Review: Supernatural: Heart of the Dragon

Supernatural: Heart of the Dragon by Keith R. A. DeCandido

Buy It Now: on Amazon.com

Description: When renegade angel Castiel alerts Sam and Dean to a series of particularly brutal killings in San Francisco’s Chinatown, they realize the Heart of the Dragon, an ancient evil of unspeakable power, is back! John Winchester faced the terrifying spirit 20 years ago, and the Campbell family fought it 20 years before that – can the boys succeed where their parents and grandparents failed?

This review is based on a free review copy received from the publisher/author.

The Bibliomaniac’s Review:

Heart of the Dragon is a fascinating family reunion of a book.  For those addicted to the show, it will further flesh out the fan’s knowledge of Sam and Dean’s father, John, and their mother’s parents, Deanna and Samuel Campbell.

The book begins a hundred years in the past in Japan, where a ronin samurai known as “Doragon Kokoro”, or “Heart of the Dragon”, is deceived and ultimately executed by the plot of a demon.  The demon enslaves his soul to the purposes of Hell.

Fast-forward to now, where Sam and Dean find themselves drawn into an investigation dealing with the Heart of the Dragon.  Their initial inquiries lead them to discover that—much to their surprise—this threat is one that both John Winchester, their father, and their mother Mary and her parents, Samuel and Deanna Campbell, have faced before.

The book is loosely broken into thirds, with the first two thirds laying out the past episodes where John and the Campbells dealt with the Heart of the Dragon.  The final third of the book—as well as a chapter or so between these thirds—recount Sam and Dean’s own battle against the ghost.

It’s often hard not to be skeptical about the quality of media tie-in novels.  Even when the author recruited to write the novel is one who’s written good original work in the past, they often find themselves constrained by the plot and character limitations of the media source (movie, TV show, videogame) they’re working from, and the result is less than stellar.

I’m happy to say that this isn’t the case here.  The writing is smooth and compelling, the characters are well-rounded and easy to identify with even for those who haven’t seen any episodes of the show (although a newcomer to the series would miss a lot of the references to past history), and the villains of the piece—the ghost himself and his mortal descendant, who summons him to use him as a weapon—come across as three-dimensional rather than stiff cardboard cut-outs. The threat the brothers face isn’t world-shattering, but it’s sufficiently serious to warrant their attention, and getting a look at more of their family history is always a treat.

While this isn’t the best book I’ve ever read, it’s a lot better than I was expecting it to be, even as a fan of the television show.  Best of all, DeCandido has written two prior Supernatural novels, so now I have the pleasure of finding and reading those, too.