caffienekitty (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
caffienekitty) wrote2009-06-20 12:52 pm
caffienekitty) wrote2009-06-20 12:52 pm
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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eilonwy's Journal, where she's done both this novel and Nevermore.
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.
no subject
I thought the best of the three books was "Bone Key," though it still wasn't perfect.
no subject