Buffy meets the arcane creations of H P Lovecraft in this salty tale of sea monsters and demons from the dawn of time. Why are there suddenly so many sea lions on Sunnydale beach? Can it have something to do with the way people keep turning into scaly monsters with lots of tentacles, and if so, do they have anything to do with the other horrors that look like a cross between a shark and a serpent? Buffy and the Scooby Gang have only just started to investigate when not only the Watchers Council but also another group calling themselves Sages arrive in town. The Council has sprung Faith from jail to help as their contribution while the Sages feel that only one type of monsters are evil - but which ones?

I've long been a fan of Lovecraft, so I enjoyed the tie-ins with his work, including the Cthulhu-type creatures and a mention of the Great Old Ones. We don't get any major insights into the characters, but this never matters with a book this action-packed and gripping. There are more than enough thrills and spills to appeal to Buffy fans. It would have been a challenge to dramatize this one on TV and this is one of the best things about reading novels based on the series - the story is there and the pictures form in your mind without a large production budget.