Customer Reviews

The Sookie Stackhouse Companion (Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Like most fans I have read every Sookie Stackhouse novel and short story, and religiously watch True Blood every Sunday. I kept my own list on the order of the novels and short stories, and had lots of questions on how Charlaine Harris created the Sookie Universe and its characters. This book answered all my questions and then some.

First and foremost, I want to give a special shout out to Beverly Battillo and Victoria Koski who both appear to have provided a lot of information to make this companion a keeper.

Here is a quick rundown of what is in the book based on the Kindle version:

1) A map of Bon Temps (which is microscopic in the Kindle version.)

2) A four chapter short story called Small Town Wedding by Charlaine Harris

3) Life in Bon Temps by Victoria Koski - great timeline and recap of all the books (this is a really fun read)

4) Sookie Short Stories and Related Material - Charlaine Harris explains how and why she created the short stories, etc.

5) Vampires, Two Natured and Fairies Oh My! - Charlaine Harris as Sookie discusses all the creatures she has met and there is a Sookie Stackhouse Family Tree (microscopic on Kindle)

6) Sookie Stackhouse Trivia created by Beverly Battillo and Victoria Koski (another fun read)

7) What's Cooking in Bon Temps - lots of yummy recipes from the books

8) Inside True Blood - Alan Ball is brutally honest as he answers questions about the differences between the books and the show, and his love for all things Bill and Sookie on True Blood

9) Mystery to Mayham - All the works of Charlaine Harris are listed - I thought this should have been placed last since it includes all her other works

10) Recollections around the Duckpond - Fans of Charlaine Harris and their experiences are discussed

11) Charlaine Harris Interview - the author answers questions from fans

12) World of Sookie Stackhouse - by Victoria Koski is an excellent guide to every character and term used in the books. Sort of like a Sookie Universe encyclopedia

My only quibbles are that the illustrations (maps, family tree, etc.) are microscopic on a Kindle and Beverly Battillo and Victoria Koski should have been listed as contributing editors/authors.

Other than that, Sookie Stackhouse novel fans will find this book a wonderful edition to their library.

This book has been a long time in the making, and unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations at all. The biggest problem, from my perspective, is the lack of Harris' direct involvement. Her contributions to the book are so minimal that I really have to question the judgment of the publisher in declaring the book to have been "edited by Charlaine Harris." I have read numerous "unofficial companions" to the Harry Potter series, mostly written by fans. I own, but have not yet read, the Companion to Meyer's Twilight series, and I thoroughly enjoyed Diana Gabaldon's Outlander Companion (though it is now quite dated). So, I'm not unfamiliar with this general concept, and I was very disappointed by the overall product in terms of the direct involvement of the author. If this was mainly an effort by selected fans, it should have been marketed as a fan-created tribute.

The short story/novella about Sookie's journey with Sam to attend his brother's wedding is mildly entertaining. I could not immediately discern that the events in this short story will have much of an effect on the series as a whole. Harris does not really excel in the short story format in my opinion, and like others, I am somewhat annoyed that some critical information is allegedly being imparted in these short stories. I am not a huge fan of the short story in general though, so I am perfectly willing to cut some slack on this front.

However, when I bought the Companion, I did not expect that the bulk of it was the work of several moderators on Harris' fan-page boards. If Harris did actually edit and approve Koski's summaries of the books, I am extremely disappointed in her artistic integrity. The summaries are blatantly biased, and I'm happy to see I'm not the only reviewer thus far to note the issues. If Koski had written neutral summaries of the books in the series, I wouldn't necessarily quibble about the lack of the author's direct hand in that section. However, the summaries are so over-the-top slanted in perspective as to boggle the mind. Koski is well-known in the "fandom" as a Quinn-lover. Unfortunately, her summaries have unjustifiably elevated Quinn's importance to the series (he is on the whole a very minor character), while simultaneously villainizing/diminishing/neutralizing the importance of Eric, and to a lesser extent, Bill. The Eric scenes are summarized in a flat, dispassionate manner that is often in fact misleading about the actual events being summarized. Certainly many key events don't make it into Koski's summaries if Eric is involved in the action. By contrast, Quinn's scenes are summarized in a lively, emotive, active prose that conflates his actual importance in the overall storyline.

I am also flabbergasted that Harris allowed the Bill-Eric email exchanges to be included in this Companion, when those exchanges are so clearly fanfiction. Unlike some other prominent authors, Harris has not been directly antagonistic to the fanfic community. However, she is purportedly puzzled by the conceptual basis of fanfiction and is not known to be supportive in any way. To include Koski's fanfiction contributions seems very counter to her publicly stated positions on fanfiction. Again, Koski seems to be, in a somewhat subtle way, villainizing Eric or at the very least downplaying his positive character attributes as evidenced in the actual novels. If Harris has, through her reviews of Koski's email exchanges, revised her position on the positive contributions of fanfiction, it would be an excellent idea for her to publicly make that statement. As a longstanding fan of fanfiction (and as a fanfic author), I would welcome her support. However, I still maintain that these email exchanges are so substantively biased that they don't truly qualify as proper fanfiction. If she had published these exchanges on a fanfic site, Koski would have received numerous reviews telling her that she had crossed the OOC line.

I did enjoy the interviews with both Harris and Alan Ball. I was happily surprised to see that the author/editor/publisher did not squelch the "hard" questions. Alan Ball, in particular, should have much to consider based on the questions that were posed to him for this book.

The novella, the interviews with Ball and Harris, the map of Bon Temps, the recipes, and the great attempt to re-create a believable timeline for the series are all very valuable contributions to the fans' understanding of this series. Unfortunately, the overall minimal contributions by Harris herself and the significant amount of biased material contributed by Victoria Koski make this Companion far less enjoyable than it could have been. I would have much preferred to see Harris herself take the time, after completion of the series, to do a really thorough Companion of her own. This Companion should definitely have been billed as a fan effort, with a novella contributed by Harris.

Can a companion book for a long running series that will be ending in the next one or two books really be worthwhile to a reader? I had my doubts but was pleasantly surprised at what I found.

My pre-order for this book was placed long before the release of Dead Reckoning and hearing that the series would be coming to an end. I found I was distancing myself from the characters when reading Dead Reckoning; most likely as a defense mechanism to deal with the grief. So when I got my notice that the book had been shipped, I found myself wishing I'd saved some money. But I'm glad I've got it.

This book is loaded with information ranging from the author's writing career, to separate interviews with Alan Ball (TrueBlood) and Charlaine using reader's questions, Southern Recipes (definitely found a few I want to try), an unpublished Sookie story (Sam takes Sookie to his brother's wedding) , trivia tests (and I thought I knew the series fairly well - hah!) , a greatly shortened version of each book along with added personal correspondence between Eric and Bill as it relates to the happenings in each book. Not enough? How about a map of Bon Temps, a list of every character ever mentioned in the books and who they are. There are also sections on Sookie's take on vampires, the two-natured and fairies, an explanation for the Sookie and related short stories, and a section regarding the fan club. Whew!

So did I find the entire book useful? Well no. Much of that will depend on how much you already know about the books and the author. Some of it was new to me or nice to know. Things like the "Readers Digest" version of each book wasn't necessary for me, although I did enjoy the personal communication between Eric and Bill that followed each story.

And the chances are really good you won't sit down and just read about every character ever mentioned in the books, found in the last chapter of the book. It's obvious a great deal of work went into this section that takes up a third of the book. My only complaint with the format is that if you are trying to recall a character's name in a particular book to use in a discussion, good luck. You've got over 150 pages to wade through.

The short story is definitely worth reading. Small Town Wedding takes place before Dead Reckoning and is roughly 76 pages long. It was obvious we'd missed something when reading Dead Reckoning, and the level of fear and anger that some are feeling knowing that the two-natured not only exist but live in their town is really showcased in this story and is important to the overall series.

I enjoyed much of the information provided in the book along with the short story. It was definitely a worthwhile purchase.

I was a little hesitant about getting this book figuring it would be all big font and wide margins just to fill up the pages, but when it arrived I was impressed with how dense it is. There seems to be more packed into this book than the novels themselves, and I was pleasantly surprised with how much there was to it.

That said, the majority is not new material. The bulk is devoted to recapping the existing novels (which are worth reading for all the sex euphemisms alone and include new conversations between Bill and Eric that range from mundane to adorable) and providing an in-depth list and explanation of all the novels' characters. The other highlights include a 76-page novella, Q&A with Charlaine Harris and Alan Ball, a word from the fan club and some Sookieverse-inspired recipes.

Despite being mostly rehashed information, this is a handy guide for fans of the series who have trouble keeping all the facts straight from year to year as new books are released. It will be especially useful to peruse just before the next novel comes out to brush up on the preceding eleven books.

This book is a collection of odds and ends relating to the series of Sookie Stackhouse novels. It contains a map, a novella relating to the series written by the author, a synopsis of the yet incomplete series by Victoria Koski, brief comments on the related short stories and the creatures in the series by the author, Sookie's family tree, a short section of trivia questions about the series by Beverly Battillo and Victoria Koski, some recipes, an interview of Alan Ball regarding the as yet unfinished True Blood series on HBO, a brief overview of other books by Charlaine Harris, an article about the Charlaine Harris fan club, an interview with the author, and a lengthy guide to the characters by Victoria Koski.

The novella, "Small Town Wedding" supposedly impacts the course of the series. It is not a bad story, revolving around the wedding of the brother of Sookie's boss Sam. What should be a simple happy excursion becomes a potentially violent challenge. I enjoyed reading it.

The map, family tree, interviews, trivia questions, and recipes were momentarily diverting but ultimately probably not worth buying the book.

The synopsis of the series and character guide by Victoria Koski puzzled me. The information was accurate to a point but was written from a shockingly biased point of view. Rather than simply reviewing the series, she often inserts her own interpretations of events, dwells on some happenings, and completely omits mention of other events. She frequently makes use of emotionally loaded descriptions, apparently in an attempt to persuade the reader to accept a particular interpretation. I found this quite troubling because the entire book is apparently sanctioned by the author, and I am at a loss to explain why she might do this. It strikes me as a crude way to try to get readers of the series to perhaps reinterpret what they have read, and as a reader I find this quite insulting. It is also puzzling that a synopsis and detailed character guide of a series be published before the series is complete.

Overall I would not recommend this book even though the novella might be worth reading. The rest of the material ranged from minimally interesting to intrusively annoying.

I didn't read everything in this book, I didn't feel I needed to. While I enjoyed the novella & the conversations between Eric & Bill, I didn't feel anything else was really of interest. I didn't need the synopsis of the stories, I have all the books, I don't need to hear about things from a fans point of view, & there have been plenty of interviews with Alan Ball. I would have been just as happy if I had waited for the paperback & saved money.

I am also a little confused about the timing of this book. CH has said that there will only be 2 more Sookie Stackhouse books, so why publish this now? Why wouldn't they wait until all the books are done so that they could include them all in the companion? Unless they plan on reissuing this with the other stories added in the hope that we'll buy the same book again. All in all, this was kind of disappointing.

One would think that based on the amount of money the Sookie books and have earned and the royalties that she has been paid from True Blood, Charlaine Harris would not find it necessary to sucker additional money from her fans by peddling junk like this. I'm glad I didn't pay $30 for the hard cover addition.

This book contains:
one very nice novella
some diagrams that are unreadable on a kindle
and a bunch of second rate content authored by third parties or sycophants that appears to have been rehashed from fan magazines, wikipedia, or which could have originally appeared as a FAQs on a fan fiction website.

The author should be embarrassed to have her name on this travesty and should personally send a 80% refund to each and every purchaser for the quantity of content in this book that she didn't originate.

Charlaine, I hope you read this and are very ashamed.

Save your money, don't buy this book. Get it from the library and read the novella. You can forget the rest.

I was practically drooling to get my hands on this book because anything about Sookie Stackouse has to be good, right? Wrong. This badly put together "companion" is anything but. The included novella is boring and does not include one vampire. I almost fell asleep reading it. There are "secret communications" between Eric and Bill that are clearly fake and not the least bit in character. A large portion of the book is a timeline that just rehashes what we already know so I skipped it. The guide to the characters was somewhat interesting but overall when I finished reading the book I sat it down and thought "What the heck?" This was a poorly conceived volume that didn't, in my opinion, clarify or add anything to the Sookie Stackhouse novels. Don't waste your time.

I LOVE Charlaine Harris & I am a HUGE Sookie Stackhouse series fan, but this was a BIG DISAPPOINTMENT (especially for the cost, just to get to read the short story novella: Small Town Wedding)! Small Town Wedding in of itself was good, but it dragged a bit, as if desperately floundering to find enough words for filler to stretch out the story. The rest of the book (interviews with various people, recipes, etc.) was not necessary & b-O-ring. I felt a sincere sense of let down [as if to say, "Is that all?"] ...

I also want to get up on my soapbox now: I am finding a displeasing trend (not just with this author) of short stories being published in multi-author books ~ stories that have essental, need to know info in them, which hard-core readers really, really to have to understand the overall plot of the series {the who's & what's & why's for reasons certain things happen in later books, or rationale for specific relationship developments between characters}.

It's not fair that a die-hard reader should have to shell out the cost for a full price book (for numerous books) to get to read each short story as it is published, just to know the full details of the overall storyline as a whole. Each book usually contains only the one author that I am interested in reading, and if I can't afford to keep buying them, then I am out of luck (still worse ~ if you don't even know of another short stories existance, then you miss out big time ... hence: If I Had a Hammer).

I think that if short stories are going to be published (please don't misunderstand me ~ I think they are great & there is nothing wrong with this concept) then PLEASE, please do your hard-core fans a favor & put them all together in one compendum, as you did once before (cash is tight lately!).

I am obsessed with the Sookie books, and this one is just awesome. In this book you'll find a super cute short story involving Sookie & Sam, but in addition to that there is a timeline of events, an index of people/terms used in the books, a map of Bon Temps, recipes (I can't wait to make the fried pickles!), an interview with Alan Ball, Q&A with Charlaine Harris, and more!

A previous reviewer said its not worth the money since the majority of the book is "recap", but I completely disagree! I'm constantly looking back through books (or searching online) to try to see what/who/when/which book something happened in. Its totally awesome to have it all in one place now!

If you're a die-hard fan like me, you can't miss this book.