Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Lost Slayer by Christopher Golden
01/06/2003 . Source: Sue Davies 

pub: Pocket Books/Simon and Schuster. 573 page paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-7434-6221-1.

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College is Hell for Buffy. It's the first term and she is already struggling. Her two lives as Buffy Summers - Cheerleader retired and the Chosen One are definitely conflicting.

She's fallen behind with her work and has already made a disastrous choice of bedfellow, being humiliated by the philandering Parker.

It doesn't help that Buffy can see her very best friend Willow is right at home in the serious worky atmosphere. Something's got to give and Buffy makes an emotional decision that has dire consequences for herself and all her friends.

There is a new breed of vampire in town and just like the unions, they're organised. Bigger evil is afoot than is usual even for Sunnydale.

Buffy feels unable to work with her usual team and this makes it likely that mistakes will happen. Stranded in a nightmarish world where vampires rule, she has to track back her fateful moves to make things right.

Before she can do that she must tidy house here and now. 'The Lost Slayer' is made up of four books previously released individually. The competent transcriber of the Buffy world is Chris Golden who is perfectly at home in these mean streets.

To some extent, the compilation shows and could have been tidied before issuing as a complete novel. The unnecessary repetitions do slow the tale down but I can live with it.

It's not to give too much away that this deals with a time-line and we are straying into Voyager territory playing with realities. Taking Buffy at a point before Season 4 throws up its own issues means he can play around with the realities a little.

The bonus is that the toys can be seriously broken but won't affect either future novels or the series on the television. It also makes it unnecessary to introduce characters simply to have them be sacrificed although this happens, too.

Something to keep you going for an enjoyable couple of hours when Buffy's gone forever from our screens, apart from the reruns ... .

Sue Davies