Blood and Fog [Buffy]

Blood and Fog

Nancy Holder (2003)

RATING: 3/5 Stakes

SETTING: Season Six

T.V. CHARACTER APPEARANCES: Willow, Buffy, Anya, Xander, Spike, Tara, Drusilla, Darla, Angelus, Dawn, Giles, Olivia

MAJOR ORIGINAL CHARACTERS: Elizabeth (1888 Slayer); Sir James (1888 Watcher); Thak/Jack, Milak, Banshee, MacNair, Balor (faeries); Flinn (leprechaun)

BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SUMMARY: "Buffy Summers is on the trail of a killer demon in Sunnydale, and reluctantly accepts the help of Spike. Anything's better than his moping around. But Spike--as usual--has his own agenda, and it involves something the demon is carrying: a vial of pure magickal power. Spike knows plenty of people and demons who will pay top dollar for this vial. Spike has encountered this power before. In the good old days in Victorian London, when Spike, Drusilla, Angelus, and Darla ran through the night in pursuit of dark fun, another evil being was stalking the streets, dispatching young women with brutal efficiency. But when the so-called 'Jack the Ripper' struck too close to their twisted 'family,' the vampires found themselves on the same side as the Slayer of that time. Working to bring down Jack, and running afoul of the dark Faery of Celtic times, Spike and the Slayer formed an uneasy alliance, which followed Spike all through the twentieth century to present day Sunnydale, now blanketed in a mysterious fog. . . ."

REVIEW

The best parts of Blood and Fog are the scenes that have little to do with the plot. Holder has a great feel for the characters and their conflicts during Season Six, and she does an excellent job depicting Buffy's turmoil over her attraction to Spike, Willow's inability to stop using magic, Giles feeling useless in England, and more. Dialogue and characterization are strong.

As for the plot itself, I for one was unable to buy into the idea of Jack the Ripper being a faerie from Irish folklore or get myself interested in the idea of war between competing faerie kingdoms. In other words, the forced melding of faerie folklore and the modern-day scenes resulted in a rather dull mix. So although the scenes set in 1888 and dealing with a Slayer named Elizabeth are pretty well written, the modern-day story beats just never grabbed my attention. There's quite a cataclysmic battle at the end, something Holder has done in other Buffy novels, but it's hard to care much if you know that all the characters you care about are going to survive and the new characters, who may actually be at risk, aren't ones really worth caring about. There's also a surprising number of typos, but that's not Holder's fault, of course.