The Lost Slayer

by Christopher Golden

Book Overview

Truth and ConsequencesBuffy Summers's adjustment to life at U.C. Sunnydale has not gone smoothly. She feels awkward, insecure, and jealous that Willow's all over the college life. So when she is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743412265
• ISBN13: 9780743412261
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Simon Pulse
• Length: 592 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 4.4" x 7.0"
• Age Range: 15 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 10 to 12

Customer Reviews

Fantastic television tie-in book.

*NO SPOILERS* This book could have been a terrific Buffy tv episode(s). I could picture the events unfolding like they were on a televison screen right in front of me. I've missed Buffy since its final tv days and this book brought it back for another show through reading. I am not saying this is great literature, just good tv in a book. Televison episodes of buffy that should have been. Its a great buy for 573 pages and dialog that stays true to the Buffy verse. Note that the story time frame is after High School at the start of Buffys College daze(days).

Thrilling Quartet for Hardcore 'Buffy' Fans

"Prophecies" - 5 stars - Vampire-slayer Buffy Summers is having an extremely hard time of adjusting to her life as a non-high school student, and new Freshman at UC Sunnydale. For one thing, she's made a bad impression on her teachers, turning things in late, and missing classes; and her relationship with Willow and Giles is slowly going down the tube. However, when a group of organized vampires covered in bat tattoos show-up in Sunnydale, Buffy knows that it's up to her to try and destroy them before they take over the entire town. But when Giles and her begin investigating, and run into danger, causing Giles to be captured by them, and held hostage, Buffy finds herself fleeing, and calls upon the now-dead slayer, Lucy Hanover to help her out. Lucy informs Buffy that she must find a Prophet, to show her what will happen in the future, so she can avoid danger. But instead of helping, this action catapults the now 19-year-old Buffy into the future, to what she'll be when she's 24-years-old. "Dark Times" - 5 stars - Sunnydale has always been a marking-ground for vampires, and other creatures of the underworld. At nightfall, they prey upon the innocents that walk upon the Hellmouth, at daybreak they sleep, content with the blood consumed the night before. However, when Buffy Summers - the chosen one - awakens in the future, now a 24-year-old, she is shocked to see what has happened to Sunnydale. It is now overrun with vampires, and creatures of the night, who have claimed it as their own. Buffy soon finds that her friends, known as the Scooby gang, have now grown as well. The usually fun-loving Xander is now a humorless older man, Willow is a complete sorceress, and Oz possesses a tremendous split personality, living as both a human and werewolf. However, back in the present, Buffy's friends can't figure out why the 19-year-old is acting so strangely, and walking around in a trance-life state. They don't yet realize that the Prophet has taken-over her body. Now it's up to the Slayer's friends to draw her out of the future, and bring her back to the present before it's too late. "King of the Dead" - 5 stars - Buffy has been launched five-years into the future, and is now inhabiting her 24-year-old body, while her 19-year-old mind reigns over all. She has been rescued by Willow and Xander, her two best friends, who, now, in their 24-year-old bodies, have begun working for the Watchers Council. No, they are not watchers, but protectors. The world is bleak five years later, for Buffy has found that her Mother is dead, and that Angel is missing. But that is not the worst of it, for a strange bit of information has found it's way to Buffy, and she now knows that Giles, her beloved Watcher for years, has switched sides, and is now the Vampire King. And Spike, who seemed pretty powerful in the past, is now nothing more than a minion to Giles. Now Buffy is forced to fight to take back Sunnydale, and soon, the rest of California back from the dead, or rat

Christopher Golden's fantastic "Lost Slayer" serial novel

Christopher Golden's "The Lost Slayer" is one of the very best of the original "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" stories, on the same level with "The Gatekeeper Trilogy" he wrote with Nancy Holder. Originally published as a four-part serial novel, "The Lost Slayer" takes us back to the early days of season four, when Buffy was after Angel but before Riley and trying to enjoy being a freshman at UC-Sunnydale while Willow was still dating Oz. This is a Buffy who is on edge, accidentally backhanding Willow, repeatedly snapping at Giles, and finding freedom not in the classroom as she desires but only in letting lose the full violence of the Slayer in combat. But then two troubling things happen to up the ante. First, the shade of the deceased Slayer Lucy Hanover appears in a dream and warns Buffy of a prophecy of impending danger that will somehow be caused by Buffy herself. Second, a new pack of vampires, with bats tattooed on their face and glowing orange eyes, and showing up in increasing numbers in Sunnydale. Of course, these two developments are related in the worst way possible. For most of the novel it seems pretty clear the title refers to Buffy as a Slayer who has lost sense of her true self. But then we come to the final chapter and a dramatic development that gives "The Lost Slayer" an entirely new and unforgettable meaning. This first book gets five stars because it achieves its highest goal, which is to make the reader desperate to read the next installment. Fortunately in this edition all four books are bound together.A single bad judgment as the result of a monstrous lie has catapulted Buffy into the future and a world where vampires rule Sunnydale and the Slayer has been held captive for six years. A horrified Buffy learns she is now known as "The Lost Slayer," forgotten by the Watcher's Council. The most dramatic scene in this book comes early, when Buffy stages a chilling escape from her cell after resolving the cliffhanger that ended Part One, when August, the recently imprisoned second Slayer called to replace Faith, decided to kill Buffy so that a new Slayer could be called. This is definitely one of those sequences that is too intense for small children. Meanwhile, in the present, Giles is still being held hostage while Willow and the Scoobies discover something is not right with Buffy. The other prominent figure in the series is Willow, because Buffy's best bud is a significant figure in both of the time periods in which this tale is told. Golden also sets up Willow's growth as a Wicca on the show. The once and future Willow gets to see almost as much action as the Slayer this time around. One of the things that made "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" one of the best shows on television is that there is a dark side, a world in which bad things happen to good people and the world just might come to an end as we know it. Golden creates such a world, which is as horrific as when Anyanka granted Cordelia's wish that Buffy Summers had never come

A Good "What If" Story

As you've read in the other reviews, this book takes place mostly in the future. One wrong move, and Buffy is rocketed 5 years into the future, where vampires have taken over and she is imprisoned to keep another Slayer from being called. She escapes and learns that although most of her friends are still fighting the good fight, they've changed...I've read this omnibus at least four times, and as soon as I'm finished Monster Island, I plan on picking it up again. Another reviewer complained that the future characters have no sense of humour. I think that only underscores how dreary and dangerous their lives have become without Buffy to save the day. (Sounds trite, but she is the Slayer.)I'm one of the only adults I know who reads the Buffy books. I loved the show, and I enjoy the books. Golden knows the characters well; you can close your eyes and imagine Sarah, Alyson, and Nicholas acting this book out. I gave this book 5 stars. Read it.

Grandmaster Giles

Buffy makes a mistake in present-day Sunnydale with far-reaching consequences, and finds herself magically transported into the nightmare future her miscalculation has created. There, Buffy has been a prisoner of the vampires for five years. The creatures of the night have conquered Sunnydale and its surrounding cities, and are continuing to expand under the tutelage of a new leader more crafty and experienced than the Master: Rupert Giles, Buffy's former Watcher. If Buffy can't escape and make her way back to her own time, this is the world that will come to pass - a world in which most of her friends and loved ones are dead.When Christopher Golden pulls out the stops, he's hard to beat, and here he's pulled out the stops. This mammoth Buffy novel has everything any fan could want, and even non-fans might enjoy the story for its own apocalyptic roller-coaster ride. It's reminiscent of the T.V. series' best episode, "The Wish," in which all the characters everyone has come to know and love succumb to a nightmarish alternate-dimension vampire Armageddon, though The Lost Slayer is its own story. The only real complaint that can be made about this tome is its ungainly length, the consequence of its being a bind-up of four previous shorter serial novels - which could easily have been streamlined both editorially and in reduction of typeset size when published in a single volume - but that is a small complaint for a big book. A VERY big book.