Reading the Vampire Slayer: The Complete, Unofficial Guide to 'Buffy' and 'Angel' FROM OUR EDITORS
Unofficial or not, this critical companion offers plenty of fodder for Buffy watchers. The episode guide provides synopses of five seasons of Buffy and two seasons of Angel. Chapters based on interviews with the show's principal writers enable viewers to see the development of characters and scripts from the inside.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer was for its seven season run perhaps the most original popular television show of the last decade. It put an inventive spin on vampires and demons, partly for thrills, partly as eloquent metaphors for teen and young adult angst, varying its tone from comic surrealism to moments of intense, almost operatic passion. Reading the Vampire Slayer was much praised on its first appearance as the indispensable and accessible companion to Buffy and its spin-off series Angel. This radically expanded and revised new edition is the only book to explore the complete Buffy. The editor's introduction now considers the themes and structures of the seven seasons of Buffy and the ways in which its final season rounded these off, as well as considering four seasons of Angel.
Updated and wholly new chapters consider California and Los Angeles as Hellscapes; the theme of personality and performance in both shows; the way Angel uses non-traditional family structures as an emotional armature; the importance of space and of locations such as Buffy's home and school, Giles' Magic Shop and Angel's hotel. They follow the transgressive heterosexuality of Buffy's relationship with the vampire Spike and the knowing flirtation of the shows with a fan culture fascinated by subtextually-implied lesbian and gay relationships between characters. New attention is paid to Buffy's controversially dark and adult sixth season and to the seventh and final one.
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