FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with the introduction from Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them. This collection of essays was edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Deborah Stanish, and was recently published through Mad Norwegian Press.

Introduction

Lynne’s Story:

You may know me as a Chick Who Digs Time Lords, but I’m also an avowed Whedonista. Although Whedon fandom is not my primary active fandom (that belongs to the Doctor), the Whedonverse has been a part of my life for just about as long.

I mentioned in Chicks Dig Time Lords that watching Doctor Who got me through much of my pregnancy; Buffy the Vampire Slayer got me through oh, I dunno, my whole adult life.

When considering different candidates for the “Girls of Gore,” you can’t help but think of the women in BUFFY: THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. Although there was a movie that predated the popular television show, most people think of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s version of the blonde high school student who has a natural talent for killing vamps. With the help of her friends, Buffy overcomes evil time and time again.

Buffy is often at odds with herself, her friends and her family, because she is the reluctant heroine. She doesn’t want to be the slayer, but she does it anyway. She is a very “human” character, unlike some of the ever-so-perfect pulp heroes that seem to have it all. Buffy doesn’t have it all, because it’s difficult for her to find love while kicking all kinds of ass.

Calliope Reaper-Jones is a fashionista living in New York who has all but forgotten about her family. Purposefully. She’s distanced herself from her strange family — who just happens to run Death, Incorporated. When her memory charm breaks, her heritage comes rushing back to her and she learns her father and the Board of Directors has been kidnapped. Grudgingly, she agrees to take on the job of Death but quickly finds out she has to complete three tasks first to prove her worth.

Even though Death’s Daughter fits squarely in the genre of urban fantasy, I felt that the book had a lot of elements of dark comedy to it.

The third installment of “Eden Studios Presents” (ESP) attempts to bring a little magic into readers’ lives. I was excited to review this anthology because it was first mentioned in 2004.

Each component of the seventy-four page PDF delivers something mystical that can be introduced into many of Eden’s various lines. Buffy and Witchcraft gain the most material, although the other titles aren’t ignored. Since this is an anthology, I’ll forsake my usual format and approach each segment of the book as a separate entity.

Carlos Samuel Araya’s cover art to “ESP3″ is a moody piece featuring a magical device called the Shadefont, which is later described in “Cover Shots” by Charlie Von Eschen.

Review by Todd Cash

Since we’ve started posting some teasers for the Hunter: the Vigil RPG this week I figured I would keep up with the theme and post about a few of the other monster hunter items that have caught my eye recently…

Comics, games supplements and fiction make up the mix this week…

The Flash Fire Mini-Reviews are back with a mix of fiction, games and comics this week. Mages, Wizards, Witches and other spell-slinging heroes, villains and monsters make appearances in this collection of reviews.

We’re looking at a variety of magical styles, ranging from the dark and evil to the divinely inspired. I’m not talking about spellbooks here, but magic wielding characters or plots about magic in the world around them. We’ve got Harry Dresden, Willow and Redcloak alongside some Live-Action Mage and the Unwanted.

Anyway, let’s get on with those mini-reviews…

Ghosts of Albion: Accursed is the first full length novel in the Ghosts of Albion series by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden. Ghosts of Albion had been a wildly successful animation series appearing on the BBC Cult website, with Benson and Golden writing and Benson directing. While the animations set up the story at large, one does not need to be familiar with them to enjoy this story. The authors take great care to make sure that new readers are clued into the backstory. What one might miss out on is the internal voices you give the characters from the tale; it is difficult to imagine anyone else as the voice of Horatio Nelson other than Anthony Daniels (C-3P0 of Star Wars).

Review by Timothy S. Brannan

Not only did she play Tara on the Buffy: the Vampire Slayer series, she has also directed, written and created a variety of other products that range from comic books to role-playing games.

Horror author Christopher Golden tells us about his many Buffy: the Vampire Slayer novels, his work on Hellboy and the upcoming Ghosts of Albion RPG from Eden Studios.

Imagine everything is quiet. You’re a foreign exchange student from American in Japan subbing for a nurse who disappeared. You enter the house of a woman who is mentally unstable in the middle of Tokyo. Of course something isn’t right. All that is going on in your mind is summed up in one thought: “The whole time I was in that house, I knew something was wrong.” You are now in the world of “The Grudge”.

Chaos Bleeds is a story based on the second Buffy computer game, written by Christopher Golden and Thomas J. Sniegoski. Buffy fans will recognize the telltale attributes of the Buffy universe in this book, written by James A. Moore.

Hands down, this book is the best gaming fiction I’ve read in a long time. Moore brilliantly use third person narration to accurately depict the Chaos Bleeds’ team of Xander, Willow, Spike, Anya, Faith and Buffy. While the combat was hard to follow due to the fast pace of the book, the material reads well. So well in fact, that you quickly lose yourself in the story.

This is one of the prettiest and best written game books I’ve ever had the pleasure to come across. The book is full-color, and chock full of pictures and quotes from the series. What truly makes the book stand out is the writing style. CJ Carella and his crew have written something that looks less like a rulebook, and more like a transcript of someone talking about the TV show, and how a game system for Buffy would work if he could just design one. The book is almost as funny and irreverent as the show it draws from, making this book an easy read.

When writing a book based on a hit television series, one has to ensure that the characters are accurately portrayed through action and dialogue. Angel: Haunted, written by Jeff Mariotte, sets out to bring the characters from the cult hit “Angel” to life.

Written as one in a series of books, Angel: Haunted had a beginning that was both awkward and difficult to follow. The first few pages were cumbersome due to the language and descriptions. As one reads further, the pacing and language improves dramatically. Instead of reading the words a character speaks, one hears a believable representation of an “Angel” character’s dialogue. The further along in the story, the less noticeable the writing style becomes. This is one sign of an experienced writer who can successfully translate television to print.

In this interview we talk about the All Flesh Must Be Eaten and Buffy: the Vampire Slayer RPGs.