Doctor Strange: The Fate of Dreams Hardcover – October 18, 2016

To be fair, this book was entirely faithful to the character of Dr. Strange. However, it did suffer from a slow plot development which at times made it difficult to completely immerse one's self into the story. The element of the plot which as the title suggests orbits the realm of the Dream dimension may have contributed to the occasional drowsy advancement of the story line. You can tell that the author has invested time in learning and understanding the history of the character and enjoys writing about the many nuances and quirks that compromise Dr. Stephen Strange. It was an enjoyable read and I look forward for more prose centered around this protagonist.

I'm enjoying this immensely. I didn't have very high expectations at first because I simply didn't know what to expect from a comic-based novel, but I was pleasantly surprised by the high quality of this book. Not only is the writing style very enjoyable, but the author clearly did her research and is quite knowledgeable in the character. Nothing is perfect of course, but it's for the most part excellent. (I'm not yet done reading it, so I'll update my review if the ending jumps the shark, but so far it's been a great experience, and I strongly recommend it.)

It get's kind of slow at the end but overall a great read. One of my favorites! Dr. Strange is awesome.

Awesome

Fun read! Great story, looking forward to re-reading it again soon.

Excellent book, a must read.

Trying to pin down the twisting, fluid nature of dreams is always a challenge - even when just trying to tell a friend about something you dreamed the night before. Devin takes this challenge head on in the Doctor Strange novel, "The Fate of Dreams." I particularly like the very strong approach she took putting to words what is an essentially visual component - essentially setting each scene up as if it were pages of a comic book. While the novel is presented in third person, it's an incredibly close third person; essentially just one step away from first person. Although it wasn't evident immediately, the vocabulary, expressions, and overall tone of the narrative vary from one chapter to another depending on which perspective character we're following. Excellent, subtle, and effective work.I particularly enjoyed her characterization of Stephen Strange as a mature, experienced, and grounded character. It may be just me, but I came away with a very "David Niven-esque" portrayal.Highly recommended for those who want an in-depth Doctor Strange story to add to their collection.

While I knew that DC Comics had published various novels based on their iconic comic book characters (such as Catwoman, Batman, and Wonder Woman), I wasn’t aware that Marvel had done this as well until I happened upon this novel at my favorite comic book shop.Doctor Strange is my favorite Marvel character, as well as my favorite superhero. While I’m not a fan of the MCU movie (there were no incantations and it wasn’t campy enough!), I’m always excited when I see a new Doctor Strange story, and I added this novel to my much-too-large pile of comics.The Fate of Dreams follows Doctor Strange as he tries to discover what’s causing people to fight one another on the streets and carry out wild ideas, which seems to be creating unease in the magical community.Working alongside Sharanya Misra, a dream researcher, and an Inhuman named Jane Bailey, Doctor Strange creates a shocking alliance with his classic nemesis, Nightmare, the ruler of one of the dream dimensions. Together they travel into the dream dimension to try to find and fix the problem.While I had some issues with the novel, I generally enjoyed it. It was interesting to get more backstory about Doctor Strange’s life than what you would normally find in a comic book, especially when it delved into his early life and the death of his sister. I’m not sure how canon this history was, because I haven’t seen the same specific details anywhere else, but they certainly added an extra dimension to his history, and even explained his reasons for becoming a doctor.I found the character of Sharanya irrelevant to the story. Despite being a dream researcher traveling through the dream dimension, she didn’t do much to advance the story and seemed to be written into the narrative simply to add another character. Her presence didn’t annoy or bother me, but I truly feel that nothing would have changed had she not been in the story. Perhaps this can be attributed to the lack of character development. If there’s one huge fault in this novel, it’s that the readers are expected to have some pre-existing knowledge of the Marvel characters and that the new characters (Jane and Sharanya) aren’t given enough backstory and personality for us to grow attached to them.One of the most interesting aspects of the novel for me was watching Nightmare work alongside Doctor Strange, and witness Nightmare’s fondness for Jane, the Inhuman character. Nightmare is one of my favorite Doctor Strange villains, and reading about him holding hands with a character (Jane) and being practically friendly with Doctor Strange was bizarre, although slightly enjoyable at the same time.Another thing I’d like to point out is this interesting description of spells that Doctor Strange gives to Sharanya:“The magical arts have a long literary tradition. Words are powerful. So powerful, in fact, that when we first started writing them down, we ‘spelled’ them. … Spells have to be crafted, and using rhyming or alliteration is one way of channeling power and intent through them.”One of my favorite aspects of Doctor Strange comics has always been the use of slightly campy incantations, and I was thrilled that those were included in the novelization.If you are looking for a quick, enjoyable novel about Doctor Strange, I’d recommend checking this out from your local library. It’s not the kind of thing a person might read multiple times, but it is fun.