The Supernaturalist

Cover of the British edition
Author	Eoin Colfer
Language	English
Genre	Science fiction, adventure
Publisher	Puffin (UK); Miramax (US)
Publication date	2004
Media type	Print (hardcover), audiobook
Pages	290 (UK); 267 (US)
ISBN	(Puffin hc, 2004)
OCLC	892527255
Followed by	To be Announced

The Supernaturalist is a science fiction novel by Irish author Eoin Colfer. The work was influenced by film noir and other predecessors of the cyberpunk science fiction movement. Colfer has outlined plans for a sequel, The Supernaturalist 2.

The Supernaturalist takes place in Satellite City, a large city in an unspecified location in the Northern Hemisphere, in the third millennium. Much of Satellite City is controlled by the Satellite, owned by Myishi Corporation. By the time of the novel, however, the Satellite is losing links to the surface, causing disasters that range from mild to catastrophic.

The book opens with an introduction to Cosmo Hill, an orphan at the Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys. At the Institute, the boys are used as human guinea pigs for various products. However, on a trip back from a record company, the truck transporting them crashes. Cosmo and a friend, Frances (aka "Ziplock") manage to escape the wreckage, but are pursued by a warden from the Institute. The chase takes them to the rooftops, where Cosmo and Ziplock fall into a wrecked generator. Ziplock is electrocuted but Cosmo survives, albeit with multiple critical injuries, including several broken bones and a heart which begins to shut down. He begins seeing small blue creatures around him. When one lands on his chest and begins sucking his life out, three figures appear out of nowhere and zap the creature. Although the teens want to leave him, Cosmo begs them to take him with them, pleading to not be left to be eaten by the strange blue baddies. The group labels him a "Spotter" and, after some argument, take him with them before he passes out.

Cosmo wakes up in a warehouse to find his injuries being mended, including a cast on his leg and a steel plate in his head to heal his fractured skull. One of the group, teenage Latina and ex-mechanic Mona Vasquez, introduces herself, and tells Cosmo about the other two: Stefan Bashkir, another teen, who used to be a cop before an accident killed his mother and almost killed him; and Lucien Bonn, nicknamed Ditto due to his habit of repeating what people say. Bonn had gene-splicing experiments performed on him as a baby to produce a "super-human"; however, these experiments did nothing except stunt his growth, making Ditto appear six in spite of his true age of twenty-eight. Mona reveals that the creatures, called Parasites, can only be seen after near-death experiences or severe trauma; Stefan can see them from his accident as a policeman, Mona can see them from a car crash in which Stefan saved her after her gang left her for dead, and Ditto can see them as a result of the gene-splicing experiments. Their group, the eponymous Supernaturalists, attempts to kill as many Parasites in Satellite City as possible, saving people from the life-sucking Parasites.