My Review of the SPN novel "Nevermore"
Aug. 5th, 2007 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raloriaIt took me about 2 days, but I just finished the first SPN novel by Keith R.A. DeCandido.
Please remember, this is purely my own opinion about the novel. What follows are my honest feelings which may or may not match yours. This is my journal and therefore my place to express my opinions. Feel free to express your own views in your comments. I always welcome discussion and debate on my LJ as long as it doesn't become hurtful or abusive.
I'll admit, I was excited about reading the book when I got it. It's the first book anywhere featuring SPN, so I was happy to help support the show just by buying it. I began reading it with no preconceived notions about the content, forgetting that a section of this had been posted to the SPN LJ community by the author several months ago. He posted part of a chapter, which disappointed many fans, myself included. He then apologized, saying the book wasn't finished yet and that in hindsight he shouldn't have posted the excerpt. In the end, apologies were passed back and forth (I did this myself because I expressed my own displeasure about the excerpt) and the fans seemed mostly understanding that the novel was still a work in progress. There will be more mentioned about this later.
In my opinion it could have used a lot more work.
For those that may not know, I read a great deal of SPN fanfiction. I have hundreds of stories I've saved off the web stored on my computer and I've also written a few works myself. I know good stories when I read them. I also, sadly, know bad ones. The good SPN stories make you feel as if you're watching an episode. When I'm reading a good fanfic, I can literally "hear" Jensen and Jared's voices in my head, because the dialog matches with how they talk on the show. The lesser fanfics don't do this. Expressions and nicknames are used that the boys would never say and the story just falls flat because of it.
As I began reading "Nevermore", I actually liked it...at first. But as I went on, all the little problems, differences from the show, and annoyances began to get to me. So much so, that I began a list of them.
So here's my list with some explanations of what didn't work in "Nevermore". It's followed by a few things I felt did work. It wasn't all bad, but the problems with the novel tended to overshadow the few good parts. It doesn't necessarily make it a bad read, but in my opinion, it's not as good as most of the fanfiction written about for the show.
What didn't work:
* Sammich -- A nickname like this for Sam just doesn't work. The only nickname Dean calls him is Sammy.
* Brushy Top -- This is the name McBain insists on calling Dean...all...the...time. It might have been cute the first couple of times, but then it just gets downright annoying. She never calls him Dean at all that I could see. And considering she just met the boys, a nickname, especially coming from a cop, just seems inappropriate and unprofessional.
* "Let's motor" -- Dean's never said this in his life (on the show) and I can't honestly see him ever saying it.
* Dean being portrayed as stupid. -- I'm not sure whether the author is just a big Sam fan or what, but I was a bit put off by his portrayal of Dean. Dean's ignorance of Poe's work, his not knowing how to program ringtones into his cell phone, the heavy drinking at the bar and constantly hanging out with the bartender, Jennifer. These all seem to point to a guy that really doesn't care about the job of hunting too much. Sure, on the show, Dean sometimes doesn't know all the historic knowledge that Sam does, but a lot of times he shows knowledge of things that Sam doesn't. And we all know he's a skirt-chaser, but did he really have to continually go after Jennifer? Especially when they were busy on a case? When there's work to do on a case, Dean is focused on that. He's also the one who got angry at Sam in Playthings for getting drunk on the job. So his constantly getting beers at the bar just to try to block out Scottso's bad playing seemed out of character.
* Too much detail about driving and street names. -- I've never read a story where so much detail was given about street names. To those of us who don't live in Brooklyn and have never been there, it was totally unnecessary. I don't care what street intersects with which street and which ones are one way or not. There seemed to be way too much emphasis and time spent on describing where the boys were driving and trying to find a parking spot. Although I found myself being just as frustrated as Dean was over Sam trying to find a place to park the Impala before McBain catches them breaking and entering.
* Sam driving too much. -- There's no way Sam would drive the Impala this much on the show - unless Dean was physically incapable of driving. The Impala is Dean's baby. He loves that car and the guy can drive anywhere. His reluctance to drive in a big city like New York is just silly. They've had episodes in Chicago and Philadelphia and Dean drove.
* The boys didn't sound like themselves most of the time. -- There was some good brotherly banter here and there, but for the most part it just didn't fit with what we see in the episodes. It felt off, in my opinion.
* Annoying characters: Zoo-keeper Carla (immature), McBain (Missouri with a badge & a gun) -- Sure, it's fine for a character to fall for Sam over Dean, it can even be amusing. But why did Carla have to be such an airhead? McBain would have been a fine character if she hadn't been so constantly annoying. I liked Missouri (even though she gave Dean a hard time) and would love to see her on the show again, but McBain was a character that just rubbed me the wrong way.
--------------------------------------------------
* Going against canon:
- John being a devout Christian -- This seems very out of place. If anyone, I would've made Mary a devout Christian who's influence would bring about Sam praying every day. She's the one who told Dean that "angels were watching over him" every night when she put him to bed.
- John signing Sam's papers to go to Stanford -- Considering how upset John was over Sam leaving for college, why would he help him get in? John says in Dead Man's Blood that he was worried about Sam being "alone and vulnerable" at college and Dean tells Sam that their dad even stopped by several times to check up on him. It seems fairly obvious to me that Sam went to college on his own, to break away from the family and the hunting way of life.
- A ghost being dissipated by rock salt over several days...sort of -- Why would Roxy's spirit be kept at bay over several days just from one blast of rock salt? And how did she still manage to move objects yet not show up visually supposedly because of the rock salt incident? I don't know that we've seen any evidence of this on the show. Usually, rock salt is just a short term, temporary way of eliminating the threat of a spirit.
--------------------------------------------------
* Dean calling Sam "Pinky"?!?! -- Another nickname that falls flat.
* John's journal being called a notebook. -- This just irked the heck out of me. It's John's Journal! It's always been called a journal and nothing else. However, there was at least a whole page where it was referenced as "the notebook". Ugh.
* The repeated mention of the bartender, Jennifer, putting Dean's beer on a napkin on the bar. -- Was this really needed? Do we need to know she placed the glass on a napkin every freakin' time?
* Dean not liking kids. -- Dean likes kids - Dead In The Water & Something Wicked, anyone? Plus, he practically raised Sam from six months on.
* Why does Dean repeatedly come off as being angry and even violent with people for no good reason? First Mackey and then Manfred for not remembering he slept with Roxy. -- Dean is overly hostile towards Mackey, thinking he's the one responsible for the Poe murders (with no evidence, I might add). Several times he threatens to shoot the poor guy and then won't let him use his phone to call his wife because he didn't want the guy touching his stuff??? With Manfred, they already knew the guy's memory wasn't that great, yet Dean gets all angry because he suddenly remembered being involved with Roxy.
* Dean saying "Exsqueeeze me?" -- Ugh. So out of character it's not even funny. What is this? "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"????
* Getting the brother's eye colors wrong. - This just seems sloppy. I'll admit to not really knowing Jared's eye color (I've now found out it's hazel), but how can you miss Jensen's green eyes? A little research online would have provided this info., so a mistake like this looks careless.
* "Hardy-har-har" -- I just can't see either of the guys saying that.
* Too much description for characters that are introduced and then quickly killed off, such as the first victim, John, or never brought up again, like the zoo keeper gal. -- I don't need to know their whole life stories. They're minor characters in the story. Why spend so much time telling us about them?
* Why would Sam get all reflective and upset over being on a college campus? -- On the show they've been to several college campuses since Jess's death and it didn't seem to bother him. Yet in the book when Dean questions him about it he mentions his "dead girlfriend" like he's still mourning her.
* What was with Sam ordering a "gin and tonic" at the bar? -- The guy drinks beer, we've seen it. Again, this doesn't make sense.
* The ending just left things feeling unresolved with Roxy's spirit still wondering what was going to happen to her. I think it would have been better to just drop the subject and leave it up to the reader to assume she's moved on and is now at rest. There's really no need to return to her at the end like that.
Things that did work: Book excerpts are in italics.
++ With a chuckle of his own, Dean slid the key into the ignition. A grin spread on his face as the Impala hummed to life. "Hear that engine purr."
Squirming in the passenger seat, Sam thought, I swear to God, if he starts petting the dashboard again, I'm walking to New York.
- Perfect, hilarious and very much representing how the brothers are portrayed on the show. Plus, it's a nice callback to the scene in the Impala from Bloodlust.
++ Dean being frustrated over being stuck in traffic and his love of Manfred's record collection. Very amusing even if at times it seemed a little over the top.
++ I liked Dean having a nightmare for once instead of Sam. I wish they'd have this on the show, in fact. I can't believe Dean wouldn't be haunted by things in his past. He's seen and been through so much.
++ I liked Manfred. He seemed like an amusing character and we learned about him not with a lengthy description about his life, but through his dialog and the good descriptions of his house.
++ I liked the little inside joke about Thursday night TV programing...Sam mentions CSI and Dean says, "No loss...there's better things on Thursday nights anyhow." *g*
++ The scene where Roxy's spirit attacks the boys the second time in Manfred's house was good. This part especially felt like something right out of an episode and very true to the characters:
The tall one helped him stand back up, and the short one put his hand to the back of his head and winced. "Okay - ow."
"You alright, man?"
"No, I'm not freakin' all right, some spirit bitch just hit me in the back of the head with a priceless concert poster!"
++ The author's playlist of songs in the back of the book. Most of these are well known SPN favorites, but some of them aren't. I look forward to tracking the rest of these down to add to my collection.
On a final note, I was somewhat disappointed that the excerpt which was posted online months ago and was reported as being still a rough draft, is still intact in the novel. Nothing was changed. Why this was not edited again, I have no idea. But then, the story just didn't satisfy me very much anyway. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I was hoping for better than this. I've read a couple other fan reviews of this novel who share my opinion. Many have suggested that the author needs to watch more of the episodes. I'll go one better. He needs to read some good SPN fanfiction. There's some absolutely wonderful stories out there that have the feeling of watching an episode. That's what I was hoping for with this novel.
So what did the rest of you think of the novel? Have you even bought the book? Do you plan to? Share my opinion? Think I'm nuts for not liking it? Let me know....
Please remember, this is purely my own opinion about the novel. What follows are my honest feelings which may or may not match yours. This is my journal and therefore my place to express my opinions. Feel free to express your own views in your comments. I always welcome discussion and debate on my LJ as long as it doesn't become hurtful or abusive.
I'll admit, I was excited about reading the book when I got it. It's the first book anywhere featuring SPN, so I was happy to help support the show just by buying it. I began reading it with no preconceived notions about the content, forgetting that a section of this had been posted to the SPN LJ community by the author several months ago. He posted part of a chapter, which disappointed many fans, myself included. He then apologized, saying the book wasn't finished yet and that in hindsight he shouldn't have posted the excerpt. In the end, apologies were passed back and forth (I did this myself because I expressed my own displeasure about the excerpt) and the fans seemed mostly understanding that the novel was still a work in progress. There will be more mentioned about this later.
In my opinion it could have used a lot more work.
For those that may not know, I read a great deal of SPN fanfiction. I have hundreds of stories I've saved off the web stored on my computer and I've also written a few works myself. I know good stories when I read them. I also, sadly, know bad ones. The good SPN stories make you feel as if you're watching an episode. When I'm reading a good fanfic, I can literally "hear" Jensen and Jared's voices in my head, because the dialog matches with how they talk on the show. The lesser fanfics don't do this. Expressions and nicknames are used that the boys would never say and the story just falls flat because of it.
As I began reading "Nevermore", I actually liked it...at first. But as I went on, all the little problems, differences from the show, and annoyances began to get to me. So much so, that I began a list of them.
So here's my list with some explanations of what didn't work in "Nevermore". It's followed by a few things I felt did work. It wasn't all bad, but the problems with the novel tended to overshadow the few good parts. It doesn't necessarily make it a bad read, but in my opinion, it's not as good as most of the fanfiction written about for the show.
What didn't work:
* Sammich -- A nickname like this for Sam just doesn't work. The only nickname Dean calls him is Sammy.
* Brushy Top -- This is the name McBain insists on calling Dean...all...the...time. It might have been cute the first couple of times, but then it just gets downright annoying. She never calls him Dean at all that I could see. And considering she just met the boys, a nickname, especially coming from a cop, just seems inappropriate and unprofessional.
* "Let's motor" -- Dean's never said this in his life (on the show) and I can't honestly see him ever saying it.
* Dean being portrayed as stupid. -- I'm not sure whether the author is just a big Sam fan or what, but I was a bit put off by his portrayal of Dean. Dean's ignorance of Poe's work, his not knowing how to program ringtones into his cell phone, the heavy drinking at the bar and constantly hanging out with the bartender, Jennifer. These all seem to point to a guy that really doesn't care about the job of hunting too much. Sure, on the show, Dean sometimes doesn't know all the historic knowledge that Sam does, but a lot of times he shows knowledge of things that Sam doesn't. And we all know he's a skirt-chaser, but did he really have to continually go after Jennifer? Especially when they were busy on a case? When there's work to do on a case, Dean is focused on that. He's also the one who got angry at Sam in Playthings for getting drunk on the job. So his constantly getting beers at the bar just to try to block out Scottso's bad playing seemed out of character.
* Too much detail about driving and street names. -- I've never read a story where so much detail was given about street names. To those of us who don't live in Brooklyn and have never been there, it was totally unnecessary. I don't care what street intersects with which street and which ones are one way or not. There seemed to be way too much emphasis and time spent on describing where the boys were driving and trying to find a parking spot. Although I found myself being just as frustrated as Dean was over Sam trying to find a place to park the Impala before McBain catches them breaking and entering.
* Sam driving too much. -- There's no way Sam would drive the Impala this much on the show - unless Dean was physically incapable of driving. The Impala is Dean's baby. He loves that car and the guy can drive anywhere. His reluctance to drive in a big city like New York is just silly. They've had episodes in Chicago and Philadelphia and Dean drove.
* The boys didn't sound like themselves most of the time. -- There was some good brotherly banter here and there, but for the most part it just didn't fit with what we see in the episodes. It felt off, in my opinion.
* Annoying characters: Zoo-keeper Carla (immature), McBain (Missouri with a badge & a gun) -- Sure, it's fine for a character to fall for Sam over Dean, it can even be amusing. But why did Carla have to be such an airhead? McBain would have been a fine character if she hadn't been so constantly annoying. I liked Missouri (even though she gave Dean a hard time) and would love to see her on the show again, but McBain was a character that just rubbed me the wrong way.
--------------------------------------------------
* Going against canon:
- John being a devout Christian -- This seems very out of place. If anyone, I would've made Mary a devout Christian who's influence would bring about Sam praying every day. She's the one who told Dean that "angels were watching over him" every night when she put him to bed.
- John signing Sam's papers to go to Stanford -- Considering how upset John was over Sam leaving for college, why would he help him get in? John says in Dead Man's Blood that he was worried about Sam being "alone and vulnerable" at college and Dean tells Sam that their dad even stopped by several times to check up on him. It seems fairly obvious to me that Sam went to college on his own, to break away from the family and the hunting way of life.
- A ghost being dissipated by rock salt over several days...sort of -- Why would Roxy's spirit be kept at bay over several days just from one blast of rock salt? And how did she still manage to move objects yet not show up visually supposedly because of the rock salt incident? I don't know that we've seen any evidence of this on the show. Usually, rock salt is just a short term, temporary way of eliminating the threat of a spirit.
--------------------------------------------------
* Dean calling Sam "Pinky"?!?! -- Another nickname that falls flat.
* John's journal being called a notebook. -- This just irked the heck out of me. It's John's Journal! It's always been called a journal and nothing else. However, there was at least a whole page where it was referenced as "the notebook". Ugh.
* The repeated mention of the bartender, Jennifer, putting Dean's beer on a napkin on the bar. -- Was this really needed? Do we need to know she placed the glass on a napkin every freakin' time?
* Dean not liking kids. -- Dean likes kids - Dead In The Water & Something Wicked, anyone? Plus, he practically raised Sam from six months on.
* Why does Dean repeatedly come off as being angry and even violent with people for no good reason? First Mackey and then Manfred for not remembering he slept with Roxy. -- Dean is overly hostile towards Mackey, thinking he's the one responsible for the Poe murders (with no evidence, I might add). Several times he threatens to shoot the poor guy and then won't let him use his phone to call his wife because he didn't want the guy touching his stuff??? With Manfred, they already knew the guy's memory wasn't that great, yet Dean gets all angry because he suddenly remembered being involved with Roxy.
* Dean saying "Exsqueeeze me?" -- Ugh. So out of character it's not even funny. What is this? "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"????
* Getting the brother's eye colors wrong. - This just seems sloppy. I'll admit to not really knowing Jared's eye color (I've now found out it's hazel), but how can you miss Jensen's green eyes? A little research online would have provided this info., so a mistake like this looks careless.
* "Hardy-har-har" -- I just can't see either of the guys saying that.
* Too much description for characters that are introduced and then quickly killed off, such as the first victim, John, or never brought up again, like the zoo keeper gal. -- I don't need to know their whole life stories. They're minor characters in the story. Why spend so much time telling us about them?
* Why would Sam get all reflective and upset over being on a college campus? -- On the show they've been to several college campuses since Jess's death and it didn't seem to bother him. Yet in the book when Dean questions him about it he mentions his "dead girlfriend" like he's still mourning her.
* What was with Sam ordering a "gin and tonic" at the bar? -- The guy drinks beer, we've seen it. Again, this doesn't make sense.
* The ending just left things feeling unresolved with Roxy's spirit still wondering what was going to happen to her. I think it would have been better to just drop the subject and leave it up to the reader to assume she's moved on and is now at rest. There's really no need to return to her at the end like that.
Things that did work: Book excerpts are in italics.
++ With a chuckle of his own, Dean slid the key into the ignition. A grin spread on his face as the Impala hummed to life. "Hear that engine purr."
Squirming in the passenger seat, Sam thought, I swear to God, if he starts petting the dashboard again, I'm walking to New York.
- Perfect, hilarious and very much representing how the brothers are portrayed on the show. Plus, it's a nice callback to the scene in the Impala from Bloodlust.
++ Dean being frustrated over being stuck in traffic and his love of Manfred's record collection. Very amusing even if at times it seemed a little over the top.
++ I liked Dean having a nightmare for once instead of Sam. I wish they'd have this on the show, in fact. I can't believe Dean wouldn't be haunted by things in his past. He's seen and been through so much.
++ I liked Manfred. He seemed like an amusing character and we learned about him not with a lengthy description about his life, but through his dialog and the good descriptions of his house.
++ I liked the little inside joke about Thursday night TV programing...Sam mentions CSI and Dean says, "No loss...there's better things on Thursday nights anyhow." *g*
++ The scene where Roxy's spirit attacks the boys the second time in Manfred's house was good. This part especially felt like something right out of an episode and very true to the characters:
The tall one helped him stand back up, and the short one put his hand to the back of his head and winced. "Okay - ow."
"You alright, man?"
"No, I'm not freakin' all right, some spirit bitch just hit me in the back of the head with a priceless concert poster!"
++ The author's playlist of songs in the back of the book. Most of these are well known SPN favorites, but some of them aren't. I look forward to tracking the rest of these down to add to my collection.
On a final note, I was somewhat disappointed that the excerpt which was posted online months ago and was reported as being still a rough draft, is still intact in the novel. Nothing was changed. Why this was not edited again, I have no idea. But then, the story just didn't satisfy me very much anyway. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I was hoping for better than this. I've read a couple other fan reviews of this novel who share my opinion. Many have suggested that the author needs to watch more of the episodes. I'll go one better. He needs to read some good SPN fanfiction. There's some absolutely wonderful stories out there that have the feeling of watching an episode. That's what I was hoping for with this novel.
So what did the rest of you think of the novel? Have you even bought the book? Do you plan to? Share my opinion? Think I'm nuts for not liking it? Let me know....
