The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. Le Guin YP FIC LEGUIN

Welcome to Earthsea, where words have power and magic lives.  

A Wizard of Earthsea: A young boy is born with a special affinity for magic and dangerous ambition. Ged could change the balance of magic forever when his arrogance awakens a darkness from beyond.  

The Tombs of Atun: Tenar serves the nameless ones, ancient gods that require sacrifices of the living.  When she captures a powerful wizards with stories of the world outside will she be a faithful servant or risk everything to taste freedom?

The Farthest Shore: Magic is dying in Earthsea and there is only one wizard that can restore the balance, but it will be at a great price.

This is among the best fantasy writing I have ever read and I am literally kicking myself (ow!) for not reading it waaaaaaay (ow!) sooner! Le Guin has a deceptively simple prose style.  I say deceptive, because she squeezes so much out of her short almost stark sentences.  It reads like an oral history passed down through generations and then finally put to paper.  This makes it feel like a document discovered about an ancient world and feel timeless.  Also, the simple style allows for her to leave a lot between the lines.  Words and knowledge are the keys to magic in Earthsea and also in art.  Le Guin uses these masterfully to weave her own spells. So these books work as rousing adventures filled with larger than life characters at the same time as being examinations of much deeper themes. She looks at the nature of power, faith, honor, duty, and most of all the idea of balance.  She does this without ever having to use long diatribes or give explicit answers.  You'll just read wonderful adventures and find yourself asking the questions almost unconsciously.  This is a series that should be read and reread over a lifetime, so like the wizard Ged you change along with the story and find new wonders as you grow.  If and when you love these tales, continue with Tehanu also Tales from Earthsea also found in YP FIC LEGUIN.

You can check our catalog for The Earthsea Trilogy here.

Cursed Pirate Girl by Jeremy A. Bastian YP FIC BASTIAN

Cursed Pirate Girl is her name and adventure and calamity follow her in equal measure.  Tired of being scoffed at and looked down upon, she and the physical embodiment of her curse (a parrot named Pepper Die) head off to find her Pirate Captain father in the legendary Omerta Seas. First she must travel through the Obscurium per Obscurious, a door of fire on the ocean floor.  And what dangers and wonders await her beyond the portal shall shock and astound.  

This is a true treasure.  It begs for very, very close reading, because the illustrations are so finely detailed. Each beautifully illustrated page is chock filled with wonderful humor, hidden gags, and intricate details.  This is a book that is meant to be reread many times to spot all the little hidden touches as well as enjoy the hilarious and whimsical main storyline.  It’s a weird and hilarious mix of Alice in Wonderland , Little Nemo, and classic pirate dime store novels. It feels both classic and timeless the first time you read it.  CPG is a great heroine, because she’s strong, resourceful, and almost insanely fearless. There’s also a lot more to this book besides whimsy and swashbuckling.  Bastian skewers classism, empire, and all other manners of pettiness and hypocrisy.  Another great touch is the books design. It has rough-hewn edges for every page and thick paper to make it feel like a very old book. It is absolutely the best graphic novel I have read all year and it is going to be incredibly hard to top.

You can check our catalog for Cursed Pirate Girl here.

Curses! Foiled Again by Jane Yolen Illustrated by Mike Cavallaro YP FIC YOLEN

Aliera Carstair was happy enough with her life.  She fenced, she had her cousin and best friend Caroline to think up awesome magical adventures with, and she was even more or less used to the nightmare that is high school. Then one of the most popular boys in school just HAD to ask her out.  Then he just had to be a troll! Her cheap practice epee just HAS to really be a mystical sword and she just HAS to be a defender of the faeire realm against the Dark Lord.  Now that all that nonsense has been revealed she doesn’t know who to trust and who the real enemy is.  

I love this series (read my review of Foiled!) and hope the next volume comes out far quicker than the gap between the last two books.  Jane excels at writing young female characters and Cavallaro’s art complements it so perfectly Yolen (if you haven’t already you MUST check out her excellent novels and her breathtakingly beautiful graphic novel The Last Dragon in YP FIC YOLEN).  His art feels loose and fun, but with a lot of expression to really sell the humor and the emotions.  I really loved Aliera, because she handles the insanity with a fun mix of acceptance and annoyance.  She reminds me of any sort of dreamy maybe a wee bit nerdy kid that enters the teen years and isn’t sure what to do with that left over sense of magic. We’re taught to leave that with childhood, but it’s definitely something lost without much gained in return.  Yolen really understands this transitional period and uses the theme to great effect.

I think Yolen really does a great job of giving a feeling of a huge magical world that we are just barely seeing and only having revealed a little at a time. This kept me interested to always know more, but not get bogged down by loads of exposition. She is very dubious of all this magic and fights to at every turn, which makes for some great humor.  I also love all the trolls.  They are dumb in the best possible way.  They are classic comic bumblers and their antics amuse without seeming superfluously silly.  Just the right amount of silly.  So if you want a wonderful comic that is just the right amount of silly, check this one out.

You can check our catalog for Curses! Foiled Again here.

Cardboard by Doug TenNapel YP FIC TENNAPEL

Mike’s out of work, out of money, and fast becoming out of hope.  With his wife gone and life seeming to slip out of control he’s forced to give the World’s Worst Birthday Present to his son Cam: a cardboard box.  When they realize that the cardboard is magic and anything they make with it comes to life, they break the cardboard magic rules and make a magic cardboard maker out of cardboard to make endless cardboard creations.  Mike learns the folly of disobeying Cardboard Rules when the snooty rich kid Marcus steals the cardboard maker and begins making an evil cardboard army.  

This is a very close to great (and often great) graphic novel form TenNapel.  I quite enjoyed his previous book Bad Island but complained that it was too short (right here).  Cardboard feels much bigger both in its page count, but also in scope.  It has amazing designs, loads of twists, suspense, action, laughs, and pitch perfect cartoony style art.  Then why would I say it isn’t a capital ‘G’ Great Graphic Novel?  Unfortunately in several important scenes TenNapel commits the sin of telling us exactly what the characters think through a speech.  Mike does it. Cam does it. Marcus does it.  Even the evil cardboard monster does it.  I often look to Jeff Smith’s magnum opus Bone when I read TenNapel’s work.  Both are fantasy/humor hybrids with a cartoony style, but Smith allows much more subtlety in the dialogue and lets his excellent facial work tell a lot of the story.  What is a bit galling is that TenNapel’s drawing skills exceeds Smith’s in many ways.  He really doesn’t need clunky speeches for us to get emotion or spell out the book’s themes.  However, with all the wit in ingenuity in this title readers will truly enjoy the book anyways.  It’s just that this book is so close to being a perfect graphic novel gem, the (very) minor flaws do standout. 

Fortunately, the strengths standout too.  The book keeps new ideas and developments coming fast and is endlessly visually inventive.  The huge array of cardboard creatures keeps getting better and better, and the final action packed chapters have loads of grisly cardboard carnage.  The humor is really strong throughout as well.  It’s really the best book of its kind since the Bone series and is a must read for any graphic novel fan.

You can check our catalog for Cardboard here.

Planesrunner by Ian McDonald YP FIC MCDONALD

Everett Singh’s father has been kidnapped right before his eyes.  Everett knew his father was working on something important, but had no idea it was a worlds-shattering invention: the infundibulum.  A map of all the multiple universes and where they intersect and can be traveled to and from. The infundibulum shows up on Everett’s computer and now he’s the most wanted teen in the multiverse.  He lands in a London populated by airships, pirates, and pursued by the villainess Charlotte Villiers. 

This is a fast-paced, fun, and exciting start to a series.  The plot moves whip fast from point to point. However, McDonald pays great attention to little details in description to help ground the reader, so they feel like they are along for the journey.  McDonald does a great job of making the alternate Earth seem strange and exciting, but also building a plausible history.  I loved the air pirates and their slang language, palari.  McDonald very wisely includes a glossary at the back and also a brief history of the origin.  My only gripes are that the characters are fun and likeable enough, but hardly complex.  Are hero is a bit too hyper competent to be believable as a 14 year old in mortal danger.  Also our villainess is just too plainly evil to be a truly interesting.  It helped that she sort of looks like Lady Gaga with an afro on the cover, so that I could imagine the book as a story of what will happen when Gaga mobilizes her monsters and starts a multiverse spanning evil empire. I really enjoyed the book even with my character complaints and hope to see more character development in future volumes of the series.  It’s got a fun concept that can be easily spun into loads of interesting worlds and sci-fi or adventure fans should definitely get on board.

You can check our catalog for Planesrunner here.

Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love by Chris Roberson Illustrated by Shawn McManus YP FIC ROBERSON

Everyone thinks they know Cinderella’s story. Well, her prince wasn’t so charming and their ending was anything but happy.  Now, she’s a socialite globetrotter by day and secret agent for Fabletown by night.  Fabletown has banned all magic items from leaving the city premises, but someone is smuggling weapons.  If the world discovers even a single magic item it could lead to the death of every Fable.  

This is a spinoff of the critically acclaimed Fables series.  This book is fairly good at catching new readers up to speed, so that it makes sense even if you’ve never touched a Fables book.  This is a much more light-fun action book than the usual Fables style, but it works as a fun diversion. This is a great read for fans of kick-rear heroines like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the Charlie’s Angels movies.  Cinderella is clever, witty, and can take care of herself.  She’s also fashionable and sexy without being just a male wish fulfillment fantasy character like so many comic book heroines turn into in the wrong writers hands.  This is a fun espionage thriller and a really good read for female comic fans.