There’s a new wesen in Portland – a shapeshifter that
takes the form of its victims. Deadly and hidden, there’s very little known
about these creatures and they usually hide even from wesen society
But this wesen is sick, it’s not as careful or as hidden
as usual – and is much more dangerous even to begin with. That dangerous grows
to a threat that may destroy the entire wesen community of Portland after an
encounter between the ill wesen and Nick.
Not only does a killer have to be stopped, but the side
effects of its disease must be curtailed before the Wesen Council intervenes.
Obviously, this is a book set in the same world and with
the same characters as Grimm. Books
of established TV series or films always have some difficulty because they’re trying
to capture in print the characters and world that we already know; can they
convey a sense of the characters I already know in a completely different
medium especially one that offers new opportunities like the ability to see
what the characters are thinking. That’s a tough call.
And I think this book largely did it right. These characters feel a lot like the characters from the show. They were in character, nothing was drastically awry from what I expected and the insight into Nick’s head managed to be both revelatory and developing while not jarring my current sense of the character. That takes some doing – to expand the character beyond what we’ve already seen while still keeping him true to what we’d expect from the TV? That’s excellent, I’m impressed.
But I also want to ask someone whether this is canon or
not. Because this book does an excellent job of expanding on what it means to
be Grimm and even what it means to be various wesen. It even pins down some of
the actual abilities of a Grimm while the show has always been so very cagey in
actually explaining what being a Grimm means. Can I take that and run with it?
I want to run with it, I really do but it’s such an expansion on what the show
has been willing to explain that I feel it’s a little extra-cannonical. In
particularly, Nick constantly thinks about his Grimm side pushing him to violence
which I don’t think the show really backed up – but since it’s a restrained
mental impulse, would we see it on the show? I also liked the way it addressed
the way Wesen culture in Portland changed with Nick around – how he was having
an effect and changing opinions and while many were still afraid of him,
equally many were coming to see him as on their side and even a person to call
in times of need.
This is what it did really right in a show-to-book-conversion.
It also largely accepted that this book is not a stand alone. There is no point
in reading this book if you haven’t watched the show – and, really, I don’t
think anyone who hasn’t watched the show is likely to pick it up. So, while it
has reminders, it has tried to restrain itself on the unnecessary background
exposition and world building because we know all that. This is excellent,
stand alone stuffing is unnecessary. But it still spends a lot of time
physically describing each character in detail which is just kind of weird,
especially when words are used to describe characters that I wouldn’t. I get
this mental image of the author sitting down with pictures of the Grimm actors
and describing them in slightly creepy, gushing terms then shoving those
descriptions into the book whether they fit the context or not.
The book also succumbs to that terrible habit of episode
call outs. Past episodes, past events on the TV show are constantly referenced
in this book even when it really isn’t necessary. It’s a fanboy homage not
actually relevant to the story itself and clutters things up.
The story itself isn’t a bad one – there’s a wesen run
amok (of course), but it’s a very unique shapeshifting Wesen that I can’t
decide is either very original or a really extreme stretch from Grimm’s
original canon (can you tell this was a big thing with me?). It had a nice
twist on the usual “bad guy looks like the protagonist!” meme – especially since
everyone DIDN’T fall for it (something which generally annoys me). It wasn’t a
complex one, nor, with the desperate need to fill in homages and include every
wesen that has ever existed ever, was it a particularly well paced one. It was
also more than a little distrected with side plots to pull in every character,
again, less for plot reasons and more out of some kind of wish to include the
whole of the show. It wasn’t awesome but it was still a decent read and served
as an excellent vehicle for getting the characters and world over. It let me
play in a world I love and with characters I like so much – the game wasn’t
exciting or original, but it was still worth it.
Inclusionwise it pretty much parallels the show on racial
diversity: Hank and Wu are there but not in any massive role. We have Rosalie
and Juliette both being awesome, skilled, aware, intelligent and even dangerous
at times reminding us of both their strengths which was good to see. Like the
show, there are no LGBT characters
The enemy wesen is suffering from something that
resembles alzheimers. And while there could be an interesting story to be told
of various supernatural beings with a disabling and degenerative disease like
this, instead it kind of just made the wesen dangerous and deadly which is a
common and unpleasant trope with many depictions of mental illness.
On the whole I liked this book – I liked the
characterisation and the glimpse into everyone’s heads. I loved the evolving
Wesen society of Portland and I loved the potential hints of where these
characters are going, the different angles of them we’ve never seen before an
the vast amount of information it added that I really hope to see translated
over. But I’m not sure how much all of that happiness would last if it was
confirmed (as I suspect) that these books are completely non-canon.
