Welcome to my regular Thursday feature, Turning off the TV! In this feature I recommend books similar to TV shows or films you may have enjoyed, both series and specific episodes.
The TV series this week is: Supernatural.
Two brothers follow their father’s footsteps as “hunters” fighting evil supernatural beings of many kinds including monsters, demons, and gods that roam the earth.
This is the fourth of this feature covering Supernatural, as I hope to be looking at this series in more detail. So many creatures and urban legends are featured that it opens up a choice of so many more books!
Enjoyed ‘Bloodlust’ (Season Two, Episode Three)?
‘Bloodlust’ is one of the episodes featuring the vampire hunter named Gordon, so here I’ve picked out a couple of books featuring vampire hunters and their prey. Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi and Yoshitaka Amano is a well-known manga, and later anime series, in which humankind are recovering from control by vampires known as the Nobility. Every village and town wants a Hunter to protect them from these bloodthirsty creatures. Although I’ve not read any of the Anita Blake novels, Guilty Pleasures is the start of a very popular series by Laurell K. Hamilton. Like Gordon, Anita is a vampire hunter – but in this case, vampires are mostly protected by law. I’ve also included Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist because despite not featuring vampire hunters, it’s very strong as far as vampire novels go. It’s so very gory and graphic that it made me feel physically sick in certain parts. If you like your stories gory, then look no further…
Enjoyed ‘Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things’ (Season Two, Episode Four)?
This episode featured a young girl resurrected as a zombie by her best friend, who was in love with her. Fever by Wayne Simmons is very much a traditional zombie novel, with plenty of guts, gore and foolish characters that you just KNOW are going to become zombie dinner! I won a copy from Goodreads a few years ago. World War Z by Max Brooks was recently adapted into a film starring Brad Pitt (and Peter Capaldi as a W.H.O Doctor!!). Unlike Fever, this focuses more on the human reaction and sheer terror than the actual people getting their faces eaten… so if you want something a bit less squirm-inducing, this may be the better choice! Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion may be even better for the squeamish: it’s a rom-zom novel! It follows a young man, known only as ‘R’, who falls in love with a human girl. This one was also been recently adapted into a film, featuring Nicolas Hoult.
Enjoyed ‘Crossroad Blues’ (Season Two, Episode Eight)?
This episode plays on the urban legend of people selling their souls to the devil at a crossroads for eternal youth, beauty, talent or other things. The hellhounds then come to take their souls. What I loved about this episode is that it was named after, and also featured, the song ‘Crossroad Blues’ by Robert Johnson – a gorgeous piece of old blues. Supposedly Johnson sold his soul to the devil for his talent, which allowed him to create the familiar blues sound we know today! Perhaps the most well-known of the Sherlock Holmes books, The Hound Of The Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle is the story of a giant ghostly hound, supposedly haunting the Baskerville family for generations. When the case is brought to Sherlock he originally dismisses it as nonsense, but perhaps there is something behind it… Hellhounds also make an appearance in Raven’s Gate by Anthony Horowitz, and are described as having rotten flesh. And finally, hellhounds appear as a form of Shadowspawn in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Their saliva is poisonous, and much like the hellhounds in Supernatural, once they’ve set their sights on prey they do not give up until they’ve caught it.
Rinn Reads 
Any episode with the hellhounds I am all in. Those things are scary!
I think I’ve only seen the one episode with them in so far (I am soooo behind) but yes! Terrifying things, especially because they just don’t give up D:
I’ve seen about five episodes of Supernatural, and didn’t get into it. But I hear it gets really good and I wonder if I should give it another shot!
I’m currently on series four (I’m watching it so slowly), and so far I’ve actually preferred the first two seasons or so. Basically when there was less of a story tying them all together, and they just kept going round the country fighting monsters ;D
Apparently people have been going crazy over the latest episodes though. I don’t know why obviously, don’t want spoilers 😛
Mind if I butt in? The first five seasons of the show are EPIC. EPICCCCC. The first few episodes of season one are, admittedly, not all that captivating, but once you get to the relationship between the brothers and their father, crap hits the fan. I adore the Winchesters, and I will be watching this show FOREVER, even if it does eventually become almost unwatchable by season sixteen XD
/A brief Amber freakout over one of her favourite shows
Note: Be glad we’re not talking about Spartacus.
Feel freeeee 😀
They are some VERY attractive brothers. The chemistry between those two is so perfect.
I WAS going to watch Pacific Rim tonight but now I’m kind of tempted to watch more Supernatural. I have up to series 5 on DVD so I keep telling myself I need to finish those DVDs before I go off to uni.
Hell hounds. I like them. Not sure I can think of anything I have read with them other than Hounds of Baskervilles.
There’s a surprising amount of books featuring them, but that’s possibly the only one where they’re more than just minor characters or plot devices 😛
HEEEEEEEEEE, I flove these posts and I flove Supernatural. You may have noticed from my freakouts on Twitter that I have started watching the show again and I realised that I missed it so much ;___;
I’m reading Feed by Mira Grant at the moment, which ties in with Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (srsly, the older episode titles were amazing), and it’s quite good. I’m twenty pages in though so I’m not qualified to judge. Although the main character just rode up a hill on her motorcycle to get away from zombies and ended up achieving flight, so that’s awesome.
Is it just me, or is the Bloody Mary episode one of the creepiest ever?? And the skinchanger one is gross. Eww. One of the only times I’ve had to look away from the screen during the show.
Oooh, lots of people went on about Feed 🙂 I’m not a big zombie novel reader though, if it’s a gory one. Is it particularly gory or more character based? However that opening sounds pretty epic 😀
The Bloody Mary episode is THE scariest one of the show. I still haven’t seen her in the mirrors (aside from the very end scene) because I cover my eyes every time. And I rewatch at least once a year. And the clown episode in season two x____x Leave me alone to die. The skinchanger one though!!! It’s gross, yes, but Evil!Dean is always HAWT.
Feed isn’t gory so far at all. There have been two zombie scenes in 250+ pages, and one of those was just the characters running away. It’s more political, and it talks about the journalism and blogging a lot rather than the actual zombies. There is a word for this but I can’t remember what.
I’m glad it’s not just me! It’s horrifying 😦 I HATE CLOWNS, NO. NO.
Ooh, that sounds pretty good! I remember when it was released, there was a lot of positive talk about it 🙂
Okay, I need to start watching SPN again. I have a Sky Movies trial til the end of the month so I’ll use that up and watch some films, then start on SPN from June 😛
Nice pics! I actually haven’t read most of these, so plenty to add to the TBR. I can definitely see how the quirky humor in Warm Bodies would flow well for Supernatural fans. I always tell myself I’m going to start reading more horror…
C.J.
Sarcasm & Lemons
Did you enjoy Warm Bodies? I’d quite like to see the film version too 🙂