Read This, Ya Idjits
I am happy to report that the recently released Bobby Singer's Guide to Hunting, by David Reed, is frakking AWESOME. I haven't finished it yet, so don't go spoiling me for the ending and what-not, but I have read more than enough to know this is the best SPN tie-in yet. The Bobby voice is so clear you can hear Jim Beaver narrating it in your head. And it is fucking hilarious. Take this excerpt, for example, in which he is explaining Ruby's knife as a demon-killing tool:
Ruby's knife. Now this is a long damn story, and I don't think it'll do any of us good for me to repeat the whole thing, so here's the CliffNotes version -- Sam Winchester is an idiot.
I busted out laughing when I read that. Scared the dogs even. And this is by no means an anomaly in the voice of the book. The whole thing is written spot-on Bobby, and it is a hoot and a half.
Oddly enough it seems, despite the as-of-yet unbroken pattern of the tie-in novels devoted to telling SPN stories sucking ass (granted, I've not read them all, but that is a direct result of the ones I have read, of which there have been several, being so ass-suckingly bad as to put me off the need to ever read another for as along as I live), the tie-in books geared to throwing a bit more light on the text of the show's canon as it relates to hunters and their tactics and lore have been universally good-to-great.
Up to now, I've attributed that to Alex Irvine, him having penned both the Dean-narrated The Supernatural Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons, and Ghouls and the John-narrated John Winchester's Journal, both of which I can heartily recommend in good faith to any Supernatural fan as well worth both their money and their time. But this one is written by David Reed, who is not Alex Irvine (scary how I picked up on that, eh?), and if it holds true to the form it's maintained thus far, it might actually prove out even better than its predecessors ... its predecessors being good enough to inspire me back-buying Alex Irvine's previous work just to see if he's as much fun outside the SPN verse as he is inside it (jury's still out on that; I've not yet had time to read them). But whether it proves out better or merely just as good, I'm still certain enough it's a hell of a good read to stand up right now, half way through, and recommend it as highly as I'd recommend anything.
So if you didn't already have it on auto-order through amazon the way I did, here's the best advice I can offer: go buy it. Now. And bump it to the front of the line of whatever books you have in queue, waiting to be read. And I only say that knowing you'll thank me later, cause this one is just that much fun and more. For idjits like me, at least. And idjits like you, too, I suspect.