Unlike the three preceding volumes, this one has a unifying theme: Evry story in it chronicles a Slayer going through her 18th birthday Tento di Cruciamentum, as per the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode "Helpless". An amazing and fertile concept for stories, to be sure, and the unifying theme is very welcome. It is, however, hugely disappointed that all eight stories (spoiler alert) have the respective Slayers survive the trial (well, one dies, but not because of the trial itself). All eight. This kind of undermines the stories' constant insistence that lots of Slayers die in these. There should also have been a bit more editorial presence in the placing of the stories -- two of the authors solve the 'how would my vampire foe know of this secret ritual' issue by having their vampires both be former Watchers. These stories only have one other (very short) story between them, which is too little, making the idea feel a bit trite the second time around through no fault of the second author's.

As usual in any short story collection, my personal enjoyment varied hugely from one to the next. As expected, Jane Espenson's story (the final in the volume) was a highlight, and flipping through the pages now, Rusch's and Holder's stories both stand out as well. Reaves' was also quite good, though I felt the gimmick of the first, second and third person narratives didn't work quite as well as on might have hoped. Dalkey's, Cox' and Allie's were good fun, though all three of these stories suffered a lot from the general sense of 'well, she'll survive, won't she?' that the collection was accruing as it went. Levy's was the one I liked the least, as I felt it was overlong and a bit dull, in spite of the rather impressive and clever idea at its core (a Slayer turned pacifist).

But as a whole, the collection is good fun, and a great and welcome expansion of the Slayerverse mythos. ( )

Again by Jane Espenson - I liked this one best. Probably because it was about Buffy and Willow and Xander. I miss Giles! He's my fav.

The War Between the States by Rebecca Rand Kirshner - I didn't like this one so much because it wasn't from the point of view of the slayer. Some dumb girl told the story.

A Good Run by Greg Rucka - This one was good. Interesting and differnt and it kept my interest. This story makes me want to read more about past slayers.

House of the Vampire by Michael Reaves - I feel like Dracula needs a better death scene.

Abomination by Laura J Burns and Melinda Metz - This one is bad. Elanie is the WORST slayer every. She's useless and stupid and basically just let everyone die cause she didn't feel like doing anything. Gah. Also, why did it take to authors to write this?

Die Blutgrafin by Yvonne Navarro - This one is okay. A little frustrated with the slayer, but overall it's fine.

Mornglom Dreaming by Doranna Durgin - This one is alright. Kind of sad. ( )

The fourth collection of "Tales of the Slayers" focuses on the Cruciamentum ceremony that each slayer must go through on her eighteenth birthday (if she makes it that far). This is actually a great collection of stories--and being a great fan of the short story form in itself i think it is a good way to tell some of these buffy tales--now if they would only come out with some of the watcher chronicles--hint hint... ( )