The Supernatural Book of Monsters - and Ghouls

As an avid fan of Supernatural, I bought this book. It is a nice piece of TV reference material. The idea of this book is wonderful but I really missed a Bibliography and an Index. Too bad it is not that type of reference work. This writer has done a great amount of studying. I had never heard of him so looked him up. He is basically a sci-fi writer, my favorite venue when I read fiction. I think now I will be reading some of his other work.

The book does look good. I have the paperback and this mean that I got the full flavour of its "look". Basically, it looks like a journal, with notes stuck on etc. My only issue was that some of the text was quite difficult to read as it was very fine and relatively faint. This is a personal thing I know. Others may not struggle. An ebook version would have been a different kettle of fish entirely.

The book is drafted in a mix of first person narrative and extracts from John Winchester's diaries, plus references to historical texts. I'm happy with that and the change of tone added an interesting texture. There are also some stills from the show included.

What did jar occasionally was the use of first person POV. Throughout these sections, it refers to "Dad", yet in some it also refers to both Sam and Dean in the third person. Who then is the narrator/writer then? This only happened a couple of times, but as I say, it niggled me.

I appreciate that as an avid fan, picking up something from the earlier days of the show may have coloured my perception. The characters have come a long way since those early series and I suspect that a companion book now would be more rounded, darker and more mature in style and content. If anyone can recommend any more recent books, please let me know!

On balance, it's an okay read, although I've read better more comprehensive companion books (The Watcher's Guides that accompany Buffy the Vampire Series are superior). I will probably pick it up and read again as a reference book for my own supernatural writing.

Apart from a few pictures of some of these monsters as realized in the series, the book is of great interest because it gives a rather exhaustive list of these monsters and their descriptions. They are presented in chapters that differentiate spirits from monsters; ghouls, revenants etc from witches, familiars, and black dogs (the page of these is not specified in the table of contents) and from demons. Two appendixes give alphabetical indexes of herbs, oils and hoodoo hands on one hand, and the names and attributes of European demons on the other hand.

We can wonder why non-European demons are not also treated in an appendix. We can wonder why the beings are not treated in alphabetical order in the various chapters. But those are details, aren't they? Just like the fact there is no index.

But don't be surprised if the book only looks at the demonic sides of things. Indians are reduced to curses only connected with burying grounds, though in the series when an Indian curse is used it is not to protect a burying ground but to get some kind of vengeance for a massacre of Indians by white settlers who wanted to take their land. You could be justified in thinking this book is biased.

The Woman in White is universal, says the book. Is she really universal? The haunting woman who is walking the earth, crying and at times avenging herself for some kind of injustice is very common, but we could consider it as a mythological archetype that has vastly survived in our modern consciousness that makes us believe a woman, particularly a crying mother with babe is innocent. In the miniseries "The Pacific" an example is given in the last episodes of a civilian Japanese woman with a baby, trying to give the baby to the American soldiers around her and attracting them, at the same time diverting their attention, with this situation and when enough of them are around her she detonates the explosives she was carrying around her waist. Innocent you said?

And it is the same thing in "Supernatural". The woman in white, or Bloody Mary, or whatever other woman who was the victim of some injustice, or who had committed some crime, in both cases we have injustice or crime followed by the death of the woman, these women are looking for justice in blind vengeance on some people who get caught in their haunting traps. It is effective as for suspense and horror and also as for our sense of justice being fulfilled, the liberation of the haunting spirit being achieved.

But the archetype is not caught. This goes back to the emergence of Homo Sapiens from the primates before him. The premature state of the human baby requires two years of breast feeding and three to five years of very close care. That determined a clear division of labor along a sexual line: women looked after the children and carried them. They were either carrying a baby or infant that they breast-fed, or carrying a future baby in their womb. That's where this archetype of the victimized mother and of our pity for a mother with babe comes from. It is as old as Homo Sapiens. This book does not go into such consideration.

That makes the book a useful tool but for people who are just accumulating direct and superficial knowledge on the series, not a tool to go beyond and analyse why it speaks so deeply to us. But that's the limitation of the genre: a book for aficionados and not a book for intellectuals. Some will tell me this is only an entertaining series. Of course. The Iliad was also just plain entertainment. That does not prevent us, human beings and human minds, from asking the silly question: "But what is the meaning of all that gore, horror and terror?"

That question is not answered by this book.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Written as if the Winchester brothers are talking with you about the lore and legends that make up their life's work, this book is great fun for fans of Supernatural the show, and supernatural lore in general. There is plenty of detail straight out of John's journal and from the boys own research and experience. You'll learn exorcisms, all about witches, tons of detail about demons and more. The tone is fun and really gives you the feeling that you're hearing it straight from Sam and Dean; it is true to the characters. Be aware, this is not an exhaustive reference book. It is a fun, quick reference to many of the creatures in the Supernatural universe with a little Sam and Dean thrown in for your pleasure.

I'd first heard about this book on a "Supernatural" fansite, and right away, I knew it would make a great read and it was the kind of book the series begged to have written: something that cataloged and expanded on the lore of the dozens of creatures which the Winchester brothers have tussled with over the course of the series -- and a few they *haven't* tussled with yet, which makes me wonder what lies ahead for next season! The first person POV makes it seem like the boys are relating their experiences to you first hand, and the excerpts from John Winchester's journal give you all the details you could ask for on the creatures he's dealt with and the life of a hunter. An excellent addition to an excellent series!

Although this book had the potential to be a very interesting guide to all the monsters faced on Supernatural, the author rather squandered this potential through choosing to include a list of monsters that was largely arbitrary and only loosely related to the show itself, although all the legends did make for some interesting reading. What was painfully bad about this whole thing, though, was the writing itself. The book attempts a first-person plural perspective, which I had never seen before in a published work and for very good reason: it is impossible to tell who is speaking and when and where, and creates a sort of bizarre mental image of the two main characters standing hypnotized and chanting out the narration in unison, except when one or the other takes a break to talk in the third person. The writing was so distractingly bad that I can't even say for sure how good the completion of the book was, because I couldn't even follow what it was saying enough to make it all the way through.

The book does look good. I have the paperback and this mean that I got the full flavour of its "look". Basically, it looks like a journal, with notes stuck on etc. My only issue was that some of the text was quite difficult to read as it was very fine and relatively faint. This is a personal thing I know. Others may not struggle. An ebook version would have been a different kettle of fish entirely.

The book is drafted in a mix of first person narrative and extracts from John Winchester's diaries, plus references to historical texts. I'm happy with that and the change of tone added an interesting texture. There are also some stills from the show included.

What did jar occasionally was the use of first person POV. Throughout these sections, it refers to "Dad", yet in some it also refers to both Sam and Dean in the third person. Who then is the narrator/writer then? This only happened a couple of times, but as I say, it niggled me.

I appreciate that as an avid fan, picking up something from the earlier days of the show may have coloured my perception. The characters have come a long way since those early series and I suspect that a companion book now would be more rounded, darker and more mature in style and content. If anyone can recommend any more recent books, please let me know!

On balance, it's an okay read, although I've read better more comprehensive companion books (The Watcher's Guides that accompany Buffy the Vampire Series are superior). I will probably pick it up and read again as a reference book for my own supernatural writing.

Apart from a few pictures of some of these monsters as realized in the series, the book is of great interest because it gives a rather exhaustive list of these monsters and their descriptions. They are presented in chapters that differentiate spirits from monsters; ghouls, revenants etc from witches, familiars, and black dogs (the page of these is not specified in the table of contents) and from demons. Two appendixes give alphabetical indexes of herbs, oils and hoodoo hands on one hand, and the names and attributes of European demons on the other hand.

We can wonder why non-European demons are not also treated in an appendix. We can wonder why the beings are not treated in alphabetical order in the various chapters. But those are details, aren't they? Just like the fact there is no index.

But don't be surprised if the book only looks at the demonic sides of things. Indians are reduced to curses only connected with burying grounds, though in the series when an Indian curse is used it is not to protect a burying ground but to get some kind of vengeance for a massacre of Indians by white settlers who wanted to take their land. You could be justified in thinking this book is biased.

The Woman in White is universal, says the book. Is she really universal? The haunting woman who is walking the earth, crying and at times avenging herself for some kind of injustice is very common, but we could consider it as a mythological archetype that has vastly survived in our modern consciousness that makes us believe a woman, particularly a crying mother with babe is innocent. In the miniseries "The Pacific" an example is given in the last episodes of a civilian Japanese woman with a baby, trying to give the baby to the American soldiers around her and attracting them, at the same time diverting their attention, with this situation and when enough of them are around her she detonates the explosives she was carrying around her waist. Innocent you said?

And it is the same thing in "Supernatural". The woman in white, or Bloody Mary, or whatever other woman who was the victim of some injustice, or who had committed some crime, in both cases we have injustice or crime followed by the death of the woman, these women are looking for justice in blind vengeance on some people who get caught in their haunting traps. It is effective as for suspense and horror and also as for our sense of justice being fulfilled, the liberation of the haunting spirit being achieved.

But the archetype is not caught. This goes back to the emergence of Homo Sapiens from the primates before him. The premature state of the human baby requires two years of breast feeding and three to five years of very close care. That determined a clear division of labor along a sexual line: women looked after the children and carried them. They were either carrying a baby or infant that they breast-fed, or carrying a future baby in their womb. That's where this archetype of the victimized mother and of our pity for a mother with babe comes from. It is as old as Homo Sapiens. This book does not go into such consideration.

That makes the book a useful tool but for people who are just accumulating direct and superficial knowledge on the series, not a tool to go beyond and analyse why it speaks so deeply to us. But that's the limitation of the genre: a book for aficionados and not a book for intellectuals. Some will tell me this is only an entertaining series. Of course. The Iliad was also just plain entertainment. That does not prevent us, human beings and human minds, from asking the silly question: "But what is the meaning of all that gore, horror and terror?"

That question is not answered by this book.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Written as if the Winchester brothers are talking with you about the lore and legends that make up their life's work, this book is great fun for fans of Supernatural the show, and supernatural lore in general. There is plenty of detail straight out of John's journal and from the boys own research and experience. You'll learn exorcisms, all about witches, tons of detail about demons and more. The tone is fun and really gives you the feeling that you're hearing it straight from Sam and Dean; it is true to the characters. Be aware, this is not an exhaustive reference book. It is a fun, quick reference to many of the creatures in the Supernatural universe with a little Sam and Dean thrown in for your pleasure.

I'd first heard about this book on a "Supernatural" fansite, and right away, I knew it would make a great read and it was the kind of book the series begged to have written: something that cataloged and expanded on the lore of the dozens of creatures which the Winchester brothers have tussled with over the course of the series -- and a few they *haven't* tussled with yet, which makes me wonder what lies ahead for next season! The first person POV makes it seem like the boys are relating their experiences to you first hand, and the excerpts from John Winchester's journal give you all the details you could ask for on the creatures he's dealt with and the life of a hunter. An excellent addition to an excellent series!

Although this book had the potential to be a very interesting guide to all the monsters faced on Supernatural, the author rather squandered this potential through choosing to include a list of monsters that was largely arbitrary and only loosely related to the show itself, although all the legends did make for some interesting reading. What was painfully bad about this whole thing, though, was the writing itself. The book attempts a first-person plural perspective, which I had never seen before in a published work and for very good reason: it is impossible to tell who is speaking and when and where, and creates a sort of bizarre mental image of the two main characters standing hypnotized and chanting out the narration in unison, except when one or the other takes a break to talk in the third person. The writing was so distractingly bad that I can't even say for sure how good the completion of the book was, because I couldn't even follow what it was saying enough to make it all the way through.

Written in a classic horror style with a cowboy veneer it slowly takes you by the hand in a friendly manner and by the end you are dreaming of demons. A "sleeper", it slowly stalks the fringes of your conscious mind.
So much lovely detail. Made me wonder if people left Europe for America because there were fewer vampires.
Part Leonardo's work shop because it felt like we get a peek into a writers background research and part para-science britannica or strange western field guide, the one Louis and Clark didn't publish...,.......excellent dangerous fun.