Blood & Fog, the previously confessed purchase, was the usual Buffy book. I refuse to sully the word "novel" by using it to cover these things. Leaving aside the mild surprise at Dark Spuffy wicked energy sex at least being alluded to, with a certain amount of Spuffy tenderness and Willow jonesing for a magick hit, the book had a couple of problems. Now, I grant that I read it in bed. Not in a reading one-handed way (that's what online smut is for) but because I already read books at bedtime. And reading in bed does mean the concentration or page marker may slip. But either I missed something or the book failed to deliver it.

At the start, Willow is doing a spell or two and Buffy remarks on a smell of strawberries. Ooh, which witch has been letting Rack at her magic again then? One of the inevitable demon-clans-from-ye-olde-dayes uses magic which smells of strawberries. Now, you can imagine I'm thinking that there's going to be some kind of bringing together of the televisual Willow stuff with ye-olde-clan stuff etc etc. Especially as the back seemed to suggest Spike would be trying to do a deal with Rack. Unless I slept through it, this did not occur. And what I think at these moments is "what a bloody waste!"

Then, naturally, I get distracted by some pisspoor use of English. I can live with only one slang word ("bangtail") being used for prostitutes in C19th London. That's just lazy research, especially when you could reach for your Cassell Dictionary of Slang and do a few minutes cross-refering. No, it's the line, in the present day Giles-in-England section, which reads:

Giles and Olivia motored down to London from Bath

This may look innocuous to non-UK people but:

1. no one has used motored in this country since the 1960s. Motored belongs to the era when our roads were not three-lane tailbacks of artics but one could hop in a jallopy and go for a bit of a spin, dont'jaknow? poot poot!


2. from Bath to London one drives up. If your sense of geography is really poor, you could get away with over but you never drive down from anywhere in the West Country to anywhere else in the UK. The only way to drive down from Bath is to come my way into Devon, Cornwall and the cold grey depths of the Atlantic.

I really think they ought to get someone a bit more familiar with contemporary English (and, indeed, British geography) to proof these books.

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Today's gratuitous Buffy thing:
Season Six - Yeah, you're depressing, but hey...that's life. And you're all about facing life, looking it in the eye, and singing your cares away. In the end, friendship will alwaystriumph. Best Episode: "Once More, With Feeling"

Which Season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Are You?
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Actually, I cheated a bit. I originally came up as season 4 but I just didn't agree with that. I mean, yes to Hush and Something Blue (and Pangs always produces that "yay" for Spike's conquering speech and Giles' "bloody colonials") but overall, nah.