Still, a sprawling, brawling and, with an effort, immersive epic.
An alliance of warlords forms and collapses in this graphic adaptation—the first of 20 volumes—of a renowned 700-year-old Chinese historical novel.
Set against the chaotic collapse of the Han Dynasty about 1,700 years ago, the opener introduces the three wandering warriors Bei Liu, Yu Guan and Fei Zhang, who will play central roles in later episodes. Here, they associate themselves with Cao Cao (another major player), a warlord who has joined with 16 peers in a hopeless effort to stop Han general Zhuo Dong from setting himself up with a puppet emperor. Claiming to use a classic style, the illustrators create finely drawn, delicately colored panels of, usually, facial close-ups and men in exotic armor; martial sound effects and dialogue appear in jagged balloons. While there is action aplenty, aside from occasional scratches, there are no wounds and very little blood to be seen. The graphic-panel chapters are interspersed with prose recaps, historical summaries, character introductions, maps, a dynasty chart and side drawings. Western readers unfamiliar with the original novel or the historical events on which it is founded will find it next to impossible to keep the teeming cast straight, particularly as the plot is a patchwork of melodramatic confrontations and sudden scene switches.
Still, a sprawling, brawling and, with an effort, immersive epic. (Graphic classic. 11-14)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-89-94208-89-3
Page Count: 176
Publisher: JR* Comics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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