As she did with “Buffy: These Our Actors” (2002), co-written with Dori Koogler, Ashely McConnell writes an “Angel” novel – “Book of the Dead” (July 2004) — that makes me wish she wrote more than two Buffyverse books. Unlike most of the tie-in authors, McConnell isn’t shy about building on the established mythology. “These Our Actors,” which continued the Spike and Cecily story, later got contradicted by the TV series and comics, but “Book of the Dead” hasn’t yet been contradicted, and it therefore stands as a rare window into Wesley’s time at the Watchers’ Academy.
It’s also a nice ode – and cautionary tale — to books and people who love books. Adrian O’Flaherty, Wesley’s rival student at the academy, is in L.A. on a book search, one of the few Watchers to survive the First Evil’s attack in “Never Leave Me” (“Buffy” 7.9). One of the most enjoyable sections of McConnell’s yarn finds Wesley purchasing a box of magick books at an auction, then taking the box home and digging through it.
Wesley literally gets lost in a particularly dangerous magick book, where a Bookwyrm hunts him and other trapped people through stacks of paper and pools of ink. Part of the creature’s power is that it compels people to read the pages so it can sneak up on them. It’s an on-the-nose metaphor, but a deliciously ironic one considering that “Book of the Dead” is one of the easiest “Angel” novels to get lost in.
In addition to a backstory – which slowly unspools throughout the book in italicized sections — showing Wesley’s and Adrian’s first encounter with a vampire, McConnell also introduces us to Lilah’s mother, a great way to add a layer to the evil Wolfram & Hart lawyer.
Set during Season 4, “Book of the Dead” is a decompressed novel at times. For example, when Wes introduces Adrian to Angel, it’s largely for the sake of enjoying his rival’s reaction at meeting a vampire he knows as the predatory Angelus. McConnell enjoyably writes character interplay in the Hyperion Hotel.
She also delivers a solid story about a bullied kid who gets interested in magick books, but then this thread gets sidelined. I guess that’s OK, because I didn’t need a “Carrie” retelling anyway, and I was more interested in Wesley’s adventures. The kid’s storyline does lead to an interesting notion, though: Sometimes the Angel Investigations team doesn’t know when a case is closed. They stop some of the demons accidentally unleashed by the portal-opening youth, but until they find the youth, it remains an open case. Unlike readers or viewers, characters don’t know how many pages or minutes are left in the story.
“Book of the Dead” is slightly more uneven than “These Our Actors,” but McConnell shows impeccable knowledge of all the “Angel” gang while particularly expanding on Lilah, Wesley and the Watchers Council. If this was her final test at the Buffy Writers’ Academy, she passes with flying colors.
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