Image (Angel) (Paperback)

The prologue also violates the time/space rule, which states (and I am paraphrasing here), that a prologue must represent a very different time and place from the first part of the novel. But in chapter 2 we go back and cover some of the same time frame from the end of the prologue. Usually Odom does a good job of juggling all of the various plot lines in his novels, but this time around I found myself wanting to get back to one particular plot line, so the scene switches were something of an intrusion. Once we get past the first act and everybody has a chance to catch up on the big picture, things proceed briskly apace.

The story focuses on Faroe Burke, a young painter about to have her first big art show who suddenly discovers that a bunch of demons have been hired to capture her, although why anyone would be interested in a former graffiti artist trying to turn legit becomes one of the driving questions of the novel. Meanwhile, Angel stumbles across a blast from his past, Gabriel Dantz, a painter who did a portrait of Darla several hundred years ago, which leads to the question as to how Gabriel happens to still be alive. However, the big question is what do these two painters have in common. One of Odom's strengths has been his creation of new characters for his stories, and I almost wish that Faroe Burke and Gabriel Dantz did not have to compete for time in this particular story.

"Image," despite the emphasis on painting, actually makes better use of horror literature than the vast majority of Angel/Buffy books. There is a reference to the work of H. P. Lovecraft and the celebrated weekend when Lord Byron hosted Percy Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and John Polidori in Geneva and suggested they write some horror stories become a pivotal subplot in the novel.

Characterizations involving the cast from Angel are especially problematic because there have been some significant growth spurts in that regard. Angel has certainly lightened up, Wesley is no longer comic relief, and Cordelia is nowhere near as self-absorbed as before. Then again, there is really no sense of when "Image" takes place in terms of the history of the television series given the sparsity of clues (Kate out, Host in, no Darla in the present) and that makes it difficult to say the characterizations are outdated because the obvious response is that the story takes place when they are not. I think part of it is that I really like the changes that we have seen in Wesley and Cordelia (ironically, it is the new and improved Angel I am least certain about).

Finally, one more oddball complaint. Usually my complaint is that when we get to the big secret in one of these novels it is not particularly impressive and often is just a means to bring about a happy ending relatively quickly. But with Odom his revelations are usually really good and I find myself wishing they had been revealed earlier in the novel so that they could be explored more in the context of the story. Certainly, that is what I was thinking while reading the last act of "Image," which is another above average original novel from Odom, a man who somehow manages to sometimes put too much into his Angel/Buffy books.