A word of advice to readers who are afraid of spiders: skip page 95 and pages 100 to the middle of 105 of Supernatural: Night Terror, on account of giant spider, and pages 137 and 138 on account of spider-related grossness. If you’re squeamish about bugs in general, skip pages 309 to the middle of 313.
Night Terror is the ninth tie-in novel with the CW’s hit series Supernatural. It is the ninth novel from horror novelist John Passarella, who won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel with his debut, Wither.
Spoilers from here on out.
The book is set, according to the opening note, between “Frontierland” and “Mommy Dearest”; this is relevant only to a throwaway line from Bobby and the fact that ensouled Sam has nightmares about soulless Sam.
The book opens with three impossible things in one evening: a giant Gila monster in Colorado (the creature is native to the US Southwest and is not usually larger than a car), a headless horseman, and a car without a driver running someone down. All three were accompanied by a peculiar mist, and all three disappeared without a trace. The action then moves to somewhere in rural Nebraska, where Dean and Sam Winchester are finishing up a ghost hunt. Afterwards, Dean has a nightmare about, of all things Dean could possibly have nightmares about, the mysterious disappearance of all the world’s alcohol. Sam dreams of his soulless self, which is much more disturbing. Then Bobby calls with an alert about what’s happening in Colorado…
I quite enjoyed the book. It had the feel of a Supernatural feature film, and Sam and Dean work together as efficiently as in the early parts of the series. The one monster behind all the living nightmares is a creature out of Polish myth, sort of a cross between a striga and a tulpa, and the author certainly did his research.
I don’t like that it’s set between “Frontierland” and “Mommy Dearest”; the book spans only a few days, but I had the impression that there was hardly any time between those two episodes. The fact that it’s set well after “Like a Virgin” is key to the resolution, but if the story was set between “My Heart Will Go On” and “Frontierland”, I wouldn’t have a problem.
The sheer number of characters and nightmare creatures is a bit overwhelming, but the plot wouldn’t work as well with fewer of either. Unfortunately, none of the side characters are particularly well-drawn; there’s simply not the space to allow giving any of them more than one dimension. I won’t mark the author down for that, though; the same thing happens on the show all the time.
I have one other minor criticism. It becomes relevant, in the later part of the book, that Dean and Sam have a great deal of life experience to draw nightmares from. Yet when the author shows us an actual nightmare of Dean’s, it’s about disappearing beer. Humorous, yes, but it doesn’t exactly illustrate the point that if a creature that brings nightmares to life got hold of Dean, it could do some serious damage.
I am never any good at picking out the parts of a story I liked. So let me just say that I highly recommend it to any Supernatural fan.
Pre-order your copy now from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
I haven’t had a chance to read the book yet, but it could be after being in Hell for so long Dean doesn’t fear all that much any more. The worst things he could imagine (Sam dying, Sam going to Hell, himself in Hell etc…) have already happened–and he technically survived. Maybe losing his favorite coping mechanism IS the thing Dean fears most right now. Dunno, just a thought. Looking forward to reading!
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