Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Child of the Hunt

Buffyverse Novels #23

by Christopher Golden, Nancy Holder

Attending a traveling Renaissance fair, Buffy and her companions befriend the tragic Roland, the fair's court jester, and must stop the flesh-eating dark faerie, who serve the evil Erl King

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

336 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1998

About the author

CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of such novels as Road of Bones, Ararat, Snowblind, Of Saints and Shadows, and Red Hands. With Mike Mignola, he is the co-creator of the Outerverse comic book universe, including such series as Baltimore, Joe Golem: Occult Detective, and Lady Baltimore. As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies Seize the Night, Dark Cities, and The New Dead, among others, and he has also written and co-written comic books, video games, screenplays, and a network television pilot. Golden co-hosts the podcast Defenders Dialogue with horror author Brian Keene. In 2015 he founded the popular Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival. He was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His work has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award, the Eisner Award, and multiple Shirley Jackson Awards. For the Bram Stoker Awards, Golden has been nominated ten times in eight different categories. His original novels have been published in more than fifteen languages in countries around the world. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com

Reviews

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's many years since I watched Buffy though I enjoyed it at the time so the constant references in this to events in the series may have sometimes gone over my head. It's clear though that this is set after Angel has gone bad and then been redeemed, but not before killing Giles' girlfriend, the teacher Jenny Calendar. Willow is still with Oz and Xander and Cordelia are an item. Buffy has returned after running away - I do recall something about her working as a waitress maybe in LA - but although her mother now knows she is the Chosen One/Slayer, things at home haven't got much easier. Buffy also seems to be at odds with Giles quite a bit of the time and there was a lot of internal monologues of people expressing their general angst. Although Xander attempted to crack jokes they fell a lot flatter than I recall them doing in the TV show, and the book was generally dark, with not much light and shade. It picked up in pace once the various characters finally have to battle the real baddies - there are two different sets of them - and that was more interesting, but I think I'd prefer to go back and watch the programme, hence 2 stars only.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty good story, but not my favorite of the Buffy prose novels. The Wild Hunt just didn't work for me in the Buffy-verse; I thought it worked much better for Mignola in Hellboy. The dialog rang true and the character interaction was fun, though.

[Brent Ecenbarger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of a few Buffy books I read back when the show was on tv (the Gatekeeper trilogy being the others). Going in for a reread twenty years later, the only thing I remembered about this book was Oz going into a half man half werewolf mode. It ends up happening so late in this story I began to doubt if I'd even read this one.

This book deals with some heavy stuff and really ignores most of it, opting for cramming in an extra plot about a renaissance faire instead. The beginning is great, with Buffy killing a kid vampire and then coming home and realizing that the parents of the kid have been worried sick about their missing son (who's now a cloud of dust). Buffy has to deal with the guilty of that; will she tell the parents? No, but the book completely ignores the storyline after the first twenty pages.

There's also a mythological hunt that comes through town, taking everybody who's awake. Some people die instantly, others are taken to a meet an antlers king of the hunt. Among those taken? Seven babies who die in their sleep. Will Buffy has bring them back or acknowledge them in the final battle? No.

I like the novelizations when they deal with things that couldn't be in the tv show, due to violence or adult storylines. Here there are interesting ideas for really heavy subject matter but it all just gets swept away after being mentioned, which feels like both a missed opportunity and shock value for no real story purpose. The best stuff here is the parents of the missing kids, an aspect of Sunnydale which the show never really got into but that would really make sense given the landscape.

I'm not sure where this would fit in season three, but I guess it would be after episode 7. The group is aware of Angel (and ok with him) and the Oz/Willow and Xander/Cordelia couples are going strong. In episode 7, the scooby gang finds out about Angel. In episode 8, the Xander/Willow kiss happens. If that's the case, it's odd there's no mention of Faith in here and that the group is pretty accepting of Angel already.

[Rosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, so this is one of those Buffy books that I've had since it originally came out back in fall of 1998, and in the strongest days of my hyper-fixation on BtVS (1998-2001), I read this particular work probably 6 or 7 times. Despite being the third tie-in novel of season 3 (and the 23rd book in the Buffy universe chronologically), it was only the 8th Buffy novel written (and that's including three books that were film or episode novelizations.) Because of its early writing, there are a few interesting idiosyncrasies to note here as well.

As always when I discuss tie-ins, the first thing I want to talk about is where it fits in with the show's visual canon. Unlike the other two Senior Year Buffy novels that are set before this one, we are given a vague idea of when this adventure is set within the show's visual canon. Golden and Holder obviously had a bit more information on what to expect from the then-forthcoming season 3 while writing this manuscript than they did while penning Blooded, as the actions Angel undertook as Angelus at the end of season 2 are not glanced over here and the fallout actually plays an important side arc for multiple characters in the story. The fact that Buffy ran away for several months and that Buffy and her mom are still adjusting to Buffy's Slayer life style and what that means for Buffy's future is a major emotional thread of the book and follows on directly from 3x02 Dead Man's Party.

But this is where the time setting of the story gets REALLY vague. We can tell it's after 3x02, but Faith is never even mentioned in passing and neither is Buffy's short lived boyfriend Scott, which means the events of 3x03 "Faith, Hope and Trick" have likely not happened and 3x04 "Beauty and the Beasts" DEFINITELY hasn't...but that also means that Angel shouldn't be back from the hell dimension yet.

So while Golden and Holder obviously had a *little* bit more information -- enough to make this book an emotional gut punch all over the place -- they didn't have any particular logistics down regarding the time line of aired episodes.

Despite the temporal logistics being wonky, the emotional story telling here is totally honest and top notch. The show made it clear in 3x02 that Buffy running away destroyed Joyce. When I was eleven, I saw Buffy's side in all things -- Buffy was my hero and could do no wrong in my eyes back then -- and so when Joyce told Buffy, "If you walk out of the door, don't even think about coming back" during "Becoming, Part 2," I was cheering Buffy on when she ran away. And I thought Joyce really needed to get over herself when Buffy finally came back at the end of 3x01 "Anne." As an adult (not a parent, mind you, but a 36 year old adult), I understand Joyce's mentality a lot better. What Joyce said was still wrong, but Buffy's reaction was also wrong as Buffy should have been well aware that Joyce would never have truly meant those words.

What I love about this book is that it takes ideas the show spend one episode touching on and allows us to sit with the emotions associated with them a little bit longer. By the end of 3x02, Buffy and Joyce (and to a lesser extent Willow) are airing out their complicated feelings and 3x03 moves on to making Buffy deal with a different set of emotions about another situation. And the trauma of those four months that Joyce lived in eternal mystery of what was happening with her evil-fighting daughter is just totally glanced over after that. This book illustrates that while the show may have moved on (for reasons of plot), those emotions are still there for those characters and informing their decisions going forward.

As far as plot goes, this is one that stuck with me over the years. This was my introduction to the story of the Wild Hunt (and the Erl King), as well as being the book that got me into Goethe poetry (a weird interest for an eleven year old in the late 1990s, I'll admit) and medieval weaponry. When I was in my 20s and finally got to go to a Ren Faire myself, I spent most of the day in conversation with the metalsmiths discussing various forms of mace weaponry. (In retrospect, my checkouts from my local library in my elementary school days would probably have raised a lot of red flags if people had ever paid attention to it, lol.)

As an adult, I would come across the Wild Hunt again in the writings of one of my favorite YA urban fantasy authors, Cassandra Clare, in the Dark Artifices Trilogy of her Shadowhunters universe. While Clare's version of the Wild Hunt is very violent and based on the same texts and poems and myths as this Buffy novel was, I didn't find Clare's version of the Wild Hunt to steal my mind away as efficiently as Child of the Hunt did. Maybe it's just because I'm older, or maybe because I cared about the characters in the Buffy universe a bit more? I don't know. Just know that if you've read a book series with the Wild Hunt in it before and it didn't do much for you, check this Buffy book out anyway. Maybe you just need a different perspective on it.

Most importantly, the personalities and strengths of all of the Scooby Gang are on display in this book. Even my personal queen, Queen C, is shown nothing but respect by the writers. She's allowed to be catty, but she's also shown to be kind. Xander is shown to have a sharp tactical mind in addition to his witticisms. Just...man, these two writers really understand what's so good about these characters that don't have the obvious strength or intelligence of the other members of the group. Willow, Giles, Angel, and Buffy are written wonderfully as well (they're just not as often written to be as one dimensional as Cordelia and Xander can sometimes be portrayed.)

The only negatives are:
1) Oz's dialogue sounds more like Xander's. To be fair, this is the first book in the series that has Oz as a major player in events; in previous books, he's either only mentioned in passing or has maybe two or three scenes where his relationship with Willow takes center stage, but he's not really involved with the supernatural shenanigans until this book. So I think they just hadn't quite gotten Oz's laconic personality adapted from the screen to print at this stage.

2) The personalities of the parents of Buffy's closest friends all turned out to be very different from what is shown here. That's not really a fault of the book because those were later visual canon reveals, but it is something I noted.

3) While the Ren Faire workers were a good red herring for what was going on with the Wild Hunt, they just kind of disappear before the end and we never find out what happened to them. We know that Richard and Robin were still alive and holding the wall up to protect Sunnydale from the Wild Hunt on that last night, but then they just leave the story with little explanation.

But, man, that book was even better than I remembered. It felt so good to spend time with it again.

[Shiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heard of buffy the vampire slayer but never watched it as at the age of 5 I would have been scared to. So I saw the book in the library and thought why not try it out? At first I was thinking I can't get into this book but then after a few chapters, the book introduces the rest of the gang. Now things get a little more interesting. As I read on I was drawn into the story more and more the further I went on the more I wanted to readreadread! I could feel the emotions displayed in the story, my imagination came to life in fear when I got to the part of the hunt. The hunt, was terror in sight, the way they snatched and killed innocent children was scary. After the book I knew the connections of each of the characters, and knowing that a few friends have watched this series in their childhood I thought about watching the series myself. To my surprise the programme was on series 2 on the syfy channel. Now I'm on series 4. Thanks to reading this book I now really like watching the series on tv. It's so cool!

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

The joy of Buffy, the show, is that it nails both character and plot. The novels so far have been a little patchy on character, and had fairly mediocre plots.

This one, however, gets 5 stars for character. They really nailed them by this point (probably helped by the fact that this came out just before Season 3, so the TV writers had developed the characters enough that the novel writers could get into their shoes comfortably). The dialogue and situations all felt believable, and I genuinely would have believed if this had been a novelisation of an episode... for the most part. A couple of bits seemed stilted, mostly Giles (not sure the Americans had quite worked out how to write British dialogue just right). I particularly enjoyed the scene in the Summers house between Joyce and Cordelia - a pairing that I'm not sure we ever got in the series, but this book made me realise it might have been a nice touch.

Plot-wise, however... I would probably give this a 3. And the thing is, it's not bad, per se, there's just... a lot. There's a Renaissance Faire going on, and there seems to be something weird happening. Oh, and there are "wee folk", little goblin-leprechaun creatures. And also... a hunt, with a Norse God at the helm. I feel like either the Hunt or the Faire would have made decent plots in their own rights, but trying to combine them just left me feeling a little too overwhelmed. Honestly, I'm still not entirely sure where exactly the faerie fit in to the plan of the Hunt. (were they part of the Hunt? Or just a miscellaneous extra? Unclear!!)

There's also a random centaur thrown in, which was DEFINITELY a bit too over-loaded.

This was the longest book in the Buffy novel series so far, and I feel like the characterisation really benefitted from that, but the plot may have benefitted from being whittled down to a singular story and stuck into a 180 page novel like the others.

[Terese · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this one, though it dragged a bit towards the end. I really enjoyed the wild hunt lore and the renaissance fair.

Great book for:
Bangel fans and for Cordelia fans. Cordy is great in this book, while still being true to form. She even gets to rescue Angel and Oz.

Cordy even has the sane thought, when driving Giles’ neighbour home, that she probably shouldn’t let it slip that she a teenager, knows where her adult school librarian lives.

We also get insights into Cordy’s, Will’s, and Xander’s parents, which I thought was great.

What I didn’t like:
Buffy and Giles. She was really snippy with him and it seemed odd. She literally has a ”you’re not my real dad!” Moment with him, which seems odd in s3, whether this is before or after Helpless. Maybe the translation made her sound shorter in tone than was intended, I don’t know. But I found this a strangely intense retort at this time in their relationship:

« Vous savez quoi, Giles? Mon père a virtuellement disparu de ma vie. Je m’y suis habituée, et je n’ai pas besoin que vous preniez sa place. Vous voulez être mon Observateur? D’accord. Vous voulez être mon ami? Ça ne me dérange pas. Mais n’allez pas plus loin. »
Elle sortit en trombe.

And yes, sometimes it dragged a little, but at the same time I did like that the authors took their time with the story and all of characters. Giving them each some time and good moments.

One of the better ones for sure.I’m having a lot of fun re-visiting these books!

[Francisco · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first of the "adult" Buffy novels, as opposed to the YA novels that came before it, Child of the Hunt is notable for being longer, more intricate and more violent than its YA predecessors. However, as in previous Buffy novels by these authors the Sunnydale setting seems more like a way to tie-in what could have been an independent horror/urban fantasy novel into the Buffy universe.

In this case what we have is The Wild Hunt of nordic myth terrorising Sunnydale and taking souls left and right. Of course it's up to the scooby gang to solve the mysteries and save the day. In previous books I've had some qualms with the way Golden and Holder have portrayed the characters, particularly with their tone not feeling that true to the series. This also happens here, but there is considerable improvement from Blooded, for example. Cordelia is particularly more recognizable as the character from the series.

So, the story follows the gang as they visit a Renaissance Faire that arrives in town, while there are plenty of kids disappearing, they soon get drawn into a situation where creepy carnies, a golemy jester and the Erl King get involved. Some of our heroes get taken by the dark faeries, others don't it all builds up to a final, satisfying fight!

[deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many aspects of this felt and read like a real Buffy episode, such as each characters quirks, the dialogue, and just the overall atmosphere. I could really see this playing out in front of me - everything from the Renaissance Festival to the final showdown. Golden has done a solid job of capturing the characters and their personalities.

That being said, boy oh BOY could this book deal with some paring down and editing! It just keeps going and going and going and going... at some point it starts to feel like everyone is trapped in an endless loop of standing around talking, getting capturing, driving in circles, and inner monologuing. Also, there are so many random asides from secondary and even tertiary characters that add nothing to the story: like do we really need three pages on how Xander's mom still sleepwalks and smokes and eats leftover chicken wings? No. No we do not.

It was a fun read, and I particularly enjoyed the moments where the reader is directly in Cordelia's head, but nothing that was a big standout. I have the Gatekeeper Trilogy on hand to read next, so here's hoping that one is a little more cleaned up!

[KJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great Buffy the Vampire Slayer favourite of mine! The story is well-written and got me so wrapped up in it that I finished it much sooner then I expected. The characters are very well portrayed. Sometimes I got so lost in it, it felt like I was watching an episode (excellent when coming to give the readers that in-depth visualization that's sought). This is the Buffy book that led me to purchasing more Buffy books for my growing collection! Would recommend this book for the familiar Buffy fan(s) and the new arrivals to the series as well! I love how there were side stories compressed into one large story. I finished this book very satisfied, and believe me..I will definitely be re-reading this one!

[Sohxpie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a little on the fence with this novel. I enjoyed the writing, Golden and Holder work brilliantly together. I enjoyed seeing more of Oz and Cordelia, I especially enjoyed the latter's role. However, I didn't quite get along with the plot. At times it felt like there was too much going on. There seemed to be two main strands with the Erl King and the Renaissance faire which eventually linked up but it didn't feel like a coherent story. It almost felt like they rushed to tie it all together in the last 50 pages or so. I think this would have worked better as two separate stories.

[Kay Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good book and I enjoyed the characters. I hadn't seen Buffy for a long time, so, I had completely forgotten about Angel turning into Angelous and I had no idea he had eaten Giles' girlfriend. I would have wished that Buffy would have fought vampires, but the King of Erl was interesting. I liked how the author tied the hunt to Thor. I immediately thought of Chris Hemsworth. Lol. Anyway, there's a lot of fight scenes on the final chapters. Very Buffy.

[Brit (Circus_of_Damed) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feels very much like a episode pulled right from season 3 of the show. My favorite seasons are 1-3 so that was amazing. The characters feel exactly like they do in the show at this point in the best way. Perfect 90's nostalgia and fall vibes combined. It not the best written book but it nostalgic wonder and a fun romp with characters i love.

[Malcolm Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy this story, however, it was written by two authors and felt like two stories sort of spliced together.
One story features a carnival that has more going on that it seems.
The other features a faerie folk who go hunting for humans.
There are a couple of loose connections between the two but they both felt very different.
The characters all felt genuine and the pacing was good.

[Randy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just couldn't get into this one. Christopher Golden is one of the best of the Buffy Book authors, but I just couldn't connect to this one. Do not let this particular book shy you away from other Buffy Novels Golden has written.

[Mary Jane Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the details of "the Hunt" were more drawn out and longer than they needed to be, I enjoyed reading this book. The 3 couples: Buffy and Angel, Cordie and Xander ad Willow and Oz fought many evil demons with the help of Giles, it was a disappointment that Spike was not featured.

[Mariah L. Napier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vampires and werewolf? The Wild Hunt and a Renaissance fair? Count me in!

This book takes place in what I believe to be a particularly sweet spot in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series (pre Oz and Willow breakup) and will remain one of my favorite stories within the universe.

[chisholm · Rating 5 out of 5]

enjoy this book loved the everyday familiarity of the subject matter and characters loved this book really popped and came alive for me.

[LJP1610 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder usually are a great writing combination. i didn't like the Renaissance fair. the characterization was great, as was the character interaction (esp. Oz and Angel)

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is certainly more an adult, full novel compared to the others I have read. Really enjoyed it though, lots going on to keep the story going on, from various characters view. Good read.

[BookLoversLife · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

*2.75

[Sam Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok. It was nice to be back in with the scooby gang in Sunnydale.

But the book was kind of hard to follow.

[Kelly Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great Buffy book! Nancy Holder and Christopher Golden are a great duo for this series. Recommend this title!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 this would have been a great film. The huntsmen, the darkness, the gore. I was hooked.

[Elaine]

I had terrible taste back when I read this book, but this is one of the Buffy novelizations (and just one of the many works of junk) I definitely remember reading, so it had some kind of sticking power. This one, I recall, introduced me to the mythology of the Wild Hunt, which I've had kind of a soft spot for ever since, so it has that going for it.

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Buffy novel is around twice as long as most of the others. This means there is more room for the author to write about the characters (yea!) and it ends up helping the plot, too.

The extra space is well worth the effort. The book uses mythology in that it is about Herne, the hunter. He and a bunch of his followers invade Sunnydale. They kidnap some people and kill others.

Xander, Willow and Giles are all taken captive. This leaves Buffy to try and stop the invaders. She's also trying to find out about a child who is with a travelling circus-like group and who seems to be involved in the hunt too.

The authors have the characters down pat; they act and talk just like they do in the television episodes. The plot itself is very interesting and fits well into the Buffy universe.The novel keeps you involved with the story for the entire book. Really a good book to read!

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

As with all books which are written off of a TV series I love, the most important factor for me is whether the characters' voices sound "real". Golden has written many books for the Buffyverse and so is able to get the characters really well which takes that concern off of the table. The next thing is the story itself obviously. Does the plot make sense and is the final battle and defeat of the enemy believable or does it rely on too many lucky coincidences. The good news for this one is that it's a pretty believable storyline and face-off against the enemy, and the enemies defeat, or at least being driven off, is well-played out. Another good read for Buffy fans.

[Jevron McCrory · Rating 3 out of 5]

As confessed before, I haven't read too many Buffy books (Doomsday Deck almost put me off them for life!) but as Golden was penning again, I thought I'd take a chance.

Not bad at all! Imaginative! I really liked the idea of an eternal nightmare hunt that goes on through the ages. Golden's grasp of our Scooby gang was as accurate as ever and I loved the pacing.

In short, it was fun, witty and violent. Not as good as his four parter, The Lost Slayer, but still, I would push a Buffy-phile to read this.

[Ronald Wilcox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly a very good book. True to the characters as portrayed in the TV series. This time a Renaissance Faire is in town. Buffy and the Scooby gang meet one of the members of the troupe and realize he is being held prisoner. Simultaneously there are animal mutations occurring in town and runaways and other rejects from society are disappearing. Buffy et al must save the enslaved boy and stop the Hunt going on in town. Reads very easily with an absorbing storyline.