Long Way Home

Nancy Holder deserves a huge Buffy fan award. Not only did her hardcover book, "Book of Fours," provide fans with one of teh Slayer's best stories, it fit logically into the Buffy-verse without taking many great leaps.I'm not sure why she stopped writing with Christopehr Golden but I have no complaints. She blew his "Tales of the Lost Slayer" out of the water with this trilogy. It all fit neatly into the recent story lines of both Buffy and Angel (Seasons 4 / 2 respectively). Kudos! MORE NANCY MORE!!!!!!

This was a terrific series. I couldn't put it down. Pity it didn't continue

this was the best book it was the bomb!I also like the fact that Faith was in it i wuld recommend it its the best and the best trilogy buy it!

Volume Two if this series, "Door to Alternity," left us hanging as Buffy and Angel prepared to leave this world to search through alternate universes for those missing from L.A. and Sunnydale. Entering through separate portals their plan was to meet on the other side, track down the missing, and return in one piece. Sound easy? It might have been in the planning stages, but Spike's last minute decision to jump through the portal in search of a more vampire friendly world destroys the link between Tara, Willow, Dona Pilar, Alina and Buffy. Suddenly Buffy, Angel, and Spike as well are stranded separately, in serious trouble, with no idea how to proceed.While those left behind struggle to reestablish the link, each of the adventurers finds themselves faced with unexpected opposition. Buffy materializes just in time to find herself in unarmed combat with a dragon. No sooner is that peril vanquished when she comes under attack by an overly aggressive suit of armor. She manages another escape and enters a castle where she is chased everywhere by giant guard rats down halls with lots (really lots) of doors. Angel appears and discovers that he must rescue a damsel in distress from several very bad guys. When said damsel takes Angel home to meet her witch grandmother Angel suddenly finds he is deep in combat with the rest of the very, very bad guys.And Spike? Spike finds himself in what first appears to be vampire heaven, complete with rivers running with blood. When he talks to several other vampire residents he discovers that rather than heaven, he has landed in the multiverse's only vampire zoo. Escape he does, but finds that he is running from of a world full of people who keep zapping him with ray guns. Meanwhile, back home, Tara, Willow, and Dona Pilar have figured out how to reestablish contact and an emergency jailbreak is engineered to send in the shock troops, Faith.At some point, the hysterical reader will realize that almost everyone who could appear in this Buffy story actually does, right down to a certain Sunnydale mayor. On top of this we have innumerable dimension hopping monsters, battling Russian and Hispanic gangs, and even the L.A. police. Wherever you read, something is coming to a boil. Somehow, Nancy Holder and Jeff Mariotte manage to keep things together and maintain pace throughout the entire novel. From a character viewpoint things have stabilized and the Riley/Buffy and Tara/Willow relationships work much more effortlessly than in previous volumes. I don't think you will be disappointed. This whole series is a must read for diehard Buffy fans, and bodes well for future volumes.

Nancy Holder and Jeff Mariotte have brought their crossover trilogy to an end in grand style. Action packed this book brings each of the complex plots to an agreeable end. Everyone plays apart as the gang tries to defeat the monsters, find the missing children, and stop the gang warfare. It is the action rather than the relationships, which sparkle in this story. The battles are well written. Poodle size rats, disembodied armor, slavers, mad zoo keepers, shadows, giant worms and miscellaneous monsters threaten the gang.Because there are so many characters it is hard to give them equal time or explore their emotions as much as fully as the reader might like. Not only do we have Buffy, Angel and their gangs, but even Faith and the mayor make an appearance. The authors for the most part have done an excellent job of working in the series history and keeping the characters true to their TV personalities. There are some lovely inside jokes that true Buffy fans will love. There are, however, some inconsistencies. When Faith is added to the team she pitches in to help Angel but says she owes Buffy nothing. Yet the last we saw Faith on the TV series she was acknowledging that Buffy was the only one who gave her chance after chance and that she had not only rejected her friendship but had attacked her friends and messed with her life. So it was hard to understand her anger at Buffy. The back drop of the other realities was very intriguing. I loved the vampire zoo especially and the worm tunnels made my skin crawl. A nice touch was the temptations. Although I think that Angel's temptation would have been more realistic if it had not excluded Buffy.I enjoyed the trilogy and this book in particular. I recommend it highly to Buffy fans but I would not suggest reading it without reading the other two Unseen volumes first.