Whedon's Buffy The Vampire Slayer is one of the most original and popular television programs of the last decade. It puts an inventive spin on vampires and demons partly for thrills, partly as eloquent metaphors for contemporary teen angst, but does a lot more - varying its tone from comic surrealism to moments of intense, almost operatic romanticism.

Reading The Vampire Slayer is a critical appreciation of Buffy and its spin-off series Angel, whose contributors look at the complex ways in which both shows have won the hearts and minds of an audience that has opened out from the teen to the hip.

A range of writers considers the actors, California as Hellscape, the influence on the series of East Asian and martial arts movies, how their verbal wit derives from American traditions varying from vaudeville to post-modernism and their knowing flirtation with a fan culture fascinated by subtexts that imply lesbian and gay relationships between the characters.

Reading The Vampire Slayer also provides a short episode guide to the first five seasons of Buffy and the first two seasons of Angel and a critical overview of those seasons' principle themes and structures.

It's fairly rare that so much time passes without me reading non-fiction (can essays about a fictional world be clearly defined as non-fiction??) but this is the first to make it onto my 'to read' list in a long while. I'm a huge fan of the Buffyverse, and have enjoyed reading some of the online essays on the subject. I'm not too sure what to expect from this book so far, it may be interesting, or it may be a bunch of people with far too much time on their hands trying to squeeze a few extra pounds out of the Buffy brand name...time will tell, but I'm hoping it will at least be food for thought...no doubt I'll have a few opinions on the subjects raised:)