Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby - Allyson Beatrice

When you read this book, you're not reading a tale about Buffy, or of fans in general. You're really reading the biography of a specific "super fan". Allyson Beatrice knows (as she mentions several times) several writers and producers for shows such as Firefly, Buffy, Angel and so on. She has been in Joss Whedon's "sphere" for many years. She has been extremely active and instrumental in the forums about those shows, the efforts to keep the shows going, and the parties.

Allyson would be the first to admit that she's a flawed character, which is a good thing. Reading someone "self praising" through an entire book can get quite tedious. Allyson does mention her high points, but she is quick to point out that she can be nasty and cut-throat in forum postings as well. It makes her more human.

Unfortunately, that's the way she begins the book. She starts by bashing people who love TV shows like Buffy, looking down on them and pitying them. Now, I have to admit that I didn't watch Buffy - the theme of a pretty blonde girl in High School just didn't appeal to me - but I love sci-fi in general. I saw Star Wars ten times when it first came out, and spent my childhood completely immersed in anything sci-fi and fantasy that I could. I read Lord of the Rings at least yearly. So while I didn't feel personal angst about her diatribe against Buffy people, it still bugged me that she - who used to love the show - could turn so easily against people who felt that kinship. It set a poor tone for the book.

I kept going, though. I was rewarded in portions by laugh out loud commentary. Surely anyone who has been on forums can relate to some of the situations described. It has nothing to do with Buffy - it simply has to do with online web forums. In one area she talks about how forum arguments tend to escalate until someone brings up Hitler or Nazis - and that the person who does this is immediately considered as having lost the argument, and the thread is shut down. I happened to have been with my father while reading this, and he had this exact situation happen only a few weeks earlier on a USGENWEB (genealogy) group.

Part of the issue I have with the book is that it makes it seem at times that Buffy fans were unique in their reactions and issues. I can probably cite exact duplicates of pretty much every situation here - from the woman lying about her dying child on a forum for sympathy, to people gathering thousands of dollars to help out a friend they'd never met, to tons of online people meeting together for the first time - in numerous other forums. These are, really, very common things on the web.

I've been to many science fiction conventions. The situations she mentions have actually been going on BEFORE there was an internet (really, there was such a time!). People used to have paper newsletters, mail groups and phone conversations.

So it felt a bit silly to hear for the fourth or fifth time how amazing it was that people who had NEVER MET BEFORE were getting together to see each other! Yikes! They'd only talked remotely before? And now they were in person? Really, this happens all the time. It's neat, but it's common.

So in the end, I had a mixed reaction. I certainly enjoyed some sections. Other, long sections felt more like reading someone's personal diary - with people I'd never met, and who weren't described in enough detail for me to really connect with. Yet other sections felt a little like reading Al Gore talk about how he invented the Internet.

If you've ever been involved in forum activity, this book will probably have areas you really enjoy. I'd highly recommend getting it out from the library - or borrowing a copy from a friend, to glean those gems from the book. But as far as a book that I'd repeatedly read, or that I enjoyed from start to finish, it didn't fall into that category for me.

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