Ghost Roads

FROM THE ARCHIVES (Buffy book reviews)

GHOST ROADS

Book 2 of The Gatekeeper Trilogy

Christopher Golden & Nancy Holder (1999)

RATING: 3/5 Stakes

SETTING: Season Three

CAST APPEARANCES: Buffy, Angel, Oz, Giles, Cordelia, Willow, Xander, Spike, Drusilla, Joyce, Sheila Rosenberg, Amy Madison

MAJOR ORIGINAL CHARACTERS: Jean-Marc Regnier, Henri Regnier, Jacques Regnier, Antoinette Regnier, Giuliana Regnier (Gatekeepers); Il Maestro (sorceror); Belphegon (demon); Ian Williams, Micaela Tomasi (traitor Watchers); Claire Bellamy (manager of The Bronze); Brother Anthony, Brother Lupo (Sons of Entropy); Giacomo Fulcanelli (sorceror)

BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SUMMARY: “Buffy, Oz, and Angel are Europe-bound, only they’re not flying any airlines. They’re traveling limbo’s ‘ghost roads’ in search of Jacques Regnier. Jacques is the sole heir of the dying Gatekeeper whose Boston mansion is the supernatural barrier restraining thousands of the world’s monsters. The evil Sons of Entropy will do anything to destroy the gate--even if it means trading the power-laden Spear of Longinus to the wicked vampires holding Jacques. Back home, the ghost ship Flying Dutchman has set sail for Sunnydale, determined to shanghai new crewmen--dead or alive. For Willow, Xander, Cordelia, and Giles, it’s an ocean of trouble, especially when the monstrous Kraken reemerges with a vengeance. But everyone’s assistance will be needed once Buffy locates Jacques, and uncovers the shocking plans the Sons of Entropy have already placed in motion--a plan that, if successful, will destroy the world and create a horrible new realm ruled by monsters.”

REVIEW

A gigantic sea monster, a manticore, and a skeleton-crewed pirate ship called The Flying Dutchman? It must be either back-to-back Scooby Doo episodes or Book Two in The Gatekeeper Trilogy. With the Gatehouse slowing falling to pieces, more and more fantastic (in the old sense of the word) monsters are escaping into the world.

In Ghost Roads, we see Buffy, Oz, and Angel traveling through Europe trying to find a young boy who is destined to become the next Gatekeeper--but as these things go, Spike & Dru stand in their way. Back home in Sunnydale, Willow, Giles, Xander, and Cordelia work feverishly to repair the breaches between this world and the “Overworld” where the monsters originate. Sounds cheesy doesn’t it? Somehow it works, especially the Buffy trio vs. Spike & Dru story thread. It’s refreshing to see some of the Scoobies outside of their traditional haunts and the authors obviously had fun researching European cities for the book. Teaming Oz up with Buffy & Angel is a surprisingly effective way of shedding some more light on everyone’s favorite lycanthrope and helps show him as something more than just Willow’s tag-along boyfriend.

Dialogue is excellent--Golden & Holder, unlike most Buffy scribes, are able to write Spike & Dru with just the right mix of menace, playfulness, and insanity. The Sunnydale thread is the weaker of the two and narrowly escapes being cartoony. Scenes like Giles being forced to walk the plank by skeletal pirates are amusing but too close to farce for comfort. It gets surprisingly serious near the end, however, as Joyce gets kidnapped and a major character gets shot, prompting a trip to the Ghost Roads. The villains of the book, the Sons of Entropy, are well-depicted. In too much fiction, criminal organizations are either stunningly organized and competent or unbelievably ineffectual. Here, the Sons are individualized to show a wide variety of people in the group with a good depiction of the cult mindset. The Sons’ leader, Il Maestro, is a fairly typical evil mastermind.

With excellent dialogue & characterization, and a decent plot, Ghost Roads is a satisfactory middle book in the Gatekeeper Trilogy.