative and Buffy and Willow are trying to help Salma de la Navidad, a fellow student at UC-Sunnydale, who is upset that her brother Nicky has disappeared. From this rather simple beginning the Slayer becomes involved in a case involving magic and gangs as well as invisible monsters. Meanwhile, in L.A., Angel is working on a case that he thinks involves poltergeists, but which really involves supernatural abilities, corrupt cops and the Russian Mafiya. When Buffy discovers that what is happening in Sunnydale has its roots in L.A., she visits Angel's turf. Only at the very end of the book does our unhappy couple finally discover the two cases are related, which is about where you would expect the connection to be made given this is a trilogy. Actually, the subplot involving Cordelia and Wesley dealing with a group of young girls who are vampire wannabes is more interesting at this point. Of course there is even a hint that this all links up with the main plot lines as well.

The strengths of "The Burning" as the opening volume in this trilogy are as follows. First, the mystery appears to be big enough to give Buffy, Angel and the rest of the gang plenty to do. Second, the evil this time around is magic rather than vampires, which is nice because it gives Willow more to do. The best new character in the novel is Dona Pilar, the bruja of the Navidad family who has some opportunities to take our red-headed wicca in training under her wing. Third, the large number of Hispanic characters work well, not only because it introduces some nice mystical elements into the Buffy mythos, but also because there is a large Hispanic population in Southern California which really deserves to be represented by more than the Inca Mummy Girl. Fourth, the story gets Buffy out of Sunnydale. I have always been in favor of Buffy road trips, especially after "The Ghost Roads" trilogy. I know L.A. is only a hop, skip and a jump for the Slayer, but new turf is new turf. Finally, I love it when Buffy uses the name "Anita" as a cover. Nothing like a good homage to make my day.

The main problem with "The Burning" has to do with the relationship of the main characters. Riley is edgy about Buffy and Angel, Buffy is edgy about Angel and Cordelia, Tara is edgy about Willow and the known universe, etc. Yes, most of this makes sense at face value, but there is a sort of tentativeness to all this angst. These feelings get repeated over and over again without anything really happening and I think I know why. The major problem for dealing with the relationships on "Buffy" and "Angel" is that things are so fluid on the show that by the time one of these novels comes out, things can be radically different. By the time "The Burning" came out, Riley was long gone. This sort of forces the authors of these books to tread water with the characters since you cannot really create any epic moments between them because they are reserved for the two television series. So when Buffy is miffed with Angel because he does not drop everything to come help her as soon as she shows up in "his" town, it comes across as motivated more by plot concerns ("Buffy is mad at Angel in Book 1, but then they make up in Book 3") than true characterization. However, Holder and Mariotte have set up some solid elements to be explored in the rest of the trilogy, which is enough to justify four stars at this point. Now we shall see what happens next in "Door to Alternity." True, Holder is co-writing this trilogy with someone other than Christopher Golden, but she is still the finest belly dancer writing Buffy books today.

Good story but the details will bug devoted fans
Firstly I must say that I did enjoy the book, if I hadn't I wouldn't be reading the second in the series. But there were small details which bugged me. The author hasn't kept quite to the buffy version of vampires etc, which seems silly as this is a buffy book. Major nit-pick .... Angel likes food, he likes to eat, drink be merry. Makes him feel less of a monster and more part of society. Oh and anybody noticed the peanut butter thing, nobody eats that stuff for the texture.

If it weren't for the little details this would be a great book, it probably still is, I'm just a perfectionist.

Not Worth The Paper It's Printed On
I like Buffy The Vampire Slayer ... that I reviewed the series 1 DVD box set so positively is evidence of that. I like Angel, admittedly nowhere near as much as Buffy, but I still like it as it, being a spin-off, is set in the same universe as Buffy and adds to the overall story and interest in the Buffy universe. I also like the idea of crossovers where a particular scenario is crossed with another one in what is usually, or should be I feel, an attempt to investigate what will happen when that is done ... much like we have done with our Star Trek vs. Babylon 5 crossover series ("Enterprise In Babylon"). Certainly I feel a "crossover" should cross two different scenarios to even merit the title.

It was with that in mind that, when visiting a book store in Canterbury, I picked up this book and wondered exactly how a "crossover" could be written when there isn't a great deal to cross?

The book, as a story, seemed competently enough written but I nevertheless failed to enjoy it. Sure it had vampires, fights, some witticisms and a fairly cohesive story line but that, when writing something that has already been demonstrated as excellent is not enough. It needs to reflect the real characters in the series, their humour, their smart-aleck teenage quips, the insight into teenage angst the series (to my mind) so accurately portrays and unfortunately this book doesn't.

Quite why the authors decided to call this a "crossover" series is beyond me as, with Angel being a direct Buffy spin-off and set in the same "Buffyverse", there is very little of interest that can be explored ... all the story does is bring two sets of characters that already know each other well into a single story line.

So the book is not really a crossover but is reasonably competently written ... I say competently but it is not written excellently. I have read a fair number of fiction books in my life, most of them science fiction, some of them humorous, some of them horror and even a few that are spin-offs and I would be willing to recommend many of them for various reasons ... unfortunately this book isn't one of them.

Not only does the story inadequately reflect the characters I have come to know and love in Buffy & Angel TV series but the author's also play a rather nasty trick on their readers.

By around a third of the way through the book I was becoming restless and losing interest, by halfway through I wanted to read something else, anything else and the only things that kept me going were the fact that I wanted to review the book and needed to complete it to do so fairly and that IK wanted to see the storylines, such as they were, brought to a conclusion, I wanted the 't's' crossed and the 'i's' dotted, I wanted the story bought to a reasonable conclusion.

But even that small mercy was denied me ... as I started stubbornly into the final chapter I began to realise that there were simply too many different aspects of the story to bring together and I began, instead, to wonder which would be concluded and which wouldn't? The answer, I am sad to say, was none ... the book is not a complete story and all of it's thread lines are apparently to be resolved later.

This both surprised and disappointed me ... nothing was intimated on the cover to suggest this (though I realised it was part of a trilogy), it was a book and by rights it should have had some of its components brought to a conclusion. Sadly this was not to be so, the one possible saving for the book, the authors chose to deny its readers.

I'm sorry Nancy, I'm sorry Jeff but not only will I not be recommending this book (and by implication its sequels) but I would not be willing to part with any more of my hard earned monies to subject myself to more of your work.