Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Visitors

Buffyverse Novels #38

by Laura Anne Gilman, Josepha Sherman

Dance of Death

The paranormal forces centered in Sunnydale attract the vilest kinds of evil: vamps, demons...and student teachers? An invasion of collegians testing their teaching prowess on Buffy and her peers coincides with the arrival of a supernatural stalker. The Slayer feels the evil entity watching her every move, and she's not the only one. But researching the beast is going to be problematic with the student teachers setting up shop in Giles's home turf -- the school library.

When the stalker starts to take his malicious game to the next level, Buffy finds herself face to face with a being unlike any she's ever encountered. But can she figure out its weakness before she is forced to participate in its dance of death?

Genres: Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Fantasy, Vampires, Young Adult, Paranormal, Fiction, Horror

165 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Laura Anne Gilman’s work has been hailed as “a true American myth” by NPR, and praised for her “deft plotting and first-class characters” by Publishers Weekly. She has won the Endeavor Award for THE COLD EYE, and been shortlisted for a Nebula, (another) Endeavor, and a Washington State Book Award. Her work includes the Devil’s West trilogy, the Cosa Nostradamus urban fantasy series, the Vineart trilogy, and the story collection WEST WINDS’ FOOL. Her upcoming move, UNCANNY TIMES, will be out from Saga Books in 2022.

She lives in Seattle with a cat, a dog, and many deadlines.

Reviews

[Jim C · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book based on the television series. It takes place at the beginning of season three. In this one a demon is stalking Buffy. This demon's power is that it makes its victim dance to their death.

I have been on a good run with these media tie-in books from this universe but all good things must come to an end. This one read like fanfiction. There were several aspects that I had an issue with and one wasn't the book's fault. The demon making their victim dance reminded me so much of one of the best episodes on this show from season six. This was written before that so it was an unfair comparison. I just could not help it. That being said I still tried to keep an open mind. The main problem is that we introduced elements that I believed were going to be germane to the story. But we never explored them. The other problem was the inclusion of a minor character from the show and his purpose. He did nothing except make a phone call. I think the author put into the book aspects that she enjoyed about the show and these aspects had nothing to do with the overall story. It took me out of the main arc.

I just want to be entertained when reading these type of books. I also want them to remain true to the established lore and bring out the vibe I have while watching the show. This book did not accomplish that. Some of it cannot be blamed on the book itself as the show sort of did the story better later on. Even if we put that issue aside there were other parts that did not exactly do it for me. Mainly the avoidance of exploring aspects introduced and abandoning them. I would skip this media tie-in book and try a different one.

[Alejandro · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the first time, with feeling!


WAIT, DIDN'T I READ THIS BEFORE?

One of the coolest episodes of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer is "Once More, with Feeling", the breakthrough musical episode, waaaaaay before this concept would become a trendy in other TV shows like Scrubs, Community, The Flash or Once Upon a Time, hey! even before than Glee!

And definitely it stands, in my humble opinion, like the best one employing that concept, having even its own OST (yep, I have it!), BUT...

...when I watched it, I had this feeling (pun intended) that I had seen something like it.

Obviously, it was a musical and I like musical movies, but on TV, watching a musical episode was something odd, even for me, soooooo...

...where? And why it seems even related with Buffy, the Vampire Slayer too?

Mmmh...

...well, after watching the episode, enjoying to the fullest (and I still do everytime that I re-watch it again, with feeling (sorry, I couldn't resist))...

...I remembered where!


IT WAS HERE, IN THIS NOVEL!

I had read this prose novel, back then, in 2000, and you can bet that I read A LOT of other stuff, from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and from other franchise and other kind of books and comic books, so excuse me if I didn't remember any sooner...

...in this prose novel, there is a monster who sings to people, feeding of their auras, while the victims have to dance until dying.

So, it's not the same per se, but it's quite similar for not mentioning it.

This book was published in 1999 and the TV episode was produced in 2001, so it could astonishing if the production team of the TV series didn't get some inspiration out of this prose adventure.

At least, they are enough different in development and situations, it's not like the scam performed in Angel with the episode "Spin the Bottle" that it's absurdly too similar to Buffy episode "Tabula Rasa" (Hellooooo, people! We, fans of Buffy were watching Angel too, did you really think that we wouldn't notice it? Geez!).


DARK SIDE OF THE BUFFY, VOL.1

So, this story is set during the Third Season of Buffy and along with the singing beast, you'll have a surprising return of a recurrent enemy of the Scooby Gang, and not quite often there are several student characters made exclusively for this story, even a Watcher! But don't worry, Giles is there too!

I can't deny that a singing menace, developed in a prose novel, lacks of certain impact since you won't be hearing anything out of it, but still it's a cool adventure to read.

Specially one that I have no doubt it was an inspiration for one of the best episodes in the TV series.

Rock On!

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a YA-ish third season Buffy adventure, a very well-written quick rocking read with a musical demon. Student teachers were always kind of scary, weren't they? Buffy and Giles seemed especially realistic, but Willow reading someone else's diary seemed a bit on the wicked side. Grr-Arrrgh.

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really should know better, you know? Movie adaptations and TV show tie-in books are rarely any good. They generally fall solidly in the realm of 'okay,' and this one is no exception. It's really trying, really hard, to be an episode of the TV show, but sometimes it's trying too hard and sometimes it's failing badly. The trying too hard tended to manifest as trying to include every single aspect of every character, which is not possible in a single episode or book, and sometimes it manifested as writing out a character's stutter.... (Giles says 'ah,' 'er' and 'uh' a lot in this book. Also 'well.') The failures were plot threads that wandered around and then exited stage left without having done anything, and the book taking too damn long to get to the point. This could probably have been solved in five minutes--it basically took as long as it did because the creature didn't want to come out and play.

The plot threads that do nothing part was the most annoying of all, and very nearly dropped this book down to one star. The student teachers show up, are annoying, and then disappear. Sheila, one of the student teachers, shows up, is pretty much pinpointed as the reason the creature turned up in Sunnydale, and then disappears. A Council guy shows up, is threatening and annoys Giles (and therefore the reader, because leave Giles alone!!!), and then is like 'hehehe, good job, just kidding,' and then disappears. Ethan Rayne shows up (woohoo! Always a good time, right? Right? ...Right? ... Wrong), teases Giles a bit, and then--you guessed it, he disappears. Why are you here if you aren't going to do anything??? But at least the creature tries to kill Xander and Cordelia, so it was at least trying to do something before it left.

Oh, and Angel appeared for about a page and a half, and he's a constant source of irritation, but then he disappeared without doing anything, too, so that was okay.

There was a saving grace, though. There were some quality Buffy and Giles moments, some real friendship for all of them, and the banter, particularly Buffy/Giles banter, was well-written and actually managed to make me smile a couple of times. So that gave it the second star, because I did get some enjoyment from it.

So do I recommend this? If you're not a fan of the show, then...no, of course not? If you are a fan of the show, then it depends on your tolerance level. If you want to read only awesome books, no, don't bother, but if you don't mind reading something that's just okay, then yep, go for it. It can't hurt you.

[Shirley]

Most of the time I finish my books, but I just couldn't finish this one. I didn't even get far, it was so slow and it took so much to keep reading. I just had to stop. Maybe I can finish it later, but now I just can't.

[Ronald Wilcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty true representations of the main characters. New protagonist drawn from ancient legends

[Nati Booknerd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es hat mich mal wieder ins Buffyuniversum verschlagen 😊😊 Das Buch hat 150 Seiten mit aber sehr kleiner Schrift. Ich habe es bei @medimops.de gekauft weil man dort diese Bücher echt teilwiese zu einem super Schnäppchenpreis gebraucht bekommt :)
In diesem Band geht Buffy noch zusammen mit Xander,Cordelia,Willow und Oz zusammen zur Schule. In der Schule ist eine Horde Lehramtsreferendare unterwegs und sie besetzen sehr zum Missfallen von Giles und den Scoobies ständig die Kommandozentrale,sprich die kleine Schulbibliothek. Gleichzeitig mit dem antreffen der Referendare ist plötzlich ein seltsames Wesen in Sunnydale aufgetaucht das es toll findet die Jägerin auf ihrer Jagd zu beobachten. Nicht nur das,dieses Wesen saugt seine Energie aus den Menschen heraus indem es sie zwingt bis zum Exitus zu tanzen.Als ob das nicht schon reichen würde tauchen gleich 2 alte Bekannte von Giles in der Stadt auf. Doch beide sind ihm nicht unbedingt gut gesonnen! Mehr möchte ich hier nicht zum Buch schreiben damit es noch spannend bleibt .
Meine Meinung zum Buch : Ich habe es sehr schön gefunden auch in richtiger Buchform wieder in die Welt von Buffy und ihrer Scoobies einzutauchen. Da ich jede einzelne Folge der 7 Staffeln gut kenn war es kein Problem für mich in das Buch einzusteigen. Für einen Neuling im Buffyuniversum allerdings ist es nicht so leicht alles zu verstehen.

[Jonathan Currinn (Good Star Vibes) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Buffy book down, another 100 or so to go, the pile is definitely endless!

There are many things I loved about this book. The idea of the Korred. The introduction of Panner, so much like a real character I searched Google to see if such a person had appeared in the TV series, no such person.

Every single character was down to a tee, and the pop-up of Ethan Rayne was a surprise, and although we could've done without him as he did nothing but taunt Giles, it gave us a whole new perspective that made this book a little more entertaining.

Not only that but there was perspective from the Korred :O which took me by surprise.

Bad thing: It was slow going, I think the constant change of character's perspectives failed to keep me eager to read on, I feel that they should've been separated via chapters and not pauses.

This book should've been a quick read for me, but no such luck... That is the only reason why I marked it down, maybe it was due to the writing style... I just don't know.

But the added extra of Buffy and Giles bonding over the way Britain and America pronounce the word "schedule" had me in giggles.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge Buffy fan, so I tend to like anything from the Buffy-verse. That said, this was an interesting, quick read. There isn't a lot of action, and there are no revelations of character. It's just a peek at the off-time of the slayer.

The story is somewhat disjointed, as the overall theme is that Sunnydale is overrun by visitors: student teachers, visiting bands for the battle of the bands competition, Ethan Rayne, a Watcher named Panner, and the monster of the week, the Korred. The "just passing through to bug you" theme can be confusing for some readers. No, there is no point for Ethan to be there. The battle of the bands doesn't really matter. The watcher Panner doesn't matter or affect the story. That's the point, though. They are all just visitors passing through. If you can deal with pointless characters just to read a fun Buffy story, then you will dig this book.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this might be the most disappointing of the Buffy books I've read so far. The plot itself feels very thin - as probably evidenced by the fact there are several extra elements thrown together that end up not really having any bearing on the plot at all (student teachers? Watchers Council? Ethan Rayne?)

I could forgive a little bit of a weak plot if the characterisation and dialogue was there, but unfortunately this felt a lot like someone had put the Buffy episodes into a random dialogue generator. Everything felt quite two-dimensional and juvenile - Cordelia has some very lame retorts against Buffy, Willow spends a lot of time 'translating' what Giles has to say. It all felt very much like the authors had watched a few episodes, gotten to know the archetypes, and were just going based on that. It was missing a lot of the genuine depth and chemistry of the characters.

(And I know it's hard to write a book about an ongoing show, but it's kind of funny that in this book a representative of the Council arrives to 'observe' the Slayer, sees that they're doing a great job, and then later in Season 3 we have the episode 'Helpless' that really has quite the opposite effect. I won't hold it against the authors, but it is jarring!)

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written, good ideas but felt a bit random? We had all these little things, student teachers just for one teacher (with an odd family history in Wales) who was the reason for the korred appearing.. Ethan turning up was literally pointless and he admitted it himself in the story. I felt it was 140 pages of filler and 20 pages of a mediocre ending.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

It only got two stars because I love Buffy so much. The writing was terrible, didn't sound like the characters. And I didn't need to read everyone's mind all the time, it whipped through POVs so fast my head hurts!

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very dull tv tie in. For some reason it adds a load of extraeneous characters in with absolutely no pay off. At least the main characters seemed true to themselves, with the exception of Cordelia. She was a bit more like season 1 Cordelia here.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ending is far more open than anticipated, but characterization is accurate, and the quips are ... quippy. And there's a logical reason for the creature to be in Sunnydale. A fun read, which is what I hope for in tie-ins.

[Sidney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a boring episode. Not nearly the action that the other books in the series have had. Oh well, on to the next.

[Rachael · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Katie Tate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love anything Buffy related and this story was really enjoyable. The characters felt true and the storyline was good.

My only criticism was it felt a little bit too short.

[Blake · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible

[Thomas Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun easy read!

[Kimberly Hirsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always, Sunnydale is a magnet for demonic activity, and in Visitors that activity comes in the form of the korred, a demon that dances its victims to death. Keep in mind that this book was released long before the original airing of the musical episode, "Once More, With Feeling," featuring a demon with a similar modus operandi. The korred wants Buffy as a victim, thanks to her super Slayer energy, but it spends a lot of time stalking her and giggling before it gets up the nerve to try anything. Side plots involve a band of student teachers taking up residence in the library ("Does this look like a Barnes & Noble?") and everyone's favorite guest character, Ethan Rayne, dropping in for a visit.

Visitors is a flawed book, and I am going to enumerate those flaws. But before I do, I want to establish that it is by no means a bad book. It sets out to provide some quick entertainment for Buffy fans, and it succeeds at that. The character voices, while not spot on, are close enough to satisfy the reader needing a Buffy fix. The plot adheres to all the show's conventions. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is far from bad.

Visitors suffers primarily from the biggest problem with any TV tie-in: the characters are safe. I knew the korred wasn't going to make Buffy dance to death and then eat her. I knew, because I knew the show went on well past 1999. I knew, because authors of tie-ins aren't allowed to kill major characters. The absence of real danger hurts every tie-in, not just this one, but it stayed especially present in my mind with this book for some reason. Because of this, I never got very invested in the story.

Visitors also makes poor use of Ethan Rayne. I don't know that I've read a Buffy tie-in or fanfic that didn't involve Ethan Rayne randomly showing up for a bit of chaotic fun. I put him in my own fic as an agent of Drusilla, so feel free to call me a hypocrite. He's always tragically underused and the resolution of his story is always murky. If you've got trouble, you've just got to have Ethan, haven't you? He makes things so much more fun. His presence in Visitors was absolutely unnecessary. He followed the korred around and not much came of it. He didn't even interact with the Scooby Gang much.

The final flaw I want to mention is one that won't bother most people, but bugged me immensely: the sheer wrongness of the use of student teachers in the book. The student teachers are set up as a sort of side-villain, sketchy because of their constant presence in the library, funny because they all seem to have a crush on Giles. Having been a student teacher myself, I found this element of the story entirely implausible, and it really took me out of it, in the same way someone in the medical profession might have trouble watching House, or a forensics specialist might complain about CSI. Student teachers at a public school would not go by their first names. They wouldn't gather in the library and ogle the librarian, most likely. They would teach class every once in a while. I could go on, but as I said, this is a relatively minor point.

In sum: Visitors is good if you're looking for a quick, fun read with some good Buffy-style one-liners and a typical Monster of the Week plot. If you're looking for a deeper examination of the show's themes or Whedon-quality writing, however, I suggest you pick up one of the other tie-in novels. Perhaps something by Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder. Just a suggestion.

[Slayermel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Student Teachers have invaded Sunnydale high and along with it Giles’s library. Where are the Slayerettes supposed to discuss things when they are being driven out of their own library? It seems that the Student Teachers aren’t the only new thing in town. Buffy senses a presence stalking her, one that’s definitely giving her goose bumps and making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She has only seen a shadow, but she’s heard the eerie giggle that seems to accompany it.
To top it all off there are two more visitors in town, Ethan Rayne and a member from the watchers council.

I really enjoyed this story, as it was new and not based on an episode of Buffy. I enjoyed the fact that I was able to laugh out loud at quite a few of the parts, as well as the fact that the story itself was based around season three which was one of my favourite seasons. :0)

I would definitely recommend this book to any Buffy fan

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as Buffy books go, this is definitely one of them. If I'd read this a few years ago, I'd go with two stars, but since I've seen how awful some of these can be, I'm giving this one a little bit of a boost just by virtue of not being unreadable.

The monster here was lame as hell, at least in his method of killing. There was a lot thrown in that didn't amount to anything, the most glaring being Ethan Rayne hanging around and even having entire passages from his perspective for no good goddamn reason. At first I thought they'd red herring him a little bit, but he was exonerated almost as soon as he appeared. There was also a fellow watcher hanging around for a couple of scenes and serving no purpose at all. Cordelia is oddly annoying in that her mean-spirited sassiness is more mean than spirited.

What is with these double-authored books? This is the third I've read this month, and I just don't understand the practice. It's clearly not leading to a collectively stronger output.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick read and a welcome return to Sunnydale.

A Cornish folk monster is stalking the streets, making people dance to death. That's all folks ....

Like a lot of these short YA Buffy novels, they're isn't a huge amount of depth or much of a plotline, and they rely on the reader being a fan to add in your own context. However, the 'monster' was interesting, even if the reason for it being in Sunnydale just seemed a bit 'pat'. The secondary storylines of the student teachers, the rep from the Watcher's council and the Battle of the Bands, weren't really explored ..... with a monster that whistles music to feed on people, wouldn't you have had the showdown where all the Bands were playing?

Anywho ..... this kept me entertained for an hour or so, and I did smile in places at the Scooby Gang's banter.

Worth reading if you're a Buffy fan, but if you're not, you might find it a bit flat.

[Angela · Rating 1 out of 5]

UG! this book tried to do too much. there were student teachers, and Ethan Rayne, and an earth monster, and a Watcher's Watcher, and and and. For being such a short book 163 pgs, I thought I would have it done in a day, maybe two...it took over a week!! I just couldn't get myself to care about this one. although it is amusing to think...the earth monster made his victim's dance and he took their life force ---- HMMMMMM, does that sound vaguely like Sweet from OMWF?? and this book was before OMWF...did Joss steal it?? hmmmmmmm.

[Randy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Probably the lamest/worst buffy book I have ever read (and trust me, I've read a lot). It's as if the authors tried to cover many different things in such a small book. For example, Ethan Rayne is around, yet...... they don't really explain why he is in town, what he is up to, or why he leaves. But hey...at least the book keeps the scoobies alive for me.

[Doreen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fast read, fairly unsubstantive but a nice diversion. It's amazing how dated the 90s slang feels already. Nice to revisit the Sunnydale gang, but nowhere near as good as the show, or even some of the other novelizations/spin-offs.

[Seth Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great. If you are a Buffy fan than these books are a fun distraction. This book read like an episode and was a quick read. So if you enjoyed Season 3 of Buffy (in which this story is set) then I'd pick this book up and enjoy the nostalgia.

[Logan]

i watch the show i9t awsome

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

More good season 3 era stuff