“Do you know what it’s like to live a hundred years in a seedy road show?” — Hopscotch

“No. Unless high school counts.” — Buffy


This early Buffy novelization takes place between seasons one and two, during summer vacation for the Scooby gang, as they became affectionately known. It deviates from the Buffy series canon in that Buffy remains in Sunnydale. Coyote Moon appears to be sort of a mash-up homage by author John Vornholt (a name familiar to Star Trek book fans) to the Hollywood werewolf legend and the movie western. It also mixes in Native American mysticism to replace the lycanthropy explanation for shape-shifting, leading to the proclivity of the carnival gang to become coyotes, and in one case, a bear. It’s kinda fun, kinda pulpy, and I enjoyed it overall. However…

All of the genres to which the author appears to be paying homage are more familiar to adults, and older teenagers. While that shouldn’t be an issue, at times the author seems to be a tad uncertain what age group would be reading this. There are so many exclamation points even Robert Ludlum would roll his eyes, and on occasion it makes it seem as though he’s trying to straddle the younger Goosebump reader with the Christopher Pike fan. Once you accept the pulpy nature of the story, it’s easy to enjoy, but the exclamation points, when added, occasionally make Xander and Willow — and even Buffy — sound a bit off in characterization. Eventually, I found myself ignoring the exclamation points, and it returned the characters to their own voices.

Set between the first and second season, you can feel high school in this one, and the Willow/Xander/Buffy triangle is in full bloom. The carnival is in town, and soon Xander hooks up with sexy carnival cutie Rose, and Willow ends up with hunky Lonnie. But there has been some strange coyote activity since the carnival arrived, and Buffy is getting a weird vibe about it. Xander’s not listening, and Willow at first thinks Buffy is being too cautious. They’re all just trying to have one last blast before summer ends, after all, and the carnival being in town offers the perfect way to do that.

With Giles’ help, Buffy finally figures it all out, and it has to do with an old cowboy who was one of the founding fathers of — you guessed it — Sunnydale. That was a very long time ago, but may explain why the coyotes, who may be shape-shifters from way back, have come to the place Spurs Hardaway (think Wild Bill Hickok) is buried — for now. Giles helps Buffy quite a bit in the latter part of the story, and it gets pretty fun, with Xander and Willow double dating at the cemetery, where they’re about to discover Buffy was right all along.

It feels pulpy at times, and very early in the series. If you can deal with that it’s a pretty fun read, but if not, this is probably one to pick up only if you’re a hardcore Buffy fan, and run across it at an inexpensive price. Don’t get me wrong, it is fun and I enjoyed it, but not everyone will be able to get past the exclamation points, or the pulpy feel to the narrative, thus the same three stars I gave to Halloween Rain. I did like it, and it was a nice way to unwind. ( )

A carnival has arrived in Sunnydale, which probably means it's some kind of evil carnival. Nevertheless, Buffy and her friends attend and Xander and Willow, at least, find it perfectly acceptable and not at all a bad idea to start trying to date a couple of the carnival employees. Buffy, being more attuned to danger, senses something weird right away and gets herself in a small amount of trouble for investigating in areas that are not for the general public.
Plus, there're a bunch of dead people who looked like they were attacked by animals and an unusual number of coyotes present in the general suburban area. I think we all know where this is heading, but as it's a Season 1 - based book, I think we can forgive the schlocky nature of the plot. A fun romp that felt like reading a bonus episode of the show. The writer captures the speech patterns, attitudes and characters similarly to as they appear on the show. (Which is not always the case with these). ( )

I read this book as part of [b:Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vol. 1|7441947|Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vol. 1|John Vornholt|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347375736l/7441947._SX50_.jpg|9452071]. I really enjoyed the story. It was interesting, and read like one of the TV episodes. I didn't like that Willow and Xander didn't listen to Buffy, but considering it was set during season 1, I think that was normal while everyone was learning to rely on each other. ( )

The Buffy books arrived safe and sound today. I'll get to reading them as soon as I can.

I savored this book a little longer than the previous 2. I loved the scene where Willow was playing poker. This book is Tony Hillerman lite. If you've read any of his mysteries, you'll know what I mean. ( )