Heat

 Heat

-Nancy Holder
-July 2004
-456 Pages
  Summary: Buffy and Angel both battle the same ancient evil, a Possessor who was once Qin, First Emperor of China. As a Possessor, Qin's body loses its temperature fast and he is forced to jump from body to body through the ages, rendering him immortal. In present day Sunnydale and Los Angeles, Qin is attempting to usher in the Year of the Hot Devil and drive humans out of his dimension by resurrecting an ancient dragon frozen in ice from centuries before.
   
  Rating: 4/5
   
  Review: Not bad, not bad. Nancy Holder did a lot better on this novel than I've seen her write before. My biggest complaint with her before was that she used too many actual quotes from the series and to me it just looked like sloppy writing. Instead, with this novel, she's chosen to incorporate different aspects of the Buffyverse into her writing which made for some REALLY neat references. There are far too many to name, but there's mentions of Common Rotation, Ghost of the Robot, the comic book Fray, etc. etc.

I also know that a lot of Spuffy fans plotted a huge revolt against this novel because they felt it went against the current world of BtVS. I've always been a B/Aer so I definitely liked the increase in Buffy and Angel romance. We've been sorely lacking in it over there years. I'd heard about the revolt over the novel before I read it and I was expecting some gross reconstruction of the canon storyline. Like Buffy and Angel were suddenly sleeping together or making with some random cuddling. I didn't find that at all. Some people can accept that Buffy and Angel still have feelings for each other (which umm.. if you want to argue the point, just go watch Chosen) while others believe they've moved on from each other completely. So if you're more of a Spuffy fan, then maybe this novel isn't for you. However, there ARE some nice references to what happened between Buffy and Spike so maybe it's not a total loss for the Spuffy fans out there. Regardless, it's pretty easy to see where Nancy Holder stands on the B/A vs Spuffy fence, and she lands pretty heavily on the B/A side.

Anyway, back to the real storyline. It was built up really well, and I liked the idea of all the ice and fire. I'm not a fan of Jheira from Angel though, so bringing her back was a bit offputting for me. And frankly, she's a huge pain in the ass throughout the entire novel. The ending was a bit all over (Los Angeles - China - and back again???) but surprisingly, it really worked out nicely. I wasn't too fussy about those maudlin dream sequences though. Those were impossible to take even remotely seriously.

All in all though, one of Holder's better accomplishments in the Buffyverse novels.
   
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