Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Immortal

Like the ongoing Star Trek audio series, this tape is aimed at a television-bred cult audience hungry for ancillary product (this is the first Buffy title to be adapted to audio). Though this original novel is available in print, its dramatic play seems naturally dynamic in its spoken incarnation--thanks, in part, to reader Charisma Carpenter, who works hard to live up to her first name, translating the tale's gothic flourishes into full-on Valley Girl speak. (On the TV series, she plays Cordelia Chase and has a starring role in the spin-off series, Angel.) While the descriptive passages might seem overwrought and ponderous as written, she transforms it all into bubbly good fun. Buffy is a normal teenage girl who moonlights as a ""slayer"" under the guidance of her ""watcher,"" Rupert Giles. She's recently moved to Sunnydale, a benign-looking Southern California town that in actuality serves as ""evil's very own ground zero."" Buffy must weigh her love for her mother and school against the grisly tasks she's required to perform. It's a formula that makes for can't-lose entertaining moments, sure to please devoted fans. Simultaneous release with the Pocket hardcover. (Oct.)