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Buffyverse Novels #52
Angel: Avatar
Angel and Cordelia discover that the ties between a trail of corpses are the means of their death and their passion for online chatting, and Angel must find the techno-savvy demon before it completes its evil ritual.
309 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 1, 2001
2 people are currently reading
285 people want to read
About the author
John Passarella
37 books164 followersBram Stoker Award-Winning co-author of Wither (which has been moved to the J. G. Passarella profile. Also, I'm the author of Wither's Rain, Wither's Legacy, Kindred Spirit, Shimmer, Exit Strategy & Others (fiction collection), and the media tie-in novels: Supernatural: COLD FIRE (MAR 2016), Night Terror & Rite of Passage, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ghoul Trouble, Angel: Avatar & Monolith. Look for Grimm: The Chopping Block. My author website is Passarella.com
but I am also owner & web designer at AuthorPromo.com
but I am also owner & web designer at AuthorPromo.com
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 29, 2023
This was the sixth novel in the long-running series that Pocket published based on the television series spun-off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's set in the early part of the first season and features the original crew of Angel, Cordelia, and Doyle. Passarella did a good job of capturing the feel and voice of the characters, and it's a well-written and well-paced story. It has aged quite a bit more than most of the other books in their series due to the subject matter and the changes in internet protocols and procedures. Twenty-two years has become such a long time... These days we understand and accept that there are few real people compared to the number of predatory demons with whom we interact via social media, right? Be careful out there....
August 17, 2015
A novel based on the television series. This book takes place during the first season. A demon wants to enter this world once again but he needs a number of sacrifices to achieve this. With the help of a lonely, desperate man this demon picks out his victims by using online chat rooms. Angel, Doyle, and Cordelia race to put a stop to his plan.
I am not expecting great literature when reading a media tie-in book. I want a representation of the characters with a story that entertains. This book does that on both ends. Angel and the gang is spot on and this novel had me missing the character of Doyle (I think I am going to watch season 1 again because of this book). As of the story itself, it was a little dated because of the chat rooms but everything else worked fine. During this series run, this would have made a nice episode. What pushed this book to a four star rating was the concept of what people really want but they do not know it. This worked with Cordelia as well as with Angel and longtime fans of the show will enjoy this concept.
I enjoyed this book as I was able to reconnect with once beloved characters. This book did exactly what I was hoping. I was able to dive back into this universe and enjoy my time there.
I am not expecting great literature when reading a media tie-in book. I want a representation of the characters with a story that entertains. This book does that on both ends. Angel and the gang is spot on and this novel had me missing the character of Doyle (I think I am going to watch season 1 again because of this book). As of the story itself, it was a little dated because of the chat rooms but everything else worked fine. During this series run, this would have made a nice episode. What pushed this book to a four star rating was the concept of what people really want but they do not know it. This worked with Cordelia as well as with Angel and longtime fans of the show will enjoy this concept.
I enjoyed this book as I was able to reconnect with once beloved characters. This book did exactly what I was hoping. I was able to dive back into this universe and enjoy my time there.
January 22, 2025
The eighth Angel tie-in novel set around the first half of the first season where it was Angel, Cordelia and Doyle.
So this came out in 2001 so everything about computers and chat rooms and the Internet may seem very dated but remember it was big then to be on-line. Even today though, it provides a good lesson of watching who you talk to over the computer screen...
A demon has found a human to help it find victims by going on-line and hitting the chat rooms looking for a particular order in astrological signs to provide power to completely be reborn. Its main power is to produce glamours where it can look like the person's ideal dream date in order to get close and suck out organs...ew.
This Angel novel goes hard for body horror and gunge in our vampire hero hacking up bug demons that use humans for incubators through oral invasion while the main demon leaves bodies in nothing more than dried skin sacks with POWDERED BONES!!
Angel Investigations tie into the meat of the story is that Cordelia wants to create a website to get more clients who can actually pay even though...they help the helpless. Doyle isn't too keen on modern technology but since he is pining away for Cordelia he goes along with it but they try to keep it from Angel for fear he will veto the whole idea.
The murders soon connect to the team by Doyle having a vision of the latest victim to be sucked dry and Angel turns to Detective Kate Lockley to learn a little more. The police are attributing these to ritualistic killings and they aren't too far off because a cult wants to make the shape-shifting demon their slave...
Another angle to the novel is that a hostess of a late night talk show wants to have Angel Investigations follow around spouses and catch them in the act of cheating with any sort of steamy allowed for TV action they can get. Angel tells the woman, Chelsea, that they aren't that kind of agency so he rebuffs the offer. Being that Angel is tall, dark, handsome, brooding and altruistic seems to be a turn-on for Chelsea and she tries in vain to get Angel to take her out to dinner.
Seeing as how last time Angel found happiness and lost his soul, he is wary to make a love connection but Doyle is still trying his hardest to make Angel a part of the human world...not just the hero lurking in the shadows.
Avatar also shows us how the human Elliot got roped into wanting to help the demon as he is shown to be the common computer geek gaming nerd stereotype. Women don't give him the time of day and even his on-line gaming "buddies" give him grief if he loses to a thirteen year old so he sort of has no morals to providing a demon with sacrifices. Doesn't help that he is promised to be rewarded with power and wealth and alterations to his own appearance.
Less acne, less bulging belly and less Cheese Puffs...you get the drift.
Despite some long passages dealing with the cult trying to locate the demon, the rest of the story is very engaging and just filled with some horror and a few heartwarming moments despite that.
The ending again is one of those bittersweet instances filled with some snarky bits and humor to soften the blows of an otherwise downer ending but it is something you can expect concerning a Buffyverse show...
So this came out in 2001 so everything about computers and chat rooms and the Internet may seem very dated but remember it was big then to be on-line. Even today though, it provides a good lesson of watching who you talk to over the computer screen...
A demon has found a human to help it find victims by going on-line and hitting the chat rooms looking for a particular order in astrological signs to provide power to completely be reborn. Its main power is to produce glamours where it can look like the person's ideal dream date in order to get close and suck out organs...ew.
This Angel novel goes hard for body horror and gunge in our vampire hero hacking up bug demons that use humans for incubators through oral invasion while the main demon leaves bodies in nothing more than dried skin sacks with POWDERED BONES!!
Angel Investigations tie into the meat of the story is that Cordelia wants to create a website to get more clients who can actually pay even though...they help the helpless. Doyle isn't too keen on modern technology but since he is pining away for Cordelia he goes along with it but they try to keep it from Angel for fear he will veto the whole idea.
The murders soon connect to the team by Doyle having a vision of the latest victim to be sucked dry and Angel turns to Detective Kate Lockley to learn a little more. The police are attributing these to ritualistic killings and they aren't too far off because a cult wants to make the shape-shifting demon their slave...
Another angle to the novel is that a hostess of a late night talk show wants to have Angel Investigations follow around spouses and catch them in the act of cheating with any sort of steamy allowed for TV action they can get. Angel tells the woman, Chelsea, that they aren't that kind of agency so he rebuffs the offer. Being that Angel is tall, dark, handsome, brooding and altruistic seems to be a turn-on for Chelsea and she tries in vain to get Angel to take her out to dinner.
Seeing as how last time Angel found happiness and lost his soul, he is wary to make a love connection but Doyle is still trying his hardest to make Angel a part of the human world...not just the hero lurking in the shadows.
Avatar also shows us how the human Elliot got roped into wanting to help the demon as he is shown to be the common computer geek gaming nerd stereotype. Women don't give him the time of day and even his on-line gaming "buddies" give him grief if he loses to a thirteen year old so he sort of has no morals to providing a demon with sacrifices. Doesn't help that he is promised to be rewarded with power and wealth and alterations to his own appearance.
Less acne, less bulging belly and less Cheese Puffs...you get the drift.
Despite some long passages dealing with the cult trying to locate the demon, the rest of the story is very engaging and just filled with some horror and a few heartwarming moments despite that.
The ending again is one of those bittersweet instances filled with some snarky bits and humor to soften the blows of an otherwise downer ending but it is something you can expect concerning a Buffyverse show...
February 28, 2024
Plot
Angel arrived in Los Angeles, he assumed he'd find enough evil to keep himself busy for, well... eternity. Up until now, he's had his hands full. So when Cordelia suggests starting up a website to garner some more attention for their detective agency, he's hesitant. As Doyle puts it, "People in trouble want to interface with a face."
Soon, though, the police discover a trail of desiccated corpses stretching across the city. It's LA, something bad is always happening. The only thing that binds these victims (other than the cause of death) is their pastime pursuit: online chatting.
One by one, they are being hunted by a techno-savvy demon. When the monster has claimed his final victim, he will have completed a ritual that extends the arm of his evil far beyond the reach of even the Internet...
Writing/Pacing
Admittedly, I struggled to get through this as the pacing took a while to pick up the pace and it was just dull and drawn out, it wasn't until the middle to the end when the pace got better.
The nostalgia of the early days of internet online dating as the terminology of the technology is very 90s.
Themes
The dangers of online dating are still as relevant today as it was back then and how scary it can be also the theme of not everyone will create an illusion, a mask of what they want others to see which is still a current issue of today.
Subliminal messages that are in this book are really good discussion points of safety of online dating, always notifying someone of your location: Cordelia puts herself in harm's way to aid Angel Investigations in stopping the demon in his murder spree, relying on Angel and Doyle being there to intervene and stop the demon to save her life and future victims, which Angel and Doyle are successful in saving Cordelia.
Cordelia's tactic in luring their culprit to a designated controlled environment reminded me of crime investigations of detectives who are specifically trained in doing exactly that in identifying, tracking, and eventually gaining enough evidence to put predators behind bars where they belong.
Despite the 20-year gap between then and now, it's important to be aware of the real-life dangers of online dating, not to scare people away from using the apps to meet new people but important to know ways to protect one's self and that there are people out there who will see it as an opportunity to harm. Be safe!!
Characters
John Passarella did a really good job of capturing the feel and voice of the characters and I could hear the voices of the actors while reading which is always good and nostalgic.
Angel is still dealing with the aftermath of leaving Sunnydale, moving on from Buffy, to which the demon Yunk'ish's unique ability to appear what his victims desire, which all core members of Angel Investigations discover the hard way as it forces the characters to confront emotions that they either want to ignore and them dealing with this demon forces them individually confronting their innermost feelings that wasn't expected, so some nice character growth.
Demons .....
The demon Yunk'sh is on a rampage, as the demon is stuck outside of the plane of existence and to materialize he needs to complete a ritual, to track certain traits he needs in 12 people, to gain a new body in the physical plane but he's on a schedule, if he succeeds, Yunk'sh would be an almost unstoppable force of evil, to the point where both Angel Investigations, a cult who wants to bind Yunk'sh for their means of control, which both Angel Investigations and the demon wants to avoid .... and that's not all, he has a human flunkie who is aiding him, because of promises made.
Kinda predictable that the demon felt no real loyalty toward Elliot who is only helping because of greed and ambition, whose way over his head and realizes in the end that he's being screwed over by his demon ally who had no intentions of keeping his deal - no shocker there - but I would've liked more elaboration of the redemption of Elliot as he eventually runs to Angel Investigations for help as his desire for self perseveration outshines his desire for greed and ambition.
At times, Elliot comes across as one dimensional, but as I read on, especially at the end, he loses someone close to him, he discovers this AFTER he switches his side, first motivated by saving his skin and humanity.
He was horrified to learn that his neighbor, a girl, he knew, was killed in his place, despite him feeling annoyed and irritated by her, perhaps baffled at her continued pursuit to make sure he was ok, (she was interested in him) but he kept blowing her off, so the cautionary tale of "being blind to what's right in front of you, that there is light right there, but just missing it"
But I think it's important to note, that despite the echoes of humanity and regret, Elliot felt no guilt whatsoever in leading the deaths of the eleven other people he helped Yunk'sh murder to achieve his own goals.
Continuity
💀Angel: Avatar takes place during Angel season 1, as the core team of Angel Investigations consists only of Angel, Cordelia, and Doyle, the original three, between the novels Angel: Hollywood Noir and Angel: Bruja.
💀Cordy mentions that she only became part of the Scooby Gang because of her relationship with Xander ("What's My Line? Part One").
Give this 3 and half stars if only the pacing was abit better, but if you're looking for an easy read and nostalgic for Buffy/Angel books then yes definitely read but this novel isn't the best of them.
Angel arrived in Los Angeles, he assumed he'd find enough evil to keep himself busy for, well... eternity. Up until now, he's had his hands full. So when Cordelia suggests starting up a website to garner some more attention for their detective agency, he's hesitant. As Doyle puts it, "People in trouble want to interface with a face."
Soon, though, the police discover a trail of desiccated corpses stretching across the city. It's LA, something bad is always happening. The only thing that binds these victims (other than the cause of death) is their pastime pursuit: online chatting.
One by one, they are being hunted by a techno-savvy demon. When the monster has claimed his final victim, he will have completed a ritual that extends the arm of his evil far beyond the reach of even the Internet...
Writing/Pacing
Admittedly, I struggled to get through this as the pacing took a while to pick up the pace and it was just dull and drawn out, it wasn't until the middle to the end when the pace got better.
The nostalgia of the early days of internet online dating as the terminology of the technology is very 90s.
Themes
The dangers of online dating are still as relevant today as it was back then and how scary it can be also the theme of not everyone will create an illusion, a mask of what they want others to see which is still a current issue of today.
Subliminal messages that are in this book are really good discussion points of safety of online dating, always notifying someone of your location: Cordelia puts herself in harm's way to aid Angel Investigations in stopping the demon in his murder spree, relying on Angel and Doyle being there to intervene and stop the demon to save her life and future victims, which Angel and Doyle are successful in saving Cordelia.
Cordelia's tactic in luring their culprit to a designated controlled environment reminded me of crime investigations of detectives who are specifically trained in doing exactly that in identifying, tracking, and eventually gaining enough evidence to put predators behind bars where they belong.
Despite the 20-year gap between then and now, it's important to be aware of the real-life dangers of online dating, not to scare people away from using the apps to meet new people but important to know ways to protect one's self and that there are people out there who will see it as an opportunity to harm. Be safe!!
Characters
John Passarella did a really good job of capturing the feel and voice of the characters and I could hear the voices of the actors while reading which is always good and nostalgic.
Angel is still dealing with the aftermath of leaving Sunnydale, moving on from Buffy, to which the demon Yunk'ish's unique ability to appear what his victims desire, which all core members of Angel Investigations discover the hard way as it forces the characters to confront emotions that they either want to ignore and them dealing with this demon forces them individually confronting their innermost feelings that wasn't expected, so some nice character growth.
Demons .....
The demon Yunk'sh is on a rampage, as the demon is stuck outside of the plane of existence and to materialize he needs to complete a ritual, to track certain traits he needs in 12 people, to gain a new body in the physical plane but he's on a schedule, if he succeeds, Yunk'sh would be an almost unstoppable force of evil, to the point where both Angel Investigations, a cult who wants to bind Yunk'sh for their means of control, which both Angel Investigations and the demon wants to avoid .... and that's not all, he has a human flunkie who is aiding him, because of promises made.
Kinda predictable that the demon felt no real loyalty toward Elliot who is only helping because of greed and ambition, whose way over his head and realizes in the end that he's being screwed over by his demon ally who had no intentions of keeping his deal - no shocker there - but I would've liked more elaboration of the redemption of Elliot as he eventually runs to Angel Investigations for help as his desire for self perseveration outshines his desire for greed and ambition.
At times, Elliot comes across as one dimensional, but as I read on, especially at the end, he loses someone close to him, he discovers this AFTER he switches his side, first motivated by saving his skin and humanity.
He was horrified to learn that his neighbor, a girl, he knew, was killed in his place, despite him feeling annoyed and irritated by her, perhaps baffled at her continued pursuit to make sure he was ok, (she was interested in him) but he kept blowing her off, so the cautionary tale of "being blind to what's right in front of you, that there is light right there, but just missing it"
But I think it's important to note, that despite the echoes of humanity and regret, Elliot felt no guilt whatsoever in leading the deaths of the eleven other people he helped Yunk'sh murder to achieve his own goals.
Continuity
💀Angel: Avatar takes place during Angel season 1, as the core team of Angel Investigations consists only of Angel, Cordelia, and Doyle, the original three, between the novels Angel: Hollywood Noir and Angel: Bruja.
💀Cordy mentions that she only became part of the Scooby Gang because of her relationship with Xander ("What's My Line? Part One").
Give this 3 and half stars if only the pacing was abit better, but if you're looking for an easy read and nostalgic for Buffy/Angel books then yes definitely read but this novel isn't the best of them.
November 16, 2024
I enjoyed this as a detective/mystery novel - and that's the second in a row for the Anel books, so maybe they're onto something with their formula!!
Their characterisation of the series regulars (especially Cordelia) doesn't quite hit the mark, and the obsession with Web pages (capitalised as such) very much made this of its time. I also feel like maybe the cult was a bit too much for the story, and just the demon would have probably sufficed. But I enjoyed it!
Their characterisation of the series regulars (especially Cordelia) doesn't quite hit the mark, and the obsession with Web pages (capitalised as such) very much made this of its time. I also feel like maybe the cult was a bit too much for the story, and just the demon would have probably sufficed. But I enjoyed it!
April 6, 2025
From the title I was reminded of Buffy’s ‘I robot you, Jane’ but Angel does a much better job. I know some reviewers don’t like Angel quipping in this book, and while I do think it should have been cut back some, I think this style fits him way more compared to the Buffy novels, where he would sound a lot like Xander. This book is so plot-focused with the cult and the monster that there’s not too much Angel, Cordy, and Doyle interacting with each other, but when we get it, it’s super fun!
February 12, 2021
After 100 or so pages I gave up. The concept of demons on the computer/internet struggle to stand the test of time. While I love me some Buffy/Angel, this story just isnt relatable anymore
March 15, 2017
This is an excellent entry in the Angel series. In this novel it's Angel, Doyle, and Cordelia against the demon Yunk'sh. If the demon is able to kill twelve certain people he will be an almost unstopable force of evil. He has a human who is aiding him, because of promises made. There is a cult that hopes to gain contol over Yunk'sh. And of course there is Angel, Doyle and Cordelia who hope to put a stop to all of their plans. This novel is well plotted, and leaves no questions unanswered by the end of the story. If you love the Angel series, if you love horror, then this is the book for you!
March 2, 2008
These are great if you need to read something quickly that requires little thought. If you enjoy the series and are in need of a light, fast read - this series is for you.
August 22, 2014
That was on my early teen age.
Want to read
December 5, 2017I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14829919
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14829919
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews