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Doomsday Deck (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
by Diana G. Gallagher
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment (2000-12-01)
ISBN: 0743400410
EAN: 9780743400411
Mass Market Paperback: 208 pages
Reading Level: Young Adult
Release Date: 2000-11-28
SKU: MOZ124565
Condition: Fine
Comments: 0743400410 MMPB free of markings. Cover shows very light wear. This book shows little to no evidence of having been used; very pretty copy. Your book will be carefully protected for transit in sturdy, weather-resistant packaging. We are prompt, efficient, communicative.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
The gang have been preparing for the Sunnydale Sidewalk Art and Craft Festival. It sees the arrival of Justine, who specialises in Tarot paintings and Buffy has a nagging suspicion that Justine is not all she seems. Then one by one, the gang start to surrender their free will to some unseen force.
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Customer Reviews
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Xander's Luck With Ladies
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-10-30
The only female that Xander has ever fallen for who did not turn out to be evil or become evil is Buffy. This book is not an exception. Buffy's mom is in charge of the Sunnydale Sidewalk Art Festival. She asks Buffy to help keep peace at the fair and make sure no artists wind up on someone's dinner menu. The rest of the gang also helps out with festival details. Xander falls for an attractive young artist who specializes in fantasy images (wizards, unicorns, fairies, etc.). Doing what he can to remain near the artist he allows her to perform a Tarot reading on him. The strangeness begins. Soon the oddness is noticed by others and they try to figure out what is going on and who is responsible. But it just gets worse and worse as they discover that not only are the lives of friends in danger, but the fate of the entire universe as well. Can Buffy and the gang put a stop to things before it is too late?
This is a pretty good story that makes good use of the full cast. The characters are properly portrayed so you can hear their lines as if watching an episode. The villain, and the escalation of danger, are well handled. There are a few times when it seems the characters don't get suspicious quickly enough, the same has happened on the show so its no big deal. So if you want to see Buffy and company save the world again then this is one to check out.
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Super Reader
Rating  (3)
Date: 2007-08-06
Another of the shorter variety of the Buffy books, in Doomsday Deck a young artist comes to Sunnydale for an art show. She also has a somewhat odd tarot deck.
It turns out she is a tool whereby Kali wants to bring about the much quicker destruction of the universe. It just requires turning a few more people into Major Arcana tarot paintings, and Xander, Willow, Oz and Buffy are all available.
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Total fluff - skip it
Rating  (1)
Date: 2006-08-13
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I had three problems with this particular entry to the Buffyverse:
1. It's short. 193 pages in large print, so you really aren't getting your money's worth. It's a novella at best.
2. The author doesn't capture the voice of the characters nearly as well as some of the other contributors, and some items are just wrong (e.g., especially in this Season 3 chronology, Buffy doesn't drive.) The dialogue is lame, with Buffy occasionally sounding like Giles, Anya never sounding like Anya, and a villian that doesn't even acheive the insightful repartee of your cheesy comic book. Try Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder for far superior characterizations and voices that "get" the Buffy tone.
3. The story, which had potential in theory, is just plain lame in execution. The characters do stupid things, the conclusion is artificial, and you are left with the thought that these people are no better than the various teenagers offed in any B grade horror flick. Don't waste your money.
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Better than expected
Rating  (5)
Date: 2005-06-11
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book was a lot better than I thought it would be. After reading some of the reviews I wasn't expecting the best Buffy book ever;however,I really enjoyed Doomsday Deck. All the characters act just like they do in the show. Even though Anya wasn't a main character in the third season of Buffy, she still played a nice sized part in this book. I liked that this book explored Tarot cards, which is new to the Buffy universe. Also the plot was really good in this book. The ending was great and I could cleary see every detail. Over all this was an amazing book which I highly recommend to everyone.
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Jhaeman's Review
Rating (3)
Date: 2004-12-14
DOOMSDAY DECK
By Diana G. Gallagher (2000)
RATING: 3/5 Stakes
SETTING: Third Season
CAST APPEARANCES: Buffy, Angel, Willow, Xander, Giles, Cordelia, Joyce, Anya
MAJOR ORIGINAL CHARACTERS: Justine Camille (tarot reader & artist); Rob Chambers (photo journalist)
BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SUMMARY: "It's that time of the year for the Sunnydale Sidewalk Art Festival, and Buffy and the gang have been enlisted to help Joyce prepare for the big event. In fact, Xander's especially eager to pitch in, due to the arrival of a major hottie--a young artist named Justine. She specializes in Tarot paintings, and tells Xander that she senses much energy surrounding his aura. Xander naturally assumes his latent psychic powers have been awakened. But Buffy's not quite ready to call the psychic hot line. She has a nagging suspicion that something about Justine is not five by five--especially after she reaches for Justine's prized Tarot deck, which causes the artist to fly off the handle in a big way. Then there's the fact that vampires appear uncomfortable in Justine's presence. One by one, each of Buffy's closest friends seem to be surrendering their free will to an unknown, unseen force. . . ."
REVIEW
If nothing else, Doomsday Deck contains a great insight into how Xander perceives his relationship with Buffy: he's like an extra stake in her back pocket, "handy to have around, but not irreplaceable." Xander's sense of himself as a relatively extraneous, snack-gathering appendage to the Scooby Gang was a major aspect of his characterization until the end of Season Six, and author Diana Gallagher portrays this insecurity well in the first half of her novel.
The plot of the book is developed better than in many other Buffy novels. Doomsday Deck acknowledges that the reader will inevitably point to any major new character as the villain of the piece, and instead develops an air of mystery around exactly what her malevolent plans are and how they will unfold. In short, artist and tarot-card reader Justine Camille plans to trap one human soul in each of her 22 tarot paintings to fulfill an ancient book's prophecy that doing so will give her heart's desire (in this case, becoming a famous artist in New York). There's also a rather trite and undeveloped use of Kali (Goddess of Chaos) thrown into the mix somewhere, but the book focuses on Justine's visit to Sunnydale and her inevitable conflict with Buffy and Co. Along the way, of course, several of Buffy's friends get their souls trapped in the cards and Buffy has to race against time to free them before their bodies die.
The end of the novel suffers from an over-long climax, and the backstory as to how Justine found the book and decided to use the cards should have been fleshed out more (a failing common to many Buffy episodes, where the supernatural villain or device appears out of practically nowhere and is never seen again after the story is over). The dialogue is passable but lacks the witty one-liners of a good episode. On the other hand, the use of tarot cards is integrated well into the story, and many of the readings that Justine performs for the Scoobies are intriguing. Fans of Buffy's mom (a.k.a. Joyce) will also be pleased to see the more active role the character takes in helping her daughter. All in all, Doomsday Deck is one of the better middle-tier Buffy books, and a good example of how to successfully use something in a story (tarot) that could easily have come off as gimmicky and stupid.
(c) 2004 Jeremy Patrick-Justice (jhaeman@hotmail.com)
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