A review by krisha
War of the Sons by David Reed, Rebecca Dessertine
2.0
TV show tie in novels are tough to review. They're never going to be great works of art so I never set the bar too high. At the same time they need to live up to two pretty basic requirements for to really enjoy them.
First they need to capture the voice of the series. This is something that the Veronica Mars books do really well. War of the Sons tries really hard to capture the voice of the series. It does it much better than [b:Nevermore|850432|Nevermore (Supernatural, #1)|Keith R.A. DeCandido|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347441675s/850432.jpg|835943]. Still there were parts, especially towards the end, where I was so distracted by trying to force the book into how it should sound that I wasn't even paying attention to the story. However there were bits of dialogue that fit really well, Dean's snarky personality and pop culture references were on full display here. However,
The second thing that tie in novels need is to at least attempt to stay within cannon. This book fell so far outside of canon it was hard for me to think of it as anything other than particularly good fanfiction. Also, it's Cas NOT Cass thankyouverymuch.
Despite all of that I enjoyed the story. I love anything that takes me back to the days of the Apocalypse and I'm sucker for time travel. Taken as a work outside of canon it was a fun read.
First they need to capture the voice of the series. This is something that the Veronica Mars books do really well. War of the Sons tries really hard to capture the voice of the series. It does it much better than [b:Nevermore|850432|Nevermore (Supernatural, #1)|Keith R.A. DeCandido|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347441675s/850432.jpg|835943]. Still there were parts, especially towards the end, where I was so distracted by trying to force the book into how it should sound that I wasn't even paying attention to the story. However there were bits of dialogue that fit really well, Dean's snarky personality and pop culture references were on full display here. However,
Spoiler
to even suggest that Dean was in love with Julia was mildly ridiculous and completely out of character.The second thing that tie in novels need is to at least attempt to stay within cannon. This book fell so far outside of canon it was hard for me to think of it as anything other than particularly good fanfiction.
Spoiler
In particular it was hard to go along with Abaddon as an angel since at these point we all know the Abaddon of the TV series.Despite all of that I enjoyed the story. I love anything that takes me back to the days of the Apocalypse and I'm sucker for time travel. Taken as a work outside of canon it was a fun read.