Christopher Golden
Strangewood
Christopher Golden wrote a few of the best Buffy the Vampire Slayer books: Wisdom of War, Monster Island, Spike and Dru, etc. Writing novels based on TV shows with cult and rabid following is hard because the target audience knows the characters by heart, they know how they talk, think, move, decide, hate, and love. This is doubly hard with Buffy - a series where each character has a different way of speaking, of using words and inventing words. Golden got all of the characters in Buffy in most of his books. Though after reading "Wisdom of War" a friend said that she never thought that Buffy was so cynical. He also wrote for Star Trek, Xmen, Hellboy, and Battlestar Gallactica. My kinda geek writer!
I didn't have high expectations for Strangewood - I bought it because it was only P50 at National Cubao. I read it immediately because it was the only book I had with me on the ride home. As with the Buffy novels, I couldn't put it down - unless I had to - which was often because of what people tell me is important to do - work. I also thought that this was a fantasy novel for young adults because most of his books were for kids or teen-agers.
Anyway, Strangewood is an alternate dimension/reality that Thomas and his son Nathan could go too - like Oz, Narnia and Stephen King and Peter Straub's Talisman and Black House. Strangewood's more like the latter - when in the fantasy world, Thomas and Nathan are catatonic or comatose in our world. Though the creatures in Strangewood are as fantastical and weird as in Oz (like Peanut Butter General - a man covered in - well, yes, peanut butter and Jackal Lantern, a jackal with a pumpkin head) they swear like characters in a Tarantino movie. Wow, a no holds barred fantasy novel! No goodie-goodie character who was forced by circumstances to do evil. The kontrabidas just found a excuse to hurt, maim, and murder. The creatures in Strangewood kidnapped Thomas' son because they blamed him for the ruin and destruction of Strangewood - a world that Thomas partially created. Not everyone in Strangewood agreed with this, those who thought it was wrong to kidnap, threaten, hurt, and kill waited for Thomas to return so that they could help him rescue his son. It was war and Golden told a perfect war story.
