SPN Book Review and Poll: Nevermore
Supernatural Book Review: Nevermore by Keith R. A. DeCandido
Opening general statement:
Mr. DeCandido has been active in interacting with Supernatural fans, which is quite nice of him. So, on the off chance he runs across this review... uh... nothing personal, and no hard feelings, okay?
I will say it is damned brave of Mr. DeCandido to write the first of the Supernatural official novels. Supernatural fans can be extremely nitpicky and detail-obsessed. We're as rabid as any given fandom over details, but it's kind of a stealth rabidity. We aren't generally as out in the open as other fandoms, just because we're small and new, but we make up for it by being exponentially more insane.
This book has an uphill struggle ahead of it. While this is the first authorized novel, it's not the first fiction written for the series, and has the disadvantage of both being the first book, and attempting to garner an audience which has in part already developed fictional tastes regarding the series, and views on the literary characterization of the main and subsidiary characters.
However, most of the people who read these books won't have any fanfiction comparisons by which the books may suffer or be ameliorated. A few will not have seen the TV series, or only have seen a couple episodes. Their impressions of the world and characters will be partly formed by these books. Because this show is so new and unfortunately obscure in viewership, our greatest hope is that these books will be good enough to draw in new viewers.
So, uphill, both ways, in the snow, barefoot. Kudos to Mr. DeCandido for braving the storm.
And like I said, if he's reading this, nothing personal, 'kay?
PRE-REVIEW SUMMARY, BOOK-SPOILER-FREE:
In general, I hold official releases to a higher standard than I do fan-produced material. Fans do it for love. Even the worst, misspelled, pointless, Mary-Sue-ridden fic is done out of some variety of love. Someone got paid for the official stuff. Therefore, I'm gonna be way more nitpicky about it.
The overall gist of my opinion for those that are avoiding spoilers or just don't want to spend the next half-hour slogging through the 4000 word review from hell:
How is it?: ...It's okay. It's not awesome, it's not really awful. I did not throw the book across the room at any point in time, nor do I feel the need to write a DVD-style commentary on it like I've been doing for the comics, which are heinous. There are parts in the book which made me curse loudly, there are parts which made me laugh, and there's large wodges of it which made me go 'meh'. It gets most of the major surface things right. I did not tear my hair out, have an aneurysm, or gnash my teeth overmuch. I do not actively dislike this book.
Is it worth the money to buy it?: As a book in and of itself... um. Well, if you've got the money to spare, and want something dozy and slow, sure. Why not? As a Supernatural product that the Powers That Be are probably tracking the sales of, oh hell yeah. But as I've said before, I would buy a package of processed cheese if it was a Supernatural tie-in. Not that the book compares in any way to processed cheese.
Does it live up to the blurb on the back?: Um, no. The blurb on the back is not only hugely spoilery for the book, it's waaaay more exciting. Events in the blurb all occur, generally speaking, but not even close to as tense and exciting as the cover blurb makes it sound.
Does it compare well to fanfic?: Heh. I'm realizing how spoiled we are for truly awesome fanfic and fanfic writers in this fandom. I only read Gen, and there's so much great, probably even commercially publishable stuff out there I can't keep up. However, if I had never read any fanfic for Supernatural, this book would seem pretty darn good. Certainly truer to the series than some of the early Star Trek novels were to that series, at least. Having read fanfic... the book's okay for a first fic, which it is really. It could have used a good solid beta that knows how to tweak plot and pacing, check characterization quibbles and cull extraneous filler, but all in all, not horrible for a first shot in a new fandom for the writer.
Alright, that's the general summary. Extreme nitpickery, detailed book spoilers and highly opinionated rambling below. This is your last chance to run away....
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....okay then, don't say I didn't warn you!
I will admit that I was kind of pre-disposed to be hostile towards this book based on the chapter released before publication, among other things. But, I'm going to make a conscious effort to be as fair and even-handed as I possibly can in this review, and condense the sixteen pages of (occasionally quite... agitated) scrawling down into a coherent whole. I haven't read any other reviews of this book, so these opinions are all uninfluenced, and may vary from everyone else's.
MAIN GINORMOUS NITPICKY RAMBLING REVIEW
The pace is very slow. For a horror/mystery novel, this is not good, and contributes to a lack of tension. The story follows two cases which are completely unrelated, except for occurring in the same area at the same time. One, someone is apparently trying to raise Edgar Allen Poe from the dead by re-enacting death scenes from some of his well-known pieces. Two, a ghost is haunting a friend of Ash's who is in a painfully bad rock band.
Case #1 - The Poe Murders:
The Poe-themed murders are an interesting concept, but in the end do not actually involve the supernatural, and could have been used as a plotline in any procedural drama. I found that kind of disappointing.
The Poe Murders case starts off in the first chapter with a 'death by monkey', which suffers greatly from the slow pace. Two guys getting murdered in the middle of a Bronx street by a monkey should be one hell of a hook. However, it lacks energy and punch due to the excessive amount of pointless background detail, and during the attack, the soon-to-be deceased viewpoint character reminiscing about his high school prom.
The murder mimics a scene in "Murders in the Rue Morgue" which we are told multiple times afterward is 'the first detective story'. Which is arguably true, (really, the first english-language mystery), but after the fourth repetition of this particular assertion I was on the internet looking up other early detective stories in hopes that it wasn't because the repetition was annoying as hell. Poe is credited with the inception of the horror genre as well in "Nevermore", which can be more accurately attributed to the gothic novels of the late 18th century.
Sorry, got side-tracked there, but the universal adoration of Poe, who I have nothing against, by almost every single frigging character, including Sam gushing in chapter three, was so grating by the end of the book that I needed to grouse about it. I'm good now.
There is an abrupt POV shift at the end of chapter one to the instigator of the murder, and here's where my subjective opinion interferes. I don't mind seeing from the "monster's" perspective. I do mind when it gives away the plot. So, for me, it's the end of chapter one, I've just been told what's happening and why, and I become disengaged from that plotline, because there's nothing to figure out.
Who did it? Nobody the boys get introduced to until chapter fifteen, and it doesn't really matter because there is a predictable pattern to the murders. All the boys have to do to catch the perpetrator is show up at the right place and the right time. Knowing who the perp is is immaterial. Why is the person doing this? Well, raising Poe from the dead. Why raise Poe from the dead? Meh. Unless it's to take over the world, or to serve some demonic plot, doesn't matter. The perp's motivation does not influence the case one whit. If it had, I would have found it more engaging. If the main characters had been more involved in investigating the plotline, and the answers to the few questions left unanswered had been important to them, I would have been more involved in the story in turn. But that's just the way I roll. Anyway.
The first case of the Poe murders is then... well, pretty much sidelined. Except for some desultory picking around at it, visiting a Poe museum and the zoo for some gratuitous Dean-bashing, there isn't a lot of focus on it again 'til chapter Fourteen.
The timeline of the ritual involved spreads the murders out over the phases of the moon, giving a week between 'go-times' for the boys to futz around on the other case. While a deadline or timing framework usually adds tension to a story, in this case it leaches the tension away because there is so long between active phases of the case that's actually killing people to spend on the case that's less dire, and the boys don't seem overly concerned with the passage of time.
Characterization of Sam, Dean and John (in absentia):
Sam and Dean are introduced in chapter two. I'll refrain from expounding on the unwritten rules of when Dean calls Sam 'Sammy', but I will say, he's never called him 'Sammich' in the series to date. That's a fandom term, and if it does get used in future seasons of the show, the resulting fangirl explosion will register on the Richter scale in five countries. Okay, maybe that's exaggerated. Point being, I realize it's intended to be a shoutout, but Dean's never used it, so the two times the term is used in the book jar me, as a fan, out of the story.
Chapter two bogs heavily due to the unavoidable need for backstory. In fanfic, we're all lucky. We know we are preaching to the choir, and every person likely to read a piece of fanfic knows exactly what the boys look like, how they dress, what they drive, what their personal history is, how they take their coffee, et cetera.
With a tie-in novel, as I said above, the hope is that there will be people reading it who have never seen the series, or have only seen a couple episodes, and will be drawn to watching the show through the novels. Don't laugh, it worked with me and Star Trek. It also worked in reverse with me and Star Trek, where the decreasing quality of the novels put me off the TV shows.
At any rate, tie-ins, especially early ones, need to have a lot of backstory. In "Nevermore" a lot of it is wedged into Chapters two and three. Backstory is a tough thing for writers to insert smoothly, and unfortunately to a reader who already knows all of it, it comes off as quite forced and clunky, very much 'tell' and not a lot of 'show', despite a very forced-feeling hotel scene in chapter two.
There's also a lot of backstory which isn't directly relevant to the story at hand, here and throughout the book. It's admirable to try to convey two seasons worth of immediate character history, as well as 22 years of pre-series backstory, in a few pages. However, when it isn't relevant to the story being told in the book, it feels force-fed. But again, backstory is problematic for most authors, and there are a few who's series' I read where I know to skip chapter 2 of their new books because they're just summaries of the backstory to date.
What also bogs these two chapters (and several times later on) is the extended passages of scenery description. Because there isn't much tension already, these observational passages, mostly by Sam, make it seem like he's coasting through the case on a kind of easily distractible autopilot, and not really involved with the investigation. If there were more tension, and there was a more subtly sinister or unsettling bent to the observations, it would be a great way to ramp up the tension and add ominousness. (What, it's totally a word.)
My impression is that the overly-detailed scenery is either an attempt to mimic Poe's writing style, or a shoutout to people from the area being described, particularly the University. If it's an attempt to mimic the style, that's kind of cool, in theory. In practice it still bogs due to the tension problems. If it's a University shoutout, that's not a group I am a part of so I can't speak to how interesting it might be to them.
There are a few annoying assertions about the main characters including a scene where Sam is shown as not believing that Ash went to MIT. This is based on the assertion that Sam thinks Ash really didn't know where MIT was, due to the 'School in Boston' crack in "Everybody Loves a Clown". Ash was being a smart-ass about the school's location, which seemed clear to me from the scene as aired, and appeared to be understood by Sam. Having Sam doubt this makes him seem loutish and snobby.
The main characters are okay, but don't go much past the surface resemblance. There are a few moments of characterization missteps, in my opinion, but other people may not feel that way. I will say that Dean's dream at the start of chapter six caught me completely by surprise, as it demonstrated a deeper view of the character that was otherwise not apparent in the writing to that point and afterward. Dean is by nature reticent, but he is also very expressive, and his deeper emotional states have clear 'tells' when he's around Sam; these weren't present.
(I'm leaving out a few other things that I noted, such as specific points of characterization of Dean (driving in cities, aggressive driving, and some mild 'Dean is an idiot' moments, opinions on kids) which are perhaps more subjective than objectively supportable, and I'm trying to be fair here, so I'll rant about those to my cat.)
One thing that was a very jarring misstep in characterization in my opinion was having John be actively and willingly complicit in Sam's enrollment at Stanford. This strikes me as very out of character for John, and I don't believe for a second that Sam could not forge the required paperwork. He and Dean have probably had to forge John's signature on over half the report cards they received, given the depiction of their early life in the series.
I could almost see a huge argument about the paperwork resulting in John filling it out in a fit of anger just before sending Sam packing, but not really. John and Sam are both stubborn, and John's mindset that by leaving, Sam is somehow betraying the family (as depicted in Dead Man's Blood) simply does not jive with a John that cooperated in Sam's going AWOL from his family. The scene itself is well written, and an interesting but falls far out of the range of what is known about the character of John.
Overall, the feeling I get is that the main characters are not prominent in the storyline. Yes, they are there, and they are the main characters, but there are so many other point of view shifts, wodges of scenery description, and pointless waffle that they kind of drift into the background. And then there's the original characters.
Original Characters:
Generally speaking, the original characters come across as being more interesting and developed than the main characters. This isn't a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Most are quirky and distinct, more-so than Sam or Dean, who are almost coasting through the book on valium.
In my highly opinionated opinion, the character of Detective McBain is a pair of fairy wings away from being a full-blown Mary-Sue. She gets the drop on the guys, and knows them and John. She has wild tales to tell the boys about their Dad including him slaying a dragon, which is also jarring as dragons are not monsters in Chinese culture, but revered, but that's beside the point.
She is also part of a Super Secret Law Enforcement Officer Hunter's Club, and generally leads the boys by the hand through the climactic scene of the Poe plotline. After the boys leave at the end, the book returns to her to see her face down Hendrickson. Beyond that, the character took control of the plotline, fed the boys clues, and made them look unnecessarily incompetent or foolish on a couple occasions. I did not like her in a rather extreme way.
This is mostly due to the way she was introduced, which makes Sam and Dean seem incompetent, and the subsequent air of superiority she exhibits. She was generally disdainful and condescending and the nickname 'Brushy-top' she insists on calling Dean is possibly the most inane nickname I've ever heard, and did nothing to raise the character in my estimation. Had she been introduced in a more neutral way, and not taken over the parts of the book she appeared in afterwards, I might have had less trouble accepting her.
I suspect this super secret L.E.O. Hunter's Club may become a recurring part of the novels. It has that feel to it. I don't actually mind it that much, just perhaps that it's a trifle too organized and has the 'Excellent source of Uber-Sue characters' stamped all over it.
The cool bit about the Secret L.E.O. Hunter's Club was the mention of Detective Ballard from Usual Suspects starting to do some hunting of her own. I'd have preferred Deputy Kathleen Hudak from "Benders" because she kicks ass and Det. Ballard is kind of a twit, but that's a strictly personal preference. Det. Ballard makes more sense, in a way though. Deputy Kathleen was not involved in a case that was supernatural in nature, so she's not been made aware of the wider world of the supernatural, where Det. Ballard had her nose liberally rubbed in it, so to speak.
During this introduction of the Secret L.E.O. Hunter's Club, the author has Sam ask questions about the group's predominant female composition, and about the person with an Asian-sounding name. It might be a personal thing, but I see absolutely no reason for either of these questions to be asked at all, let alone by Sam. It doesn't seem to me something that would need to be so pointedly remarked on. Asking them implies that there is a reluctance on the part of Sam and by extension Dean to accept female hunters or hunters of a different culture, neither of which is something I feel Sam or Dean do. Their reluctance to accept Jo was because she was inexperienced (*koff* and an annoying brat *koff*), not because of her gender, as was made clear in "No Exit".
I felt these questions were an awkward and out-of character moment, tacked on to explain something that didn't need explaining.
Case #2 - The Ghost Groupie:
I haven't spent much time on the other plotline of the ghost haunting Ash's friend. This is partly due to the annoyance I feel with how it affected the pacing. It's also due to the utter boredom I felt with it and every character involved in it.
The ghost appears at predictable times, makes a lot of noise, but otherwise doesn't do much. In the process of figuring out why she was there and shooting her off-handedly with rock-salt a couple times, the boys probably did more damage to Ash's friend's property than she did.
The ghost only turns up after Manfred's band plays a gig. There is a stultifying amount of hanging out in a bar developing two stunted romance/nookie sidelines for Dean, lamenting how much the band sucks and generally boring the main characters out of their wits. The assumption that Aldo, a member of the band killed the girl came out of nowhere and seemed based on nothing. Having the characters make this assumption make them look kind of moronic. But then there is a sudden improbable series of revelations and a resolution involving bringing all the suspects into the house and summoning the ghost.
Now, as out of character and idiotic as that course of action is, here is where I was briefly hoping there would be a little intermingling of the two plots. I had hoped that once Sam and Dean had everyone in the room, they would rig up some kind of "Telltale Heart" scam to get the killer to reveal himself, thus bringing Poe into the ghost plotline and adding some cohesion of plotlines to the book. Instead, Sam summons the ghost into a room full of normal, unaware of the supernatural people, (albeit most habitual substance abusers who might be easier to convince that the ghost was a hallucination) and let her run free.
Not having the "Tell Tale Heart" trope to link the plotlines together without making them dependent upon each other makes the gathering of all the suspects potentially homicidally stupid. If the ghost had been out to kill her murderer, it would have been a very messy plan of action, and something that Sam and Dean would have been at least concerned about. Not to mention the "We do what we do and we shut up about it," rule of the Winchester family kind of precludes a group seance.
The other option to unify the plotlines would have been to have the two cases interfering with each other, to the point where both would come to a climax on the same night. However, because the appearance of the ghost hinges on the band playing, or it being summoned at the end, it is thus completely controllable. The controllable aspect leaches all possibility of tension out of the ghost plotline.
Because there is no interference or connection between the two 'cases' the novel seems wishy-washy. If the timeline of the investigation of one had been being interfered with by the timeline of the investigation of the other, it would have added tension, and integrated the two plotlines for more cohesion in the novel.
On the up side, having this be such a tension-impaired pair of cases, spanning more than ten days, it feels like a breather for the characters, who could definitely use one where they are in the plotline of the series. However, having this breather at this point with little reference (except for the great dream in chapter six) to the ongoing tension in the boys lives sucks tension from the series storyline, if one attempts to wedge the novel into the series line.
I could go on, but really, this review is too long already. It would mostly be fiddly things like Dean's ringtone not being "Smoke on the Water" even though it does sound a bit like it, the phones being the ones from the first season instead of the second, the 'blue eyes' thing, the pasted on and forced feel of some of the bantering, the way at times there's too much forced effort going into making the characters 'quippy', the use of trite jokes as character backstory and conversation filler, and an annoyance with the number of shout-outs there were for CSI when it's a show competing directly with "Supernatural" on the TV schedule....
(Still with me?)
SO, TO SUMMARIZE:
-There are two plots/cases active in the book, either of which would have made an okay short story or novella separately, but they are presented simultaneously in a way that adds to neither plotline.
-The main characters are reasonably accurate as far as surface perceptions go. They show a few notably out-of-character moments, but there is one very good in character moment for Dean, which is unfortunately not reflected in the rest of the book. Neither were sufficiently out of character to get my blood boiling, but they were very subdued and uncharacteristically passive.
-The original characters are universally more vibrant, quirky and developed than the main characters, including Det. McBain who pins my personal Mary-Sue meter.
-There is a general lack of tension, brought on by excess description not directly related to the plot, an apparent lack of urgency to the main characters' actions, and random anecdotes that serve no purpose.
-I have read worse tie-ins for other series', including a few that did get literally thrown across the room. This isn't one of them. This is a slow-paced meandering read, suitable for bus rides, plane trips or reading by the pool. In my opinion, it shouldn't cause many apoplectic heart failures.
Anyway, that's my opinion on "Nevermore". What's yours? In fact, here! Have a poll!:
Poll Nevermore Poll