Review - Fire Study

I didn't find Fire Study as engaging as the first two books. Part of that was probably down to the fact that I took longer over it, so I had more time to think about it. I don't think it's worse than the other two, but it's not better, either. It shares strongly in their flaws.

The main thing with this book I noticed is that you can't tell which side anyone is on at any given time. Between Marrok, Cahil, Tauno and Roze, I got pretty annoyed with it. Partly because I haven't been induced to care for these characters anyway, so I don't really pay much attention to motivations, and partly because I never found some of them convincing anyway.

The love scenes remain ridiculous. Yelena remains super dooper special and rare and no matter what she does, everyone goes along with it and forgives her and turns to her. Still wasn't inclined to give a damn about her, and I didn't find any of the emotional moments -- e.g. ones concerning Valek, or when she thinks she's trapped -- particularly compelling. The writing hasn't improved much, either.

Again, some interesting ideas and characters, just... not enough done with them.

Reviews - John Winchester's Journal & The Supernatural Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons and Ghouls

John Winchester's journal won't do much for you if you're not a fan of Supernatural, but if you are, it's an ultimate geeky resource. It contains all the bits we've seen from the journal in the show, at least up to 2009, and lots of little extra tidbits and stories about the young boys. We learn about the first time Sam walked -- took a few steps towards Dean and fell on his face -- and stuff like the fact that Sam is an evangelical Mac user, Dean's first solo hunt involved the ghosts of lesbian nuns, and what John did for their birthdays. You see a side of John that we didn't see so much in the show, and you have to wonder how much Sam was exaggerating the horrible way John raised them. You see the side of John that's a father, not a drill sergeant. Parts of the journal seem to be written, parts to the boys, and parts just record interesting hunting information. There are some nice little bits about how John sees his boys, including one really good bit about how when Sam sets his mind on something he won't change it, "you might as well wrestle angels".

Very fun. Not visually how I expected -- I expected it to be more like what we saw in the show, not a neat little book with typed pages, but I don't think it's meant to be a physical replica of John's diary. I'm not sure how canonical it is, and I haven't read it cover to cover, so there may well be bits missing. There aren't any replica newspaper clippings or anything 'tucked in' so it's possible some of the information from the series isn't in there. It's still interesting and if you like fanfiction, I think you could pull some nice details from it.

It makes reference to episodes (e.g. Something Wicked) and the comics (I know there's stuff from Rising Son) so beware of spoilers.




The Supernatural Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons and Ghouls is quite interesting. It's put together by the same guy who later put together John Winchester's Journal. It's not as fun as that, since it's mostly just information about the monsters (et al) that they encounter in canon. It is kind of fun, it's written from the boys' point of view, but it's hard to imagine them actually sitting down and writing a how-to guide like this, so I wouldn't take it too seriously. It's a good resource for plotty fanfiction or roleplay, I think, and there's some nice background information, but I don't think I'd really sit down and read it just for fun.