Product Description

Stage fright takes on a whole new meaning as Willow joins a theatre group and finds herself taking part in a truly hellish drama...The past couple of years have seen Willow's Wiccan powers develop to an impressive -- and potentially dangerous -- level, as viewers of Buffy Season Six will know. But even the most confident of witches has her deepest secret fears, and Willow's have always involved performing on stage in front of an audience. In her near-fatal dream sequence in the crucial Season Five episode 'Restless', it was this fear that enabled the Primal Slayer to enter her consciousness in order to destroy her as she slept. So when Willow decides to join the UC Sunnydale Drama Group in order to master her fear, it's a major step for her to take. But forgetting her lines or corpsing on stage soon turn out to be the least of her worries, as the drama that's being enacted on the hellmouth is most emphatically no play. With Spike as her unexpected ally, can Willow take a leading role or will she die -- for real?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #608845 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

About the Author
ASHLEY McCONNELL is the author of more than a dozen fantasy, horror and media novels. DORI KOGLER is completing a Masters degree in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature and THESE OUR ACTORS is her first novel.

Customer Reviews

If you're a Spike fan, this is a MUST!
Although this book appears to be a story about Willow (she is the main character on the cover) it is in fact mostly about Spike. Being a Spike fan, I am extremely critical of any novels written and find books that can't quite capture Spike's edge, very irritating. 'These our Actors' fills in all the 'gaps' which the Buffy the Vampire Slayer tv series has left out. As you read on, you find out more and more about Spike's past, and exactly what he was like when he first became a vampire. There's even mentions of the times he spent with Angel, Darla and of course, Dru.
The one and only complaint I have about this book, is that in a certain section (before Spike has become a vampire, and is known as William), the lines spoken are incorrect (if you're a Buffy the Vampire slayer fan you would recognise the scene from the season 5 episode, 'Fool for Love'. If you haven't seen this episode, then you won't even notice anything wrong).
I couldnt put this book down, and found myself re-reading certian sections because I enjoyed them so much the first time. The characters are all well written (especially Spike!) and I was really happy to find a Buffy the vampire slayer novel which was mainly about Spike, and that didn't contain Buffy! I loved this novel, and hope that another one like it will be published!

Willow and Spike take on the Addams Family (now and then)
As the front cover indicates, "These Our Actors" by Ashley McConnell and Dori Koogler features Willow the good Wicca of Southern California with the Big Bad Spike. Willow is taking a drama class at UC-Sunnydale and when helping at the theater she discovers the place contains the spirits of characters from plays performed in the past. The class is taught by Professor Addams, who has some interesting ideas on the relationship between drama and magic rituals. Even more interesting, we learn that Spike knows Addams from the days when he was still human. It seems Addams is interested in going back to the time before the first drama, when the point was to literally invoke the gods. Of course, this begs the question as to why Addams would want to do such a thing, but you know it just cannot be for anything good.

"These Our Actors" is one of those plays where we alternate chapters between the past and the present (and if the two authors each took one time line my guess would be McConnell did the story set in the past concerning Spike and Koogler did the tale set in the present with Willow and her drama class). Although I have to profess that I am getting a bit tired of blasts from the past showing up in seemingly every "BtVS" novel, the parallel story lines work well here for the most part. The story of Spike in the past also deals with what happened right before and after Drusilla turned William the Bloody (Bad Poet) into a vampire, an event that was covered in flashback in the episode "Fool for Love." Of course, this finally gives us an opportunity to get around to the obvious scene that was missing from that episode, namely how Spike got his name, as the new vampire takes his revenge on those who taunted them. Under the story telling principle that it is a small world after all, Cecily, the object of William's affection who taunted and humiliated him, is the daughter of Addams. For me the highpoint of the novel was when Spike--albeit it with help from Drusilla, Angelus and Darla--take his revenge on Addams and his daughter. It is really evil, wicked, bad, mean and nasty. I think I actually shuddered when it became clear what was going to happen.

Overall, "These Our Actors" does a nice job of capturing the character of Spike, especially in the story line dealing with the time he became a vampire. I am not exactly sure when the story takes place in the show's chronology, but apparently it was a time when Buffy was still taking classes or at least considering doing so, but also when Willow is comfortable going public with her relationship with Tara. That suggests early (?) in season 6. This only matters because I think the characterization of Willow skews too much towards the "old" Willow who tended to lack self-confidence as a Wicca. But then I usually find that most writers of these original novels based on the hit TV series created by Joss Whedon are so enraptured with the "original" Willow that they resist recognizing her growth and maturity on the series. Drusilla, Angelus and Darla are more central to the story than Buffy, which is fine for this tale, and I especially like the way Dru is depicted in the novel. There is also a treat for students of drama as memorable lines from great plays are sprinkled throughout the book, testing your knowledge of who said what when (e.g., "Attention must be paid").

Finally, I have to take issue with something that was tossed off in this novel. No, it is not the question of how a vampire survives on an ice flow for a month without the sun getting to them or whether Medea the princess of Colchis was ever properly considered a queen when she lived in Greece with Jason, but rather the extremely disparaging remarks Giles makes about Anoulih's version of "Antigone." I do not think the French dramatist can be faulted for using the ancient Greek myth about the ill-fated daughter of Oedipus as a text from which to construct a morality play that would speak to the situation of France under the German occupation during World War II. But more to the point, Anoulih's modern version has the virtue of making the title character the main character of the play. When I teach my students about the key concepts of a Greek tragedy they read "Antigone" and almost always immediately point out that it is Creon, not Antigone, who is the tragic figure in the play. After all, Antigone is executed for obeying the laws of the god and burying her brother (if a handful of dirt on the face can be called burying), but Creon ends up losing his wife and son because of his actions. There are plenty of plays to ridicule, but Anoulih's "Antigone" is not one of them and Giles should have known better.

While not a great "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" novel, "These Our Actors" is certainly well above average without any major faults that make you want to demand a rewrite. The climax is a pretty good payoff for the set up, which is always a good sign in these books. The parallel stories work pretty well, although that usually means you are more interested in one of the two at any given time. But the Spike in the past story line can stand on its own and for that matter so does the Willow in the present once you know how Adams and Spike know (and hate) each other.

Keeping True
I thought this book was GREAT, it stayed true to the characters of Willow and Spike, and we got to find out about Spike's past in detail, which I felt was missing in The TV show. Unfortunately, I did notice that the author(s) made a mistake...they musn't have watched "Fool For Love"!
I have been a Buffy fan for years, and I think this book is the perfect thing for anyone, even if they don't watch Buffy. It includes Dru, Darla and Angelus(Aaaah!), and all the details about Cecily and sweet old William.

~Amelia~