Review: Witch's Canyon

Jan 11, 2011 21:05

Every once in a while, I remember why I fell in love with Supernatural, and why-- despite the crazy fans, loyalty claims to characters, fanservice in the show, and all-'round dismal writing going into the recent spin-offs (for the love of all that is holy, do not buy "War of the Sons". It is crap)-- I still support it and enjoy it. Hell, every so often I'm reminded why I like to carve out a little steampunk, AU niche for myself to settle in.

Witch's Canyon, one of the early books in the spin-off publications, is such a reminder.

Get it. I don't care how 'hard' it is to find now, I got it or $10 online for my new eReader, and I'm still tempted to order in a hard copy.


The trouble I have with the SPN writing lately is that it wavers between soap-opera drama and action. If you look back at the first two seasons, you get a good pacing of mystery, mixed with the sort of action usually found in Westerns. Two strangers hobble into a town that's in a bad way, fix things up by doing stuff civilians would rather not think about, and skedaddle before the law gets on them for the weapons, the burning, the desecrations, and possibly a shotgun-wedding or two.

The whole 'cowboy' feel to Dean and Sam, and most definitely John, is part of what drew me into the whole thing. There was action, a very simple plot (find the demon), and you basically get a whole mess of adventures with likeable characters.

I point this out, because it's exactly why I liked Witch's Canyon.

It takes place in an earlier season. There's a small town plagued by strange deaths every forty years, and the Winchesters head in to investigate. Turns out that the murderous dead are the plague and the brothers need to suss out what the hell is going on-- complete with dead leads, pans away to other characters and some nice insights into the Winchesters themselves.

It's a hunt. And it's paced like one, reads like one, and is a hell of a lot better than the last two books pushed out past editors.

The language and narrative varies, suiting the dominant point of view. There's a ton of action without becoming a clusterfuck. And the extras and support characters are interesting enough to read about (see, in War of the Sons, I skimmed several sections, because the support characters were just boring). There's the sense of constant threat in the story, and it weighs on the characters enough to make you want to keep reading.

One thing that genuinely impressed me was that the language took on different forms. When Dean was angry, the syllables were harsher (like using 'fracture' instead of 'break' because the former has a harsher first syllable). It was vivid and open, keeping descriptors of attacks and attackers vague until more details were uncovered by the primary characters. It helped set that air of mystery that the first seasons really did have.

There are a few minor quibbles here and there about plot points and magic mcguffins, but compared to recent books, I'm more than willing to let it slide.

I heartily recommend the book. It's older, and based in earlier seasons, but it works well as a stand-alone. And, I hate to say it, but the fact that Castiel is not in it is a point in its favour.

See, with Unholy Cause and War of the Sons, Castiel was relegated to "plot point" positions. He showed up when there was trouble, or to be a source of "humour" in some instances. A powerful, interesting character was pushed back to a lumplike form that was poked once in a while because the writers didn't know what to do with him (but had to keep him in to sell to certain fans). Without that little irk of mine (and I like Castiel, a lot) in the picture, the story was free to play off of the Winchester brothers and the mystery hinged solely on them-- rather than having an angel pop in to say the right incantation or distract the big bad for a few minutes. The author actually makes full use of the characters this way. Dean's clever and ready to put his plans in motion, and Sam's logical and more than ready to jump into a fray to save some stragglers.

It's a refreshing read, and I can't recommend it enough.

reviews, supernatural, books

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