Book Review: Supernatural: Fresh Meat
Titan Books has given me the pleasure to review Supernatural: Fresh Meat, written by Alice Henderson.
For those unfamiliar with the show: Sam & Dean Winchester grew up hunting monsters. Sam breaks away for a time, but eventually Dean comes calling when their dad goes missing. Season after season things escalate, we are introduced to a host of interesting characters (a lot of which aren’t human), and all the while Sam & Dean go around in their ’67 Chevy Impala ganking whatever evil creature rears its ugly head.
This story finds Sam & Dean investigating Tahoe National Forest. It’s being stalked by a monster-type that is familiar to them, so they call up their friend and mentor, Bobby Singer, to help with the situation. All hell breaks loose when what they believe to be the problem compounds into something that the experienced trio have never dealt with before. With innocent lives on the line, and a large forest to cover, the three must fight the elements, deal with other hunters, and a host of other problems to survive. The book is based in the show’s early part of Season 7.
Alice Henderson nails the characters very well, and she’s also very knowledgable about the events of the show. There are plenty of tidbits in this novel for the fans to get a few good winks out of. The chapters are fairly short, which makes it difficult to put down, because you always believe you have time for one more chapter. Weighing in at 368 pages for the paperback, it does get a little wordy in my opinion. That is to say, I did enjoy what I was reading, but I wished to the pacing had have been played a little better. I would not have minded longer chapters in some cases if it meant finding enough about one a certain character was up to, then going back and findout out what another was doing at that same time. As written, it does feel very episodic, which I cannot fault her for. I also have to commend her for the use of historic reference. The story has a link back to the ill-fated Donner Party, which isn’t at all a pleasant piece of history.  Here’s a wiki page that will give you the details. The gist is that while crossing the space that our heroes find themselves in, the party got caught in a rather horrific blizzard. With no food and no way to reach safety, things took a turn for the worst.
It did capture the perfect mindset of what Sam and Dean were going through around this time. If you haven’t watched Season 7 yet, BEWARE THE SPOILERS IN THIS BOOK! It doesn’t shy away, at all, from telling you what’s recently happened during the time of the novel. If you’re a fan of continuity, then Ms. Henderson presents one hell of a good example on how to do it!
The book delivers a great story for those who are into show. I’ll even venture that if you aren’t a fan, you might be interested enough to watch the show to get up to speed on what all has happened. I’ll go out of my way to tell you that you should! There are some things that appear out of left field in this particular story, and she does tie them up by the end. Some of these are a little too convenient, but that too follows the what show does on a few episodes.  There are some things that are very easy to figure out, and other that I felt bad for not catching quickly.  Overall, Ms. Henderson has given the audience quite the fun read!
Thanks again to Titan Books for supplying SciFiFX with a copy. You can find Supernatural: Fresh Meat via their website or any major book retailer!
