caffienekitty | REVIEW: Witch's Canyon and Poll

Current Mood: need coffee

Entry tags:

REVIEW: Witch's Canyon and Poll

Review of Supernatural Tie-in Novel Witch's Canyon

In case anyone cares what I think about it. Blast from the past for many, but I just got around to reading it, so here you go.

Basics:

Definitely better than Nevermore. Even just in general terms of writing and pacing and tension, it's a much better book, and has much less random extraneous filler.

Don't get me wrong; "Witch's Canyon" is not the pinnacle of novel-writing excellence, or even tie-in novel-writing excellence. It is, however, more successful at building a situation, keeping the pacing tight, and building appropriate and satisfactory levels of tension in relation to story events than Nevermore was. Which, I'm sad to say, is not a difficult feat to accomplish.

Characterization of the Winchesters is a lot better, still off in spots. Sam's occasionally thought opinion that life as a hunter and being raised by John had destroyed Dean's ability to appreciate beauty and crushed his fragile soul and what not was rather grating and I wanted to slap Sam for it.

Backstory was dealt with much better in this book than Nevermore. It's distributed through the book as required, rather than the entire series history being crammed awkwardly into one or two chapters. Backstory in tie-in novels is always going to be something that seems awkward to fans of the show who read fanfic, because fanfic is written with the assumption that everyone knows the backstory and characters. It's not necessarily the case with a tie-in novel that the person reading it will know anything about the show, so backstory's gotta get wedged in there somewhere. Mr. Mariotte is a more successful wedger than Mr. DeCandido.

A few quibbles:

-John building a confidence course? No. John having them run an obstacle course at various found locations, yes. One, John taking the time to build something that huge when they'll be moving along shortly, not likely. Two, any built and designed obstacle course doesn't reflect a real structure accurately, or rather, doesn't reflect it as accurately as the real structure itself. I can see John having them going through Bobby's junk yard, abandoned houses, abandoned industrial sites, and also not-abandoned sites because they need to practice avoiding security and if caught security would dismiss them as just a couple kids out screwing around. Building a course would be both impractical and counter-productive. Also, they're never in one spot long enough.

Also, abandoning them in the woods with falsified gear? I can see him wanting to show them not to believe what they're told, but I can't see him teaching them to distrust him or question his authority, which is what he does with that exercise, sort of. Survival in the woods with a bag of random stuff? Yes. Distrust of others, yes. Distrust of family, and himself, not so much.

Anyway, John characterization to me seems off, but to someone more attached to the concept of a mean!John who only sees his sons as weapons to fight his war, it would probably work. That's not my view of John, so it doesn't work for me.

Non-John Quibbles:

-There were anomalous snark levels. In a situation where there should have been snark, there wasn't, and in situations where the snark got in the way of the hunt and/or surviving, there should have been less, or it should have been less of a stumbling point. It was a bit jarring in places.

-Witches. Always a problematic topic for the series, although I think the book is a little more successful in making it clear that she's a homicidal loony that happens to be a witch, rather than 'all witches are homicidal loonies' regardless of power source.

-Something was odd about the mechanics of the ghosts. I don't remember exactly what, but there where a few "they do what?" moments for me. Interesting though that they can be killed again by what killed them, which wound up sort of being supported by canon with "Yellow Fever"

-One last quibble-ish thing. Much as a novel provides more flexibility in terms of having an infinite special effects budget, I feel like the events in the town got a little too big, such that there were too many witnesses to cover things up and say it was robbers. But, on the other hand, the demons got away with wiping out a town in Croatoan, so it's entirely possible that average people in the SPN-verse are a load of incurious sheep. Sort of like reality, there. Har har. :-)

Overall:

It's decent for a first fanfic. Some of the characterization is off, but not bad. As a novel.... enh. It's okay. I don't regret buying it, and reading it has not induced frothing fits. At no point during this novel did I seethe, not even during the John bits which were more of a *facepalm* than a *seethe* for me.

And a poll, for consistency:

[Poll #1418673]

('tir-in' = 'tie-in' *facepalm*)

For a detailed chapter-by-chapter review of the novel, get thee over to

eilonwy's Journal, where she's done both this novel and Nevermore.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The fact that rock salt seems to destroy the ghosts was weird. And the way that they could switch to animal forms, and switched between looking whole, looking dead and looking LIKE ZOMBIES OMG was, y'know, weird. I think we're supposed to chalk it all up to not being ghosts bound by their own unfinished business but by the witch's spell; more like 4.02's witnesses, I guess. Dean does make a comment about how these weren't like any ghosts they'd seen before, but then it wasn't followed up on.

I agree about John. Honestly, it didn't occur to me to question the bit about building an obstacle course, but that's an excellent point. And I did quibble about John just leaving the boys on the mountain. I think as a father, he'd probably be in the woods watching them, without being noticed, so I can hand-wave that bit (and Dean would never have known, so.) But yeah, the whole "don't trust me" bit? That doesn't make any sense, since when Dean finally takes a stand at the end of season 1, John's cranky and surprised by it.

Witches and spell-work-- definitely led to questions. I babbled about it a lot in-review, and it has led to some thinking on a meta I'll probably post when I get back from my trip, about witches, spell-craft and shifting morality in Show. I was just surprised that The Powers That Be who greenlit the novel (surely someone high-enough up had to okay a synopsis) didn't already have some sort of working plan for witches much earlier on in the series. (Am I right, though, and not blanking on something, that the only times we've seen people actually identified as witches was in "Malleus Maleificarum" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester"?)

Sam's occasionally thought opinion that life as a hunter and being raised by John had destroyed Dean's ability to appreciate beauty and crushed his fragile soul and what not was rather grating and I wanted to slap Sam for it.
Yes. This. I could sort of see Sam having this opinion (sort of) especially in season 1 (less so season 2 when this is set) but ... not really.

Overall, I liked it. I haven't read *that* many tie-in novels, I guess, but I'd say this is probably the best tie-in novel I've read. My expectations for tie-ins are always low, and this exceeded most of them. Also, reading it back to back with Nevermore may have made it seem better than it was... :D But anwyay, yeah, enjoyed it. I'll post my final opinions on it when I post chapters 31-40 tonight or tomorrow morning. I think the target audience for this one would be people who watch the show but aren't obsessed, and who don't read fanfic. Which, hey, is better than my opinion on who should read Nevermore, which was... pretty much no one...

Glad reading it neither sent you into frothing fits nor made you question your own writing. Hope you don't mind that I sort of pushed you into reading it...

The fact that rock salt seems to destroy the ghosts was weird.

I didn't think it was, just that it was dissipating them and they were having to re-group. admittedly I didn't do a very close read of this book.

Am I right, though, and not blanking on something, that the only times we've seen people actually identified as witches was in "Malleus Maleificarum" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester"?

I think there was a passing reference in the pilot, or one of the other early episodes, but more of a neutral one.

Overall, I liked it. I haven't read *that* many tie-in novels, I guess, but I'd say this is probably the best tie-in novel I've read.

I've read a rather scary amount. I used to have all the Star Trek tie-ins up 'til 1997, I think. I kept several when I took most of them into a used bookstore a few years back. I had liked Trek in general, and had seen bits of it over the years, but the novels and novelizations really were what got me into the fandom back then. I've also read and own a hell of a lot of Doctor Who novels, most of which are very good, some of which are on egregiously bad crack. Compared to them, the Supernatural novels are pretty low on the quality scale. I have read one Bab5 tie-in I got from the library that was in essence scientifically inaccurate, badly characterised, horrible Mary-Sue het, that I felt compelled to put a sticky note outlining the book's flaws inside the front cover before returning it to the library.

Which, hey, is better than my opinion on who should read Nevermore, which was... pretty much no one...

Yeah... Pretty much. I'm afraid it would have gotten a sticky note. :-/

Bwah-- I love the sticky note. I hope the librarians left it in as a warning. I've worked in 2 college libraries, and I totally would have left it in.

I've read Trek novels, but eventually pretty much just picked up the ones by Peter David. I read Star Wars novels, but since so much of those are just in the same universe, but with totally new characters (except for the one I read which was written in 1978 in which Luke and Leia totally make out) I almost forget to think of those as tie-ins. If your characters are all original, they can't really act out of character. (Well, of course they *can*, but you know what I mean.) Otherwise, just Highlander (one of which was by Josepha Sherman, who I think is a good writer anyway, and that was a good book), seaQuest, Young Indiana Jones and Earth 2, all of which (J Sherman aside) were pretty uniformly bad.

I know you're busy, so I'm not suggesting that you *do*, I'm just wondering if you have skimmed through any of my commentary on Witch's Canyon?

I almost forget to think of those as tie-ins.

Oh Star Wars I've read the Lando Calrissian (and I think Han Solo) books from the 70's and.... ooo... Splinter of the Mind's Eye, which I recall being pretty good. Trek novels and tie-ins in general went way downhill after about 1989. It just turned into a churn factory; get something out once a month, who cares what it is. The first Trek novels (Pre Motion Picture) actually were published fanfic, to my knowledge. There was Spock, Messiah, and Spock Must Die and ooo, I don't remember half of them, but I had them all. After the Motion Picture they started doing novels. Some where good, some were crap, but they were pretty decent at the time I read them. "Dreams of the Raven" was the first one I read and as I recall it turned me into a hard-core McCoy fangirl at the time.

Anyway, yeah. In the late eighties tie-ins became more about getting product on shelves to suck money out of fans' pockets than actually telling a decent, true-to-series story.

I know you're busy, so I'm not suggesting that you *do*, I'm just wondering if you have skimmed through any of my commentary on Witch's Canyon?

Not yet. This week's been hell and I was finishing reading the book first. Will get around to it possibly tomorrow night, I have guests coming.

Guests are definitely more important. :) Was just wondering is all, 'cause I find your comment insightful.

Meh.

I used to love the X-Files novelizations so was excited to read the SPN stories. I was kind of disappointed with both novels though. Maybe it's because I'm spoiled by the many fabulous fanfic writers in this fandom but while the books were okay, they were just OKAY. The storylines were so-so, but there were parts where the characterizations just felt plain off.

Think I'll be sticking with fic....

It's better and free ;)

They definitely aren't up to the quality of other series' tie-ins, and the fanfic is so stellar that it's tough to have some random person come in and write a novel and not have it fall flat by comparison.

i feel a teensy bit sorry for the tie-in writers. It must be hard to write for a show that has such a wildly active fandom/fanfic community, since there's not much that hasn't been done before, even if it was done badly...and whatever you do, someone else probably has probably already done it, but better, because there are some very good writers out there. And thus the potential book-buyers tend to be more critical, and expect more, especially if they've paid to read it.

i feel a teensy bit sorry for the tie-in writers.

So do I, but the publisher isn't doing them any favours by picking random tie-in writers who might or might not have never even seen the series to write the novels.

It's been awhile since I've read this, but I remember it being much better than Nevermore. Maybe also because I take issue with the writer of Nevermore and comments he's made about how he hates fanfic. Just because he get paid to write crappy tie-in novels, somehow he seems to think that automatically makes him a better writer. Guess what? It doesn't. I've read fanfic that is a thousand times better than anything he could ever come up with, and I don't have to waste ten bucks on it. And I know he must have read some of it because he called Sam "sammich", and they've never said that on the show. So I think he's just bitter. But I guess this isn't really what you were asking. :)

Yeah, DiCandido kind of kicked himself in the tonsils in the P/R department.

I do think it did more justice to the characters and overall feel of the series than Nevermore, and I don't plan on reading Bone Key for that reason, but that doesn't mean I'll never ever read Bone Key.

KD gets paid to write a lot of tie-ins, but I agree that there is a LOT of fanfic out there that is much, much better.

It's been too long for me to remember a lot of the things that stuck out while I was reading, but I do remember some *facepalm* moments as well (the cockblocking in the very beginning, for example) - nothing that made me want to hurl or toss the book across the room, or anything, but just sort of eyeroll reactions.

I've already bought Bone Key (quite a while back, so far back I misakenly bought it twice :-P) I'll eventually get around to reading it. Fanfic is often so much better in this fandom.

This probably makes me a weirdo, but I actually preferred Nevermore! I think I just got a bit impatient - there were big chapters with no Sam and Dean in from what I can recall!

Yeah, there were big chunks of the OFC and her ranch, but I didn't mind those because her plotline re-connected to the boys and the primary plot-line at the end, and in a way it felt like the stuff in "the Kids are Alright" with the one mom slowly going crazy with her changeling-child. But of course, opinions vary.

Nevermore is only one of two books I have ever thrown away. In my entire life. I actually thought about salting and burning it as a gesture of protest, since I couldn't find my receipt for the darn thing.

The boys' characterizations were off. WAY off. The voices were totally wrong. And Dean Winchester has blue eyes. Huh. And this from the man who said he researched the show, met the actors, and Dean is his favorite character. Uh huh. Yeah. Riiight.

In the dictionary next to the word Hack there's a picture of Keith DiCandido. Yeah, I said it.

I have heard some terrible things about Witch's Canyon, from more than one person whose opinion I trust, so I won't be reading that one, or Bone Key.

So DiCandido hates fanfiction, huh? He should read some. He might learn something.

You should read

eilonwy's chapter by chapter lambasting of Nevermore then. I agree, DiCandido really stuck his foot in it in terms of P/R. I think even if he had managed to write a good book, he'd still have an uphill battle with fandom after that nonsense.

I just came back from eilonwy's journal. You were right. Thanks for recommending her! I also read her chapter by chapter examination of Witch's Canyon, and I've decided to pass on that one, too. I'm not spending my hard earned money on this crap anymore.

DiCandido write a good book? Hmmm. When hell freezes over and pigs fly.

I suppose I should get used to remaining in the minority among this fandom (hell, I write freakin' Harry Potter crossovers, for fuck's sake), but I actually liked Nevermore more than WC - but that probably has something to do with my longtime love of E. A. Poe than anything else. With WC, I powered through it just to say I'd actually read the damn thing - I tend to handwave and subsequently ignore almost everything Show's produced with regards to witches (as one, it's physically painful to see it twisted so badly...huh, side-thought: Do Christians have this problem?).

Anyway, I've also read Bone Key. It's supposed to be set in third season, and as a result, demons feature prominently in it (if I'm remembering it correctly). I read it quite a while ago, though, and didn't particularly enjoy it - it took me nearly a week to get through (and I'm one of those freaks who can read the entirety of Stephen King's The Stand in two days). If you're a fanficcer, I wouldn't recommend it - go read a nice, long fanfic instead.

. If you're a fanficcer, I wouldn't recommend it - go read a nice, long fanfic instead.

I've already bought Bone Key (twice, by accident) so at some point I'll be reading it, but thanks for the heads up.

I thought the characterizations were awful. Dean the mindless soldier who needed Sam to give him orders? *Sam* was in hunting to save people, something Dean wouldn't understand? Did the author watch the show at all?

I thought the best of the three books was "Bone Key," though it still wasn't perfect.

Really? I haven't read Bone Key yet, even though I've owned it since it came out. Kind of leery of it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

REVIEW: Witch's Canyon and Poll

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject