Customer Reviews

Supernatural: Witch's Canyon

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Thank god! This is how a Supernatural Series book needs to read! Fantastic from start to end. Anytime a book keeps me so entwined that I don't want to put it down, it's going to get 5 stars from me. Fresh off my disappointent from Nevermore comes Witch's Canyon.

The book opens with Sam and Dean visiting a big hole (Grand Canyon) and they happen upon a woman mourning the loss of her husband. This chance encounter leads Sam and Dean to a small town that has been cursed with a "forty year cycle" of death. The deceased residents of this small town are coming back and killing their victims in the same way they were killed. Sam and Dean must determine the source of the "cycle" and stop it before the opening of the new mall becomes a massacre.

This is one that I would definitely like to see transferred to the small screen and I would make a point to watch. If you are a fan of the series then you MUST READ Witch's Canyon. This book so well written that it took little imagination to actually visualize what was taking place. Only one other author (Stuart Woods) has accomplished this for me. I am very excited to check out some of Jeff Mariotte's other work.

- Dan.

After reading "Nevermore", I was actually afraid to pick up Witch's Canyon for fear that it would be just as bad or worse.

This one surprised me. Not only is the plot actually thought-out, but there are some good scares and LOTS of blood and gore, classic Kripke style. :-)

As for the characters, none of the supporting characters were annoying, they were more in depth and I actually drummed up some sympathy for them instead of wanting to shoot them all myself before the ghosts had a chance to do it.

Sam and Dean were MUCH more Sam and Dean in this book, Sam being the caring sympathetic soul and Dean being the hardened, careful Hunter that we all know and love. Still plenty of brotherly banter, but also some actual moments of real interaction between them. I especially enjoyed the flashbacks to their childhood, raised under the watchful and stern eye of John.

So, good plot (no holes), good characters, scary, and SAM AND DEAN WERE IN IT, A plus all the way! I would read another one by this author.

Thank you for redeeming the novels.

The only bad thing about it is that at the start they mentioned a character from 'Nevermore', and I am just sorry that a good book got marred by that character's memory.

(Only question - is this book supposed to take place AFTER 'Croatoan'? Because it follows 'Nevermore' but the boys are at the Grand Canyon ... Hm..)

I thought this book was much better than the first one. Sam and Dean were consistently in character, and the story was good and scary. I thought the author did a good job taking advantage of the fact that the story was in print, rather than on film, in that a story like this would probably be too expensive (special effects) and too gruesome to get past primetime censors.

All in all, this was a very good read. I believe even people who've never seen the show would find it quite enjoyable.

The five stars really are because it's a great book, not just because it's Supernatural! :-)

"Witch's Canyon" is a marked improvement over "Nevermore," the first installation in the literary spinoff of "Supernatural." True, there aren't as many snappy one-liners as there are on the TV show, but unless Eric Kripke himself is penning these, I don't expect these books to go toe-to-toe with the show. The first book seemed like it tried too hard to be funny, and in the process it turned the boys (namely Dean) into cartoon characters. The second book feels more "real." The monsters are genuinely scary, the setting is compelling and the plot is unique. One drawback: The Winchesters don't quite connect with any characters in this book as well as they did in "Nevermore," but the Winchester family flashbacks (two anecdotes detailing how John trained his sons to become hunters) made up for it. I'd be interested in reading future "Supernatural" series books by this author.

Now, I read Nevermore when it first came out because I love the show. About halfway through that book, I was wondering what idiot allowed it to be published. Neither story was finished, the bad guys got away, and all the obnoxious side characters made me want to leap through the pages to strangle them to death. The entire thing was about showcasing the author's in-depth knowledge of classic rock.

So, after that wonderful preview to what was sure to be a horrible long line of crap for Supernatural books, I wasn't in a rush to pick up Witch's Canyon. Big mistake on my part. I absolutely love it. LOVE IT, I say! It's actually scary in parts, you have no idea what the hell is going on, Dean and Sam are actually competent and the side characters aren't Mary Sues (like the bartender in Nevermore) and better yet, they're INTERESTING. Mostly when it's the boys narration, it's from Sam's point of view, and you get a lot of insight to Dean and Sam's childhood. It sort of reminds me of Eight Legged Freaks in a way with the shopping mall opening up in the middle of nowhere, but all in all, for a TV tie-in, it's a wonderful book. Thank God a different author decided to write for the genre.

I thought Witch's Canyon was written very well and stayed true to Sam and Dean's characters. There were some parts that I thought were iffy but overall it was a great read. It was graphic and solid like a Supernatural episode. You don't even have to be a fan of the show to enjoy this book.

When I saw that Jeff Mariotte was writing a Supernatural novel I was so excited! I'd read his tie-in novels for "Angel" and had always liked his style and care for the characters. This time, I walked away disappointed.

While the writing is true to the characters, the story itself has too many elements and components to really feel solid. They're ghosts...of Indians and soldiers. But they can shapeshift into animals. But they are the product of a curse. A curse by a witch.

Huh?

While seperately these components might have made a good story, throwing them all together in one book seems a bit slap-dash and careless. Was Mariotte unable to flesh out one idea enough to make it interesting? And also, although some might consider this nit-picking, as a Native American I found the innacuracies of the tribe used in the book ridiculous and insulting. Not a lot of Natives in the Southwest wore buckskin, you know?

As I stated in the title of my review, "Witch's Canyon" definitely holds one's interest, but the story is too complicated to be believable and involving. You find yourself rolling your eyes with every new "twist", feeling as if the author is grasping at straws.

I've read both Supernatural and of the two, Witch's Canyon is a much more entertaining book then Nevermore.

Nevermore had a rather good start in the first chapter, but however, as the story progressed, what I felt was that I was reading a road map more then a novel. I felt that the author had placed too much emphasis/credits on his original female/side characters - which to me was a disappointment since I'm looking forward to reading stuff about Dean and Sam and instead got a book going on and on about how competent/sarcastic the side character was, who was in this case, a female cop, which I felt was rather cliche.

Witch's Canyon does have its share of female/side characters, but rather then overshadowing the two main characters of Supernatural, they instead compliment/fuel the storyline. There is a mix of mystery and horror with a tad of romance incorporated into the storyline, which is fine by me. Compare this with Nevermore, Dean and Sam seemed more competent in Witch's Canyon.

This is definitely a book which I will read more then once. I'm definitely looking forward to more Supernatural novels from this author.

If you're suffering withdrawals from lack of new episodes while the writer's strike drags on, I highly suggest this. It is well written, and entertaining. This book does the show justice by staying true to the characters, and in turn rewards the readers.

This is a well-written, very interesting mystery. If you're a fan of Supernatural, you will definitely enjoy this book. If you're a fan of mysteries and ghost stories, you will definitely enjoy this book. Highly recommended for people that follow the show or that like the genre.