Angel: Image

Buffyverse Novels #60

by Mel Odom

A chance encounter with a roomful of portraits brings Angel face to face with a long-forgotten figure from his and Darla's past While Cordelia has a vision of a small child being attacked by a repulsive tentacled demon, Gunn goes to the rescue of a young artist whose studio is under threat from vampires. When Angel arrives on the scene, he is startled to find that the subjects of some of the portraits are known to him. Their memory is linked to an evening long ago that he and Darla spent in the company of a female storyteller and her poet husband - Mary and Percy Shelley. And Angel recalls a painter that Darla once favoured. How could the same artist still be alive today...? The mystery takes Angel back in time to the days when he and Darla roved across all of Europe, killing as they went. This time, though, his intention is very different - to save the life of a single innocent child.

Genres: Vampires, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Fiction, Media Tie In, Young Adult

240 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 2002

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

aka Jordan Gray

Mel Odom is a bestselling writer for hire for Wizards of the Coast's Forgotten Realms, Gold Eagle's Mack Bolan, and Pocket's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel book lines. His debut SF novel Lethal Interface made the Locus recommended list . The Rover was an Alyx Award winner. He has also written a scientific adventure of the high seas set in the 19th century entitled Hunters of the Dark Sea. He lives in Oklahoma.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an original tie-in novel set in the continuity of the later part of the second season of the television show, Angel, which was spun-off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This one was of my favorites of Pocket's long-running series, because it ties in and pays tribute to early works from the horror genre including The Portrait of Dorian Grey, Lovecraft's mythos, and especially Frankenstein; Mary Wollstonecraft and Percy Shelley are characters via flashback. Cordelia has some good moments investigating a haunted house, and there's a neat mystery involving Darla and an artist. Fun times! Grrr...arrrgh...

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Image (Angel: Season 2 #2) by Mel Odom is a good a addition to these tie-in novels. Honestly, I just like revisiting the characters again and Odom really hits the mark and does right by them. I think I might have to rewatch some episodes of the tv show or look up some of the other tie-in books.

[John Kirk · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first Angel novel I've read, although I previously read one of Mel Odom's short stories in Tales of the Slayer, Volume 1. That story was ok, although I think it squandered its potential. It involved a German who became a Watcher during the Great War, and I'd be interested to know how the Watchers handled their divided loyalties, i.e. loyalty to their countries vs their shared cause, but the story didn't address that at all.

As for this novel, I think the basic story could have been made into a reasonable episode of the series; not one of my all-time favourites, but something that I'd be happy to spend an hour watching. However, it was let down by sloppy writing, so I get the impression that everyone concerned just wanted to shove this thing out of the door as soon as possible, rather than taking the time to proof-read it properly.

One quirk of this story is that apparently everyone in Los Angeles knows about demons, which doesn't really fit in with the rest of the series. I'm not just talking about the lawyers at Wolfram and Hart; Angel can walk into a bar, and the first woman he meets will say "So, you're a vampire, huh? The guy you're looking for was talking to a demon last night." The odd thing is, I really liked the end of Buffy season 3, which basically did the same thing (the "Class Protector" award), but it bothered me here.

There are actually two stories going on in this book, which don't have much to do with each other, so the "B story" (about a newspaper blackmailing people) could easily have been chopped out. Again, this shouldn't really bother me; Baywatch used to do that all the time. However, in this case it just seems like a way of padding out the novel, because the main story was too short. As for the main plot, it's set during the second half of season 2, while Wesley is in charge of the agency; the problem is that there are a lot of similarities to the Holtz/Connor storyline in season 3.

The book includes a couple of flashbacks to Angel's time as Angelus, which is reasonable enough. However, the writer doesn't seem to have grasped the character at all. Think about when Angel became Angelus in Buffy season 2, and killed Jenny Calendar; he didn't simply do it because he was hungry, he then went out of his way to upset Giles (leaving a fake trail of roses), out of sheer cruelty. In the book, Angelus and Darla visit Venice in 1815, and come across a couple of guys attacking an artist; Darla tells Angelus that she wants the artist to paint her (since she can't see her reflection any more), so he needs to get rid of the thugs. Now, that's a decent enough explanation for Darla's actions, but Angelus spends several pages trying to negotiate with them, and even offering to pay them off. Why? At this point, he's supposed to be an evil, soulless, demon! I can only assume that the writer doesn't want to give Angel a murky past, which is frankly bizarre.

Later on, Wesley and Cordelia are discussing a demon (p256):

"No," Wesley agreed. "Tharrolves have the ability to look human, usually female, but they can't exist in our world long. Something about the rays from a yellow sun."
"Ah, reverse Superman. I suppose they live on a planet with a red sun."
"According to legend, they live on a plane that has a blue sun."

According to the comics, Superman was born on Krypton (which has a red sun), and gained superpowers when he came to Earth (with a yellow sun). So, Cordelia's reference is quite correct. However, I don't think she's the type of person who would know that. It would be a great line coming from Xander, but in this case it's just been glued onto the nearest character.

There's also some pretty clunky dialogue here. For instance, here's Wesley talking to someone on the phone (p243):

"No," Wesley assured the man. "I wouldn't want our agency's reputation tarnished. Yes, I understand there is a lot of work that can be done in this city by a reputable investigations and security firm. Of course I'd like to see Angel Investigations be that firm."

Now imagine how that conversation would sound if you could hear both sides of it:

Man: "Do you want your agency's reputation tarnished?"
Wesley: "No, I wouldn't want our agency's reputation tarnished."
Man: "You do understand, there's a lot of work that can be done in this city by a reputable investigations and security firm?"
Wesley: "Yes, I understand there is a lot of work that can be done in this city by a reputable investigations and security firm."
Man: "And would you like Angel Investigations to be that firm?"
Wesley: "Of course I'd like to see Angel Investigations be that firm."

Parroting everything like that makes him sound like a complete idiot. The only reason for that is to help the reader fill in the blanks, because if Wesley said "No ... Yes ... Of course" then you wouldn't know what the client had said. In a play, that might be excusable, where there's no easy way to show both ends of the conversation, but in a book I expect the writer to take advantage of the medium.

A couple of pages later, Angel figures out who is responsible for the blackmail (in the B plot), but refuses to tell the others. This makes no sense in the context of the story, so the meta-reason is clearly that the writer wants to keep the readers in suspense a bit longer. I wonder whether there's an antonym for "exposition"? If so, that term would apply here.

Then there's the issue of product placement. In TV/film, it's a bit tricky, because it seems a bit bizarre for characters to live in a world without recognisable brands (i.e. the companies who haven't paid for advertising). In books, there's a bit more flexibility, so you can refer to items without giving an exact description. For instance, you could say that someone is drinking coffee, without needing to show/hide a corporate logo on the cup. Bearing that in mind, consider chapter 19 (pp252-254):

Fatigue pulled at Cordelia's eyelids, threatening to close them. She shook herself back to wakefulness, then reached for the Starbucks cup in front of her. When she picked it up, she noticed that it was empty.
[...]
She turned her attention back to the book, tried the empty Starbucks cup again, then stood up.
[...]
Cordelia thought that food with her Starbucks coffee would complement each other.

Is the writer being paid to advertise Starbucks? Can we expect more of this in future books, where the characters spend a few pages comparing notes on which brand of laundry detergent works best on demon slime?

Another problem is where the writer couldn't be bothered to keep track of his "props". In chapter 21, there's a flashback to Geneva in 1816, where Angelus and Darla are staying with Percy Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (later to become Mrs Shelley), etc. Angelus goes wandering in the night, and witnesses a demon confrontation in a cellar. Mary Wollstonecraft also witnesses this, and faints. According to the book (p281):

The cellar hatch opened abruptly and Gabriel dropped down, still holding onto the candle. He stared at Angelus, who held the sword and the shoe.

Hang on, what shoe? I went back and re-read the previous few pages, and there's no mention of Angelus carrying a shoe when he entered the cellar, or picking one up while he was there. On the following page, it turns out that this is Mary's shoe, but there's no mention of her dropping it. In a comic, I'd accept this, because each panel is a frozen moment in time and the reader is expected to fill in the blanks between them. In a book it would have been easy to just add one line, saying that Mary's shoe fell off; however, the writer clearly couldn't be bothered, and nor could his editor.

I realise that I'm nitpicking, but if there are enough small niggles like this then they do add up. Overall, I may read more of Odom's short stories if they come up in anthologies, but I'll give his novels a miss from now on.

[Kaotic · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Will you share?" Jacob asked.
"Share?"
"Your friend?" Jacob asked. "Can I be Angel's friend too?"

I wanted to like the book more than I did, it was a decent story and I love Just about everything to do with Angel.

But I think it was the writing that threw me off. Mel Odom repeated himself a lot. Like in the quote above, he could have used a different word instead of saying "Jacob asked" twice in three lines.

I noticed the reputation in their writing every time Angel turned into his vampire form. Every time he transformed and every time his increased strength or speed was mentioned it, it was described the same way. There was no variety.

But the story was okay and it had a happy ending. The best interactions were between Cordelia, they worked well off each other and her dedication to finding him felt real.

My other favorite part was being able to read more about Angel's time as Angelous. I love reading those flashbacks, his time before having a soul and with Darla are always fun.

Happy reading all!

(Added note: This book marked the completion of my 2020 GoodReads reading challenge. ❤️)

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the tie-in with flashbacks depicting Angelus and Darla meeting historical people Lord Byron, Mary Wollstonecraft and Percy Shelley, the creators of Frankenstein, and other infamous literature ie: poetry, prose, drama, etc via flashback—honorable mention of H. P. Lovecraft and course the Buffyverse version of The Portrait of Dorian Grey, really enjoyed the blend of real historical people with a twist of fantasy by continuing to add to the Buffyverse.

Those who may not be familiar with H.P Lovecraft, Oscar Wilde, or the other authors mentioned above, may be inspired to googling more about them and their works.

The author captured the personalities and voices of Team Angel and I thoroughly enjoyed the flashbacks with Angelus and Darla, and how past events also impacted the current events that Angel Investigations were facing at the time.

[Randy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the best Angel book, kind of boring. But it was nice to see my favorite characters back in action all the same.

[Mikana · Rating 3 out of 5]

For fans of the tv show. I loved these books, the Angel series was terrific.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

the writer isn't a hard core fan, character mannerisms are off.

[♡ Jeri's Book Attic ♡ Jeri the Romance Bibiliophile ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]