Keith DeCandido, from what I see on his profile page, is pretty much exclusively an author of work-for-hire media-tie ins. Generally, I don't see good authors concentrating on that kind of market, but it's notable Buffy's creator Joss Whedon chose to co-write the novelization of Serenity with him, and he's written at least two other Buffy novels. His style is decent, and by and large this Buffyverse novel was entertaining.

The novel is centered on Slayer Nikki Wood, the mother of Principal Wood who fans would remember from Season Seven of Buffy. If you remember her from the couple of episodes she briefly appeared in, "Fool for Love" and "Lies My Parents Told Me, then you know her fate and the basic plot of the book will hold little surprise. Given Nikki's race and the setting in the seventies, DeCandido admits in his Acknowledgements that blaxploitation films such as Shaft, Superfly and Cleopatra Jones were an inspiration for his take. He sets the book during the week of the July 1977 New York City blackouts, and what does make this book fun was the slice of New York City history served up. DeCandido is a native New Yorker who grew up in the city and it shows. He gets so many details right down to the subway tokens, the price of a telephone call back then, the baseball teams, the mayor--lots of little things I often see done wrong even in present day depictions of my city.

Mind you, I don't consider this one a keeper, and this book doesn't make me want to read more of the author. This isn't a standout among the fan fiction, amateur or pro, I've read. But if you're a Buffy fan, this is a fairly entertaining read that did hold me to the end. Among the Buffy pro fiction I've read, it's better than the post-Chosen book Queen of the Slayers, but not impressive like the Faith book Go Ask Malice. ( )

This was something a little off the beaten path for a Buffy novel, as Buffy and most of the rest of the cast from the show doesn't really appear in the main story at all. The novel springs off of a brief story element from one episode of season five (later picked up in one episode of season seven) about Spike fighting an African-American slayer named Nikki Wood in New York in 1977.
Being a book taking place in New York in the late 1970s, and featuring a main character who is black, the book is *very* heavily influenced by blaxploitation cinema (Shaft and Cleopatra Jones and whatnot). There's plenty of talk about how The Fuzz is nothing but a bunch of jive turkeys, and most of the vampires in the city seem to double as gangsters and pimps. Basically, if you like that type of film, and have any interest in the Buffy 'universe', you should be able to get a huge kick out of reading it - DeCandido really seems to relish in being able to tell this type of story. I also appreciate the fleshing out of slayers other than Buffy herself - there's this grand fantasy universe that's been created by Whedon, and it annoys me sometimes that it focuses too much on a single blonde girl in California. ( )