Holder

I must say that I am disappointed in the 2nd book of the Gatekeeper Trilogy. It is a sequel, understandable, but it just didn't have to same excitement as Out of the Madhouse. It is still a relatively good read, great for Buffy fans because Spike and Dru are back. As always, an easy read, done in two days. I still love Buffy, and can't wait for the last book to come out. I am eagerly awaiting what's in store for the Sunnydale gang.

It was an excelent representation of the series, with the same great writting that went into "Child of the Hunt." The authors, Nancy Holder & Christopher Golden, have an excelent writting chemistry. The story was original and fun and really had a life of it's own. All "Buffy" fans will eat this up as well as the rest of the trilogy. (Third book pending, because of the fact that I haven't read it yet. But I'm sure it will be great.

The Buffy books aimed for adults have always been good and this trilogy is no exception. If you are a fan of the show, you will appreciate how authentic the story line is. Nancy Holder does it again and truly captures buffy and the gang in full action. You cannot stop reading until you have finished all 3 books. Please start with the first book ,"Out of the Madhouse" and continue the books in order. (Ghostroads is book #2) The story will make sense and i promise that you will be fully satisfied at the end. I only wish that this and other buffy books had a chance to be added as shows for the tv series!

This Book is about Sabrina's first Castanalia which is an all-can-cast-day when she can cast any spell she wishes for that one day that does not actually exist. By midnight all the spells she casted will be undone, what she doesn't know is that one of her spells survived the night, but which one? And how is she going to reverse it without the letting the spying witch hunters knows her secret?

I love the part about the witch catchers!!!

I love Sabrina and her adventures. In the All-You-Can-Cast spell day, Sabrina enjoys casting all these spells that will automatically reverse at midnight. However, her aunts forget to tell her about the one-thing policy and she has to try to find out what it is. However, these government agents are trying to detect magic and Sabrina can't reverse the spell until they leave. It's truly a great book!

As a spin off to Buffy The Vanpire Slayer, the series Angel, remains true to what has already been established. While at the same time, carving out its own history, and identity. With that principal in mind, authors Nancy Holder, Jeff Mariotte, and Maryelizabeth Hart have created a fine companion to the series.

The first volume is laid out in much the same fashion as the Buffy "Watchers Guide"s. The book takes readers through seasons one and two of Angel. Each episode gets a number of pages devoted to it Aside from the usual synopsis, there are highlights from each script, stuff that didn't make each show, demon or creature breakdowns, episode trivia, and behind the scenes production info. The book also has sections devoted to charater bios, as well as bios of the real life actors who are in the cast as well. The book also keeps track of weapons, spells, magics, property destroyed in a particular show. There are dozens of black and white photos throughout the guide, as well as, 32 pages of full color photos.

The guide is very well done. It is loaded with lots of info, yet, its still lots of fun to read. It shares a lot in common with the guides for Buffy, but like the series itself, the book has its own merits too The 405 pager is recommended if you watch the show, for sure, but can also be enjoyed by anyone else who wants to catch up on what they may have missed.

After countless books on it's sister show "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", including two 'Watcher's Guides' by the author of this very book, the show 'Angel' finally gets it's own due. Anyone who calls themselves a fan will snatch this book up and devour every page. It's well written and nicely designed. Like the Buffy guide books, this one has two sections of colored pictures that have some real good pictures. Although this book doesn't delve into the day to day making of an episode like Buffy's last guide book, it's still good. Every episode for the first two seasons of the show are here in great detail. The sections seem even longer than they were in "The Watcher's Guide". Each section also comes with little categories like quotes and all that stuff that you have come to expect. The book is designed like, hence the title, a casefile. Every episode summary comes with a section telling you who the clients were in a particular episode and what became of them. It tells you if the Angel team received outside help from anyone. It also gives you the expenses that were used in every episode. The weapons they used, and the music heard in the episode. At the end of every summary, it tells you if the case was closed or not. The beginning of the books goes into great detail for every character on the show or has been on the show at one time or another. The end of the book deals with the bios of the actual actors themselves. If you are a fan, you probably pretty much already know their bios and history and all that. The book and it's designs inside are well done. More than the Buffy guides. The show has proven itself to be it's own being from "Buffy". It is a little darker and seedier than Buffy. Writer/Director/Producer/Creator Joss Whedon did the impossible when he spun off an incredibly successful show from another show. That doesn't happen too often. While Buffy continued to beat this show in it's first 2 seasons, this show has definitley found it's footing and it's strength this past year and was better than the Buffster. Author Nancy Holder, along with Jeff Marionette and Maryelizabeth Hart, are great writers who really pack everything in here. What more could a fan ask for?. Not much. Not much at all. I still don't think that this guide is as close to being as great as the two previous Buffy guides, especially the second one, but it does a good job anyways. This is essential for fans.

A very well done companion guide to the show. It's packed with all the material that made the BtVS guides so welcome, but takes the form of an actual PI's casefile. Nice back scenes peeks fill out the storyline info.

While AtS fans in general will enjoy "Casefiles" , it is a simply indispensible tool for fanfiction writers. No more fastforwarding through DVDs of S1 or bugging fellow ficwriters in search of a particular fact. I can't wait for the next volume.

While the first Watcher's Guide was almost like a test for the Buffy audience to see if such a book would appeal to them, this second Watcher's Guide is written on the author's knowledge of the success of the first!

Its format is much like that of the first Watcher's Guide with a detailed episode guide and interesting explanations of Joss Whedon's pop culture references in the show. As Season 4 became more complex than previous seasons, this book is an essential and informative guide that will help viewers to understand the meanings of such episodes as "Restless" as well as pick up on smaller things that they may have missed.

It also includes exclusive information about the makeup and behind-the-scenes work done on Buffy including photos of the cast backstage, which is always interesting. There are several pages of colour photos throughout the book which are also a good item to have for any die-hard Buffy fan.

The only gripe I have about this book is that I would have loved to have seen more quotes!! The writing is one of my favourite parts of the TV show so I would have liked to have seen them show off some off Joss' best work! Other than that, this book is a great read for any Buffy fan with a lot of time on their hands; it's a fair bit longer than the first Watcher's Guide but that's just more fascinating information on the show to learn about!

A must-have for any Buffy fans, and it is an obvious addition to the first Watcher's Guide if you already own that one. I say, bring on Watcher's Guide 3!

The Watcher's Guide: Volume 2 covers seasons three and four of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. Season three featured rogue Slayer Faith, the megalomaniacal Mayor of Sunnydale, and introduced a subsequent regular, former vengeance demon Anya; season four had the secret military operation known as the Initiative and their creation, the Frankenstein-like Adam, and brought on as regulars neutered vampire Spike and soldier-boy Riley.

This book is incredibly in-depth -- with interviews of everyone from the main actors (Anthony Stewart Head, who plays Giles, and James Marsters, who plays Spike, are notable highlights) down to the set designers and makeup artists. It has summaries of every episode, along with the pop-culture references and notable quotes from each. It looks at the making of the season four episode "The I in Team," where season baddie Adam first appears. And, of course, it has pages of full-color pictures from the series. While not groundbreaking when compared to the first volume, it's still a solid, informative book in its own right.

If you're even mildly a fan, you need to own this book!

I found 'The Watcher's Guide 2' a very interesting book. Not only did it have great detail about the main characters, but special guest stars as well (in character that is). I also found the choice of photos refreshing since they are not the same photos you seem to see everywhere.

I loved this book!It was a great love story.If you are a hopeless romantic like me you won't be able to put it down.But beware, it will make you cry.HAPPY READING!

Well, I'd actually give it 4 and a half stars, but that isn't possible.
The book is about twenty year old Bekah Martin, whose fiance, David McLaughlin, died in a fire the year before. She did, however, agree to marry his twin brother, Ian McLaughlin. When she returns to Hawaii, she meets Scott DeAngelo, ensign, of the US Navy, while onboard the ship. The two have somewhat of a "shipboard romance", though she feels that she's being disloyal to Ian. He, meanwhile, thinks that she's afraid to love... which is true. Purgatory, he calls her way of life.
They meet a few times after getting off to Hawaii, and Scott still persists to "capture her heart", so to speak. She still remains loyal to Ian. Ian, hoever, doesn't love her... only in a brother/sister way, as does she, so the two eventually break off the engagement. Scott proposes, but she tells him she has to think...
On December 7th, she finds herself onboard the Nevada, asleep after tending to Scott's friend Jimmy. The attack on Pearl Harbor begins, and she's stuck in the middle of it. During the attack, Scott is suddenly on fire, and Bekah painfully reminices how David had also been engulfed in flames.
Being a nurse, she finds several wounded, but she can't do much to help, and is brought back to the hospital.
I can't tell the ending... It would ruin the story. But she sees Scott again, and isn't afraid to love him any longer, even if her worst fear is coming true: He's dying.
The one thing wrong with this was that they jumped into romance a little too quickly. It would have been better had they fallen for each other later... instead of at second or third sight (in a matter of two or three meetings; two days). Still, it WAS an excellent story, and the scenes were painted quite vividly. Especially on the Nevada, when she encounters many men that were killed.
The end, at the Pearl Harbor attack, was probably the most well written. If not for the romance, or the characters, read it for the end, which would give a clear and, almost, scary idea of what was happening during the attack.

"pearl harbour, 1941" is one of the best historical disasters/romances that i've read. it tells the story of bekah martin and scott deangelo, who meet on a boat traveling to hawaii.
bekah was previously engaged to david maclaughlin, who she saw die in a fire. her family and his have decided that she should marry ian, his twin brother. to piece her life back together after the fire, bekah went to san francisco to take a nurse training course. upon her return to hawaii [with her aunt, who likes to play matchmaker], she meets scott, who challenges her bitterness towards love [she doesn't love ian, her fiancé.] after some time, she realizes that she has fallen in love with him, but before she gets a chance to tell him, the japanese attack pearl harbour. what happens in the next few chapters is a vivid description of the events on the ship nevada, including bekah seeing scott on fire. will she ever get to tell him her real feelings?
this book is very well written, with descriptive words and a good plot. while the romance seemed a little unrealistic [but what can you expect, it's fiction!], the description of the attack was vivid and very, very real. and the dialogue between bekah & scott was pretty cute. if not for the romance, read it for the pearl harbour attack; you will be very pleased! :)

While this book does contain the novelization of the first episode of Angel, it is far better. It explores Angel's past with vivid adventures from his bad days. It revisits the restoration of his soul. A must read even for fans who have followed the Buffy series from the beginning. I highly recommend this well told tale. Another excellent story by Nancy Holder

I love this book so much I've already read it twice. Basically it's a novelization of the first Angel episode, with some flashbacks from Buffy episodes and Angel's past as a vampire mixed in. I reccommend this book to all fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

I really liked the book. The book is not hard to read even though if you don't speak english very well. It explains Angel's past to persons who are not familiar with him,and it also shows how he got where he is. It's actualy a lot alike to fist Angel episode but it has falshbacks from Angel's past. Angel and Buffy fans should definitly read it.

Picked up the book at the library - the fantastic cover art and exerpt intrigued me at the bookstore, but I don't have the cash to purchase every book that I see that interests me on the shelves =) Boy, am I glad that I didn't waste the money.
The storyline is interesting - the idea that magics stem from what, to me, sounded like a more randomized aurora borealis; the young girl caught up in it all without any desire to be in the middle...
But the characters were awful. At the very best they were annoying, and more often they just didn't evoke any interest whatsoever. The main character, Jenna, usually came across as a drug-addicted, gullible spoiled brat. The "villains" didn't ever make much sense - as someone else has mentioned, *why* was the stone worth going to war for? - and the other "good" guys were incredibly predictable in their constant betrayals. Topped off by the wretched scene at the end...
Well, if the library gets the sequel in I may pick it up in hopes that the next generation of characters are a little bit more interesting - the whole concept really is very good - but I definitely won't be running out to put down money for it.

This is a fabulous book and I don't understand why I haven't heard more about it. I know it's the first book in a series by a new author, but this is easily as good or better than other boks I've read by much better known authors. A great story with wonderful characters and a well-drawn society.

Read the other reviews if you don't believe me -- and if, like me, you've read this book and loved it, write your own review! I can't wait for the second book.

This is a great start to a new fantasy epic. Normally when I read an epic, quick and easy references to Tolkein pop into mind (especially these days). And I have to admit I was afraid that this one would prove too similar to LOTR as well. The story starts off in a similar fashion-- an innocent finds a magical item and then is forced to run, encountering a strange forest creature immediately (Farrell's Seamcoim).

Happily, there the similarities stop. Jenna is a unique and interesting character, evolving in unexpected but completely believeable ways. The stone begins to change her, not so much by the intrinsic power of the stone as by the corrupting influence of having such overwhelming power thrust on her. The ending is, as writer and critic Chekov demanded, completely unexpected but inevitable. Jenna's relationship with her mother is another fascinating aspect, but I won't give too much away.

This is a great book. The pace picks up about a hundred pages in, when the other magic stones become active. Then it's a complete page-turner.

This was the best books I've read in such along time!! I'm glad that the rest of the Scooby Gang got noticed more in this book! Most of the show's ep's & Books are about Buffy. But they focused this one more on Xander,Cordelia,Willow,Oz, & Angel!! So that was more of a twist! I really liked these 3 books, and everyone who is a fan should read!!

Oh, my gosh! The Gatekeeper Trilogy is the most entertaining series of books of all the Buffy books!!! I love the way the authors included all the characters instead of just focusing on Buffy all the time. I thought it was cool how, in the last book they brought Belphegor, Il Maestro,and The Sons Of Entropy together at the end and finished them off. It was just totally entertaining. I loved how they had Xander become the Gatekeeper, I never expected that, I really thought he was gonna die! This trilogy is definetely a MUST for all Buffy fans!!! It will keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning 'til end!!!!

You know how many times you get suckered into buying a bunch of paperbacks because it is some giant continued story? Well, trust me, this one is well worth the investment in time and cash. Golden and Holder are far and away the best writers working on Buffy books and in this entire series they get free reign with the characters and their imagination. There is also a respect for Buffy and her friends you do not always get in such books. Let me put it another way: you know how good this series is? I went out and got a hardback edition because this is a keeper (even if you do not have a gate).

My copy (with the same ISBN number!) does not have the "five bonus chapters on the fundamentals of programming with Java", so I can't comment on those. My copy jumps right in to advanced techniques (drawing offscreen, MediaTracker, etc.).

This is a "techniques" book--it does a very good job of explaining the simple physics you need in order to do realistic animation, and explains things like how to shuffle cards and how to create mazes. It then uses mazes to explain drawing in 2D, 3D, and with texture mapping. It does NOT cover multiplayer games and network play, and barely touches on the use of artificial intelligence in games. These omitted topics are important ones.

If you want to know something about designing an original computer game, look elsewhere. This book is for coders, not designers. The chapter on "Making Fun Games" is a mere six pages long, and the advice, though good, is extremely shallow.

The book uses the Java 1.0 event model, which works everywhere but is outdated technology. All the examples are applets (though the techniques apply equally to applications). In my copy (I hope this has been fixed!), all the string quote marks have disappeared from the printed code--easy to fix if you know Java. Besides, the code is also on the CD.

In summary, this book is more limited in scope than the title suggests (and possibly more than the authors realize). I give it four stars because it does a very good job with the topics it covers. But due to some rather serious omissions, it shouldn't be the only book on your game programming shelf.

I was very eager to learn how to program games, so I started looking into Java books, and I found this. I was a complete programming novice at the time, so when I started looking on the CD, I had no idea what to do. I had to search the CD and Internet for hours before I fanally discovered it was to be done on Notepad not an auto-matic compiler. I was able to successfully program the bouncy ball application, but I had no idea how I did it. I read the explanations of the code, but it didn't help me because it wasn't enough in detail. Get Learning Java 2 in 21 days, Java in a nutshell, or Sams Teach Yourself: Begginning Programming before you get this book if you're a Java novice. Otherwise, it is a good book for those programming veterans looking to make games.

Now, this is one of those books that I can say I'm glad to have in my collection of game programming books. I'll just put it next to my Black Art Of VB Game Programming, excellent. An excellent resource for game programming since it goes deep into the explaination of game design, game development, and down-to-earth explainations of the example code. The only gripe about this book is that you really do need some basic Java knowledge to start. I'm familiar with c++ and vb, but knew nothing about Java. The 5 bonus chapters on the cd were a great help, but not good enough. It did, however, recommend getting the Java Programming For Dummies since this book wasn't meant to teach Java from scratch anyway. So that's the only problem with this book, if it actually is a problem. Hehe.

Let's get one thing straight: I am a Buffy fan, and very glad to be one. This side idolatry, however. And it is mere truth that the second-worst feature of this great series is its unspeakable ignorance of history (the worst is its foolish and illiterate attitude to Christianity). BtVS likes to use long depth of past events; the results are lamentable, because Joss Whedon is one of the unfortunately large amount of people who know nothing about history, but have strong views about it anyway. All seven series are sodden with this, to the extent that I think I can seriously say that BtVS never once dealt with the past without some major unlikelihood or downright howler.
This is bad enough in the TV series, which has the charm of the interpreters and the frequent genius of Mr.Whedon; it is absolutely disastrous in derivative products. The writer of this novel has had the wretched idea to try to root its menace in the immemorial past, setting half of it in the Roman Empire; her idea of which it would be kind to call ignorant. This would actually be a fairly decent story, though nothing special, but for the dreadful void where an idea of the past should be. It is quite useless to enumerate Ms. Holder's errors (she seems to think that Caligula had something to do with the Fall of the Roman Empire); because the point is not merely the desperate, damaging ignorance, but the fact that she seems altogether unconcerned to do anything about it. The research for this novel is skimpier and trashier than a Christina Aguilera dress; but it is the mental environment which is hideous, satisfied with its ignorance, indeed actually unwilling to learn, lest the learning spoil its mental images - lest, that is, they may be forced to confront their prejudices against reality. The story as she tells it would not even exist if she had the least idea of Roman realities; any research would be death to the ideas she has conceived. It is therefore to her advantage to continue not to know, lest her work be made ever so slightly more difficult. That this means that she slanders the past would not, I suppose, trouble her; but she should also realize how counter-educational, how damaging to her readers, it is to deliver such an insane idea of our common background. She is effectively fostering ignorance for money, making a living as a writer by fostering ignorance.
The slight excuse for this is that it is difficult to set an horror story anywhere but in the modern age. Horror stories set, say, in the Middle Ages, or in Classical Greece, or in Han China, always have to subtly slant the environment to make it suitable for emotions or ideas that are not native to it. Horror is a modern genre, barely older than the Romantic age, and while ancient literatures had plenty of horrible stories to tell, it was the horror of reality, not of imagination: war, pestilence, betrayal, crime, death in its ordinary thousand forms. However, the masters of modern horror all worked hard, if not always successfully, to root their stories in good sound research: think of the elaborate reading, the careful research and intense feeling for the past in the work of, say, H.P.Lovecraft, or of the ecyclopedias, travel books and even railway guides consulted by Bram Stoker for DRACULA. For one thing, good reading can help any writer; part of the interest of Lovecraft's work is the fascination for the past that he conveys. But even more importantly, bad research is an insult to readers: not only does it say that the writer is ignorant, but that the writer expects readers to be ignorant and does not think them worth the effort. In THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD, Lovecraft throws off, off-handedly, the fact that the Black Prince was notorious for a massacre in 1370, or that seventh-century British script had a particular shape (which he correctly imitates), and writes a whole colonial-age romance with names and places all in place. This says to the reader: I think you know all that, and, if that is not the case, I know that you are capable of finding out. Nancy Holder's says: I know that you are too lazy to get off your couch and get a book of reference from the shelf; therefore I will feed you pap in which Christians are being fed to the lions in the Coliseum in 40AD, because the only thing you care about is sex and violence.
This is the horror of this book: the shameless exhibition of its mind. Educators, especially history teachers, should read it as a set text, and shudder. A not uneducated, American citizen, who has enough familiarity with books to want to become a professional writer, has this sort of idea of the past: this is terrible beyond belief. This is what Americans have learned about history. This is what modern education has done to one of its subjects: not only ignorance, but self-satisfaction; not only blind prejudice, but no notion whatever that there is any virtue in trying to broaden your horizons, learn something beyond what you think you know, and discard the figments of the darkness in which you walk. This is not only the ignorance, but the spiritual darkness you have taught them to value.

"The Evil That Men Do" is a line taken from Antony's funeral oration in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." In Nancy Holder's solo novel there has been a shooting spree on campus, after which the people of Sunnydale go off the deep end turning the town into a giant lynch mob out looking for victims. Meanwhile, a pair of two thousand year old vampires from the time of Imperial Rome have arrived in town, Helen and Julian. Helen is known as the Betrayer, having turn on her friend Diana the Slayer and having killed hundreds of Slayers since then, usually in horrible and prolonged fashions. Not only has Helen set her sights on Buffy, she has a history with Angelus.

There are two intriguing aspects to "The Evil That Men Do," one realized the other only hinted at. The first is that whether it is outright possession or a more subtle poison, Buffy's family and friends are throwing what are either their deepest or darkest thoughts at the Slayer. Her mother says Buffy has ruined her life, Giles calls her a thoughtless Bimbo, Willow attacks her for being with Angel while Oz is missing, and on and on. Underlying all this is the scope of Buffy's responsibilities and the conflict between her obligations to her friends and her duty in being the Slayer. There is a personal level to conflict here that you rarely get with a Buffy novel.

The second is a toss off line early in the book about how the first obligation of a new Slayer is to avenge her predecessor. Add to that the idea that Helen has been slaying hundreds of Slayers since she was first turned on the last day of the reign of the Emperor Caligula, which suggests Slayers are usually told what just happened to the previous Slayer. Certainly there is a story here to be told and you have to think that soon or later we will get around to hearing what happened to the Vampire Slayer before Buffy. It may well be that Joss Whedon is saving the story for some prime moment and with the introduction of the First Slayer in the Season Four finale I also have to think we are heading in that direction.

This is an above average Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel, even if it is not on the same level as Holder's work with Christopher Golden. As always I am most appreciative of Holder's respect for the Buffy mythos and the idea that this is an ongoing war with the vampires. But she always tempers this with attempts to deepen the relationships between Buffy and the Scoobies. We are never just running in place with Holden.

You can't go wrong with a Buffy book that's written by Holder. Those of you who have read past Buffy books, by her know what I mean. The Evil that Men Do is pleasure to read. Holder has a solid grasp of the character, dialougs, and the actions of the characters of the show. This is obvious in her writing.

What could lead to a shooting spree in Sunnydale? Could it be some random act or are some demons at work? While Buffy is figureing this out, other acts of violence is happing in Sunnydale. This sounds like a job for the Scooby gang...just one problem, Willow turns on Buffy and refuses to help. And if this isn't enough for Buffy....a ancient creature is hunting Buffy. Why would Willow turn of Buffy and what's hunting Buffy? Read this book and find out. (Dont' worry,I didn't ruin any of the plot, this is all on the back cover.)

Hodler has a wonderful style of writing that will keep the reader glued to the book. There are wonderful plot twists that move the story along. If you like Buffy books, then I highly suggest you read this book.