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FROM THE ARCHIVES (Buffy book reviews)
POWER OF PERSUASION
By Elizabeth Massie (1999)
RATING: 2/5 Stakes
SETTING: Season Three
CAST APPEARANCES: Buffy, Angel, Willow, Xander, Giles, Oz, Anya, Cordelia, Joyce, Principal Snyder, Hank Summers
MAJOR ORIGINAL CHARACTERS: Allison Giankous (Greek student); Radello Giankous (Allison's father); Mo Moon, Polly Moon, Calli Moon (Muses); Viva (vampire)
BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SUMMARY: “When the female population of Sunnydale starts strutting its girl power, the push for gender equality seems like a normal expression of ‘90s feminism. After all, a girl trying out for the football team isn’t usually a sign of imminent danger. But when the guys start acting like powerless pawns and a few even turn up dead, Buffy Summers notices that the local womyn’s movement has reached a feverish--and probably unnatural--pitch. The Slayer is the only one who can see straight during the ultimate battle of the sexes. Her friends--including Giles--are spellbound by the malignant muses permeating the school. Even the local vampires are acting strange. Alone in her search for answers, Buffy must figure out who’s behind the sinister sisterhood . . . and close the gender gap before the feminist revolution goes too far.”
REVIEW
Power of Persuasion starts out strong, introducting us to Sunnydale student Allison Giankous and her father, Radello. When the latter suddenly decides to open up a restaurant, Allison is mortified by her father’s terrible cooking and cluelessness about running a business. Not a standard Buffy book opening by any means, but providing one-shot characters with interesting backgrounds and personalities makes their inevitable meetings with the Scooby Gang far more interesting than normal. Crisp dialogue, humor, and a certain sense of . . . “meanness” successfully draws the reader in and bodes well for the rest of the book.
Unfortunately, the strong opening is followed by lacklustre middle and a disappointing ending. The plot of Power of Persuasion involves a trio of ancient Greek muses coming to Sunnydale and starting up a war between the sexes by entrancing women (and some men) into becoming militant and aggressive. Unfortunately, what could have been an interesting story about female empowerment (a core theme of Buffy to begin with) or even the evils of reverse-discrimination becomes an almost farcical caricature of modern feminism and is rather boring to boot.
After making Allison and her father interesting characters, each gets entranced by the muses and loses both the reader’s and the story’s interest. (On a side note, Xander, Giles, and Willow all get entranced as well; I think a moratorium should have been established early on prohibiting the alreadly-incredibly cliched mind-controlling of Scoobies.) The muses themselves have an incredibly dorky backstory involving the Titanic, while the story’s ending is sappy and the way Buffy kills the muses is almost laughable (in an unintentional way).
There are some nice bits: Buffy feeling torn between her mother and father; Buffy and Oz having a debate over nature vs. nurture on gender attitudes; and Buffy’s visit to a funeral home to find liquified brains. Still, in the final analysis, I’m really not sure what happened to make the book so bad after a promising beginning. I suppose the moral of the story is that even good dialogue and characterization is not always enough to redeem a story with a poorly thought-out plot.
POWER OF PERSUASION
By Elizabeth Massie (1999)
RATING: 2/5 Stakes
SETTING: Season Three
CAST APPEARANCES: Buffy, Angel, Willow, Xander, Giles, Oz, Anya, Cordelia, Joyce, Principal Snyder, Hank Summers
MAJOR ORIGINAL CHARACTERS: Allison Giankous (Greek student); Radello Giankous (Allison's father); Mo Moon, Polly Moon, Calli Moon (Muses); Viva (vampire)
BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SUMMARY: “When the female population of Sunnydale starts strutting its girl power, the push for gender equality seems like a normal expression of ‘90s feminism. After all, a girl trying out for the football team isn’t usually a sign of imminent danger. But when the guys start acting like powerless pawns and a few even turn up dead, Buffy Summers notices that the local womyn’s movement has reached a feverish--and probably unnatural--pitch. The Slayer is the only one who can see straight during the ultimate battle of the sexes. Her friends--including Giles--are spellbound by the malignant muses permeating the school. Even the local vampires are acting strange. Alone in her search for answers, Buffy must figure out who’s behind the sinister sisterhood . . . and close the gender gap before the feminist revolution goes too far.”
REVIEW
Power of Persuasion starts out strong, introducting us to Sunnydale student Allison Giankous and her father, Radello. When the latter suddenly decides to open up a restaurant, Allison is mortified by her father’s terrible cooking and cluelessness about running a business. Not a standard Buffy book opening by any means, but providing one-shot characters with interesting backgrounds and personalities makes their inevitable meetings with the Scooby Gang far more interesting than normal. Crisp dialogue, humor, and a certain sense of . . . “meanness” successfully draws the reader in and bodes well for the rest of the book.
Unfortunately, the strong opening is followed by lacklustre middle and a disappointing ending. The plot of Power of Persuasion involves a trio of ancient Greek muses coming to Sunnydale and starting up a war between the sexes by entrancing women (and some men) into becoming militant and aggressive. Unfortunately, what could have been an interesting story about female empowerment (a core theme of Buffy to begin with) or even the evils of reverse-discrimination becomes an almost farcical caricature of modern feminism and is rather boring to boot.
After making Allison and her father interesting characters, each gets entranced by the muses and loses both the reader’s and the story’s interest. (On a side note, Xander, Giles, and Willow all get entranced as well; I think a moratorium should have been established early on prohibiting the alreadly-incredibly cliched mind-controlling of Scoobies.) The muses themselves have an incredibly dorky backstory involving the Titanic, while the story’s ending is sappy and the way Buffy kills the muses is almost laughable (in an unintentional way).
There are some nice bits: Buffy feeling torn between her mother and father; Buffy and Oz having a debate over nature vs. nurture on gender attitudes; and Buffy’s visit to a funeral home to find liquified brains. Still, in the final analysis, I’m really not sure what happened to make the book so bad after a promising beginning. I suppose the moral of the story is that even good dialogue and characterization is not always enough to redeem a story with a poorly thought-out plot.
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