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3.06 AVERAGE
3.06 AVERAGE
I love the idea of this book. It's beautiful, well done, and historical. However, the writing was just not interesting enough to convince me to stick around for that many pages.
For an adventure story, it wasn't very exciting.
For an adventure story, it wasn't very exciting.
The voice of the narrator, the daring plots, intrigue, and picture scenes throughout the book made this a very enjoyable read. While there were many things I wanted to delve into more deeply in this book, I hope that more exploration will be done with future volumes. Ten out of ten, would recommend, if not just for the story, but for the experience of reading its unique format!
Interesting read. Loved the way they mixed mediums in the story. Wonder what Kevin Costner's contributions were?
3.5
I had low expectations for this book. It's got a 3.3 average rating on GoodReads, for goodness's sake. And then there's the Kevin Costner of it all.
But I also wanted it to be good. So much about this book seemed aimed squarely at my interests—the art direction making it a wholly immersive experience, with a beautiful, unified cover and dust jacket, the pages yellowed to seem like a 19th-century tome; the multimedia use of prose and comics together; the very premise of explorers and secret societies and epic, Verne-like quests across the globe in an earlier era.
To deal first with the bad: this book earns its comparisons to Kipling in the worst way possible: racism! This review explains the situation pretty well. Was Arthur Ogden's "ill treatment" (the book's own mild term for it) of the Inuits realistic for the era and the character? Undoubtedly. Was it in any way necessary to the story? Not remotely—take it out and the plot doesn't change at all. Worst of all, by the time those uncomfortable several pages come about, we're so embedded in Arthur's POV that it's extremely difficult to separate out character from narration—that is, the authorial voice seems not to be condemning this blatant racism, nor even presenting it in the factual and detached way of historical scholarship, but actually supporting it.
There were two shorter moments that also left a disgusting taste in my mouth on a different subject: sexual harassment. This story follows a group of lovable rogues—you know the type. Think Pirates of the Caribbean. They're criminals, thieves, deserters, brawlers, murderers, but of course we never see them do anything too bad. The people they harm are mostly stuffed-shirt types or even worse evildoers who we can be absolutely sure deserved it. Their antics are played for laughs, we see their bonds of friendship with each other, we see how their own code (honor among thieves!) is in some ways more noble than anybody's (again: Jack Sparrow, pirate, freer of slaves), we come to appreciate their charm. And we brush quickly past anything that might make us question the lovableness of these rogues (how many innocent people were hurt when they started that riot? surely they're spreading PTSD wherever they go? aren't they technically war criminals?). This is standard procedure in these types of stories, and I'm absolutely fine with that. Pirates of the Caribbean would be a lot less fun if it featured a subplot dedicated how to the impoverishment, humiliation, and trauma resulting from the actions of our merry band of pirates led an entire family to starve to death. That sort of realism would make the story much less entertaining—and since PotC is the kind of story whose primary goal is to entertain, that sort of realism would make the story worse.
In these two instances, we see members of the dragoons, our lovable rogues, sexually harass women they encounter. And these are portrayed as part and parcel of their general antics, exactly as "haha, how fun and naughty these guys are! they're too cool to play by the rules!" as their other exploits. One of these harassers is later executed as a traitor, but the other never suffers any kinds of consequences to suggest the narrative condemns his actions, which indicates that the traitor's sexual harassment of Miss Harrow wasn't intended as foreshadowing of his secretly evil nature. Just more lovably roguish behavior. These are still the good guys! Wasn't it hilarious how one of them forcibly grabbed a maid and held her as she struggled to get away, telling her how much she turned him on and trying to "persuade" her into having sex with him, while his friends laughed and cheered him on, until she managed to break free and literally fled in terror? WHAT CHARMING SCOUNDRELS.
This book was published in 2015. I'd hope, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, someone would have caught these instances and made the authors cut them—better, that the authors never would have written those moments at all, much less used them for humor. Of course it's ridiculous that it took the #MeToo movement for people to realize that women fearing rape at the hands of our "heroes" isn't particularly funny, but that's a tenet of the movement, isn't it? It's ridiculous that we even have to say these things, that they're not already incredibly obvious, but here we are.
Unfortunately, these three things (Arthur Ogden's racist tirade, the instances of sexual harassment) were only the most blatant, should've-been-caught-by-any-reasonable-person-in-the-year-2015 examples of -isms in the book. The other examples are the more subtle, insidious, and unfortunately common expressions of an (often unconscious) privileged worldview that's unsurprising to see from a bunch of well-off straight white male authors in the 21st century. Things like there being only one female character of any significance, and her falling into all of the most predictable tropes left and right (femme fatale, defrosting ice queen, damsel in distress, redeems herself as a person and a woman through discovering her motherly instincts). Or how, even as we trek all over the world, all our main characters are white men, with people of color playing (at best) one-dimensional stock roles (i.e. Mr. Priddish, the wise Sikh who's devoted his life to offering advice to his white commander), (at medium) background and scenery/prop roles (i.e. every non-white member of the dragoons, who barely feature), and (at worst) stereotyped villains (the lecherous perversions of middle eastern men, with their harems). I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
Now, as I said, I love the premise of this story, because I'm always drawn to this kind of adventure story with secret societies and maps and airships and pirates and hidden histories. That is, I love the idea of this kind of story, but so often the execution falls short. And one of the ways they most frequently fall short is that in all the excitement about plot and setting and worldbuilding, they forget to pay attention to the things that make people actually invested in a story: character and relationships and heart. The Explorers Guild falls somewhere in the C-range on this subject. Most of the dragoons seem entirely interchangeable in personality/background/skills/accents, and in one case, looks—meaning I was over halfway through the book before I realized that what I had thought to be one character was actually two characters, with nearly identical haircuts/stubble/features/outfits/ways of speaking and behaving. Miss Harrow and Corporal Buchan's relationship was as predictable as it was boring. And it would have been nice to have more development between John and Arthur Ogden, whose brotherhood technically fueled the story, except it sure didn't feel like it (especially because John kept claiming to be helping his brother because his sister wanted him to, because of course men can't care for other men without some intermediary woman—something that was never dealt with or used as an opportunity for character growth).
But honestly, I've seen books (and movies, etc.) do a lot worse when it comes to investing us in characters. I would've liked more character development, more focus on relationships, but we did get some, and I did get invested in certain relationships and characters through a combination of sometimes-the-authors-did-try and I've-just-spent-so-much-time-reading-this-book-that-I've-bonded-to-the-characters-despite-their-thinness. In roughly ascending order of investment, I cared about: the general brothers-in-arms bond of the dragoons (and Buchan's acceptance into this), the O Captain! My Captain! dynamic between Ogden and his men (Mr. Renton especially), Sergeant Pensette's protectiveness of little Bertram, and Mulcairn's devotion to his horse. There were all sorts of opportunities the book missed to make me care more (chief pet peeve: the sidelining of Betram and Pensette for Miss Harrow and Bertram, because of course the one woman has to be the one who takes care of the kid and grows to love him as her own, even though she's never liked children before). But I did care.
This review has been almost entirely criticisms, I realize. Partially because they needed to be said (particularly the racism and sexism stuff), partially because it's just easier to write in detail about the stuff that was bad than the stuff that was good. For the record, and in much shorter terms, here are the things I liked about the book: as a physical object, it's beautiful. A work of art that you can tell a lot of work went into, and a lot of attention was paid to detail. I'm always a sucker for multimedia storytelling, and this book's mix of comics and prose was wonderful. I cared about some characters and relationships, as written above. The adventure and mystery of it all kept me intrigued and moving quickly along. (The fact that so much of this book is comics keeps it from feeling like a slog, too. Not only did I not get that "ugh, this book is so fucking long feeling," I actually got to feel extremely accomplished for gobbling up so much of the book at a time.) And most of all, the prose is delightful. It's rare to find a pastiche that really works well, that doesn't feel like a hollow imitation but actually captures the spirit and charms of the genre/inspiration it's trying to. (Let's just say I wasn't as impressed with those Star-Wars-in-the-style-of-Shakespeare books as everyone else was.) John Baird's writing succeeds. So many turns of phrase made me smile. It's got exactly the clever wit and humor of the late 19th-/early 20th-century books it's imitating, adjusted to 21st-century conventions just the right amount. At times (needless to say, not that time) Arthur Ogden's diary reminded me of P.G. Wodehouse's writing, which is one of the highest compliments I can give.
All told, this is a tremendously flawed but tremendously fun book. They're always the toughest to grapple with, these stories with such extremes of high and low, good points and bad—much more difficult to reconcile than books that are just consistently mediocre. I'm glad I read it, but I'm also glad I got it for free. I'll keep it on my shelves, but I won't eagerly press it into the hands of friends and insist they've got to read it. If Volume 2 ever materializes, I'll add it to my TBR, but I won't be disappointed if it never does. I don't think it deserves as low a rating as it currently has on GR, but I'm also glad its low rating sent me in with accordingly low expectations, because that probably helped me like it more.
(Incidentally, The Explorers Guild has a lot in common with The Mongoliad, another ambitious project with multiple authors telling a multimedia tale of epic adventure in an alternate/"secret" history setting. The latter is still on my TBR, but I've seen the same type of criticisms lobbed at it—the lack of heart, of characters and relationships the reader actually cares about in the midst of all the bells and whistles. Though I've yet to read the "main" story, I have read Cimarronin, a graphic novel set in that world. In terms of character and plot, I would say much the same things as I did about The Explorers Guild: I could've cared more, but I did care, and I found the story/setting enjoyable. But Cimarronin does much better in terms of the whole straight white male author thing. Women and characters of color have purpose and agency and prominence and multidimensionality! I'm not going to hold it up as some paragon of representation, but there's a counterexample to go along with The Explorers Guild's what not to do.)
I had low expectations for this book. It's got a 3.3 average rating on GoodReads, for goodness's sake. And then there's the Kevin Costner of it all.
But I also wanted it to be good. So much about this book seemed aimed squarely at my interests—the art direction making it a wholly immersive experience, with a beautiful, unified cover and dust jacket, the pages yellowed to seem like a 19th-century tome; the multimedia use of prose and comics together; the very premise of explorers and secret societies and epic, Verne-like quests across the globe in an earlier era.
To deal first with the bad: this book earns its comparisons to Kipling in the worst way possible: racism! This review explains the situation pretty well. Was Arthur Ogden's "ill treatment" (the book's own mild term for it) of the Inuits realistic for the era and the character? Undoubtedly. Was it in any way necessary to the story? Not remotely—take it out and the plot doesn't change at all. Worst of all, by the time those uncomfortable several pages come about, we're so embedded in Arthur's POV that it's extremely difficult to separate out character from narration—that is, the authorial voice seems not to be condemning this blatant racism, nor even presenting it in the factual and detached way of historical scholarship, but actually supporting it.
There were two shorter moments that also left a disgusting taste in my mouth on a different subject: sexual harassment. This story follows a group of lovable rogues—you know the type. Think Pirates of the Caribbean. They're criminals, thieves, deserters, brawlers, murderers, but of course we never see them do anything too bad. The people they harm are mostly stuffed-shirt types or even worse evildoers who we can be absolutely sure deserved it. Their antics are played for laughs, we see their bonds of friendship with each other, we see how their own code (honor among thieves!) is in some ways more noble than anybody's (again: Jack Sparrow, pirate, freer of slaves), we come to appreciate their charm. And we brush quickly past anything that might make us question the lovableness of these rogues (how many innocent people were hurt when they started that riot? surely they're spreading PTSD wherever they go? aren't they technically war criminals?). This is standard procedure in these types of stories, and I'm absolutely fine with that. Pirates of the Caribbean would be a lot less fun if it featured a subplot dedicated how to the impoverishment, humiliation, and trauma resulting from the actions of our merry band of pirates led an entire family to starve to death. That sort of realism would make the story much less entertaining—and since PotC is the kind of story whose primary goal is to entertain, that sort of realism would make the story worse.
In these two instances, we see members of the dragoons, our lovable rogues, sexually harass women they encounter. And these are portrayed as part and parcel of their general antics, exactly as "haha, how fun and naughty these guys are! they're too cool to play by the rules!" as their other exploits. One of these harassers is later executed as a traitor, but the other never suffers any kinds of consequences to suggest the narrative condemns his actions, which indicates that the traitor's sexual harassment of Miss Harrow wasn't intended as foreshadowing of his secretly evil nature. Just more lovably roguish behavior. These are still the good guys! Wasn't it hilarious how one of them forcibly grabbed a maid and held her as she struggled to get away, telling her how much she turned him on and trying to "persuade" her into having sex with him, while his friends laughed and cheered him on, until she managed to break free and literally fled in terror? WHAT CHARMING SCOUNDRELS.
This book was published in 2015. I'd hope, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, someone would have caught these instances and made the authors cut them—better, that the authors never would have written those moments at all, much less used them for humor. Of course it's ridiculous that it took the #MeToo movement for people to realize that women fearing rape at the hands of our "heroes" isn't particularly funny, but that's a tenet of the movement, isn't it? It's ridiculous that we even have to say these things, that they're not already incredibly obvious, but here we are.
Unfortunately, these three things (Arthur Ogden's racist tirade, the instances of sexual harassment) were only the most blatant, should've-been-caught-by-any-reasonable-person-in-the-year-2015 examples of -isms in the book. The other examples are the more subtle, insidious, and unfortunately common expressions of an (often unconscious) privileged worldview that's unsurprising to see from a bunch of well-off straight white male authors in the 21st century. Things like there being only one female character of any significance, and her falling into all of the most predictable tropes left and right (femme fatale, defrosting ice queen, damsel in distress, redeems herself as a person and a woman through discovering her motherly instincts). Or how, even as we trek all over the world, all our main characters are white men, with people of color playing (at best) one-dimensional stock roles (i.e. Mr. Priddish, the wise Sikh who's devoted his life to offering advice to his white commander), (at medium) background and scenery/prop roles (i.e. every non-white member of the dragoons, who barely feature), and (at worst) stereotyped villains (the lecherous perversions of middle eastern men, with their harems). I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
Now, as I said, I love the premise of this story, because I'm always drawn to this kind of adventure story with secret societies and maps and airships and pirates and hidden histories. That is, I love the idea of this kind of story, but so often the execution falls short. And one of the ways they most frequently fall short is that in all the excitement about plot and setting and worldbuilding, they forget to pay attention to the things that make people actually invested in a story: character and relationships and heart. The Explorers Guild falls somewhere in the C-range on this subject. Most of the dragoons seem entirely interchangeable in personality/background/skills/accents, and in one case, looks—meaning I was over halfway through the book before I realized that what I had thought to be one character was actually two characters, with nearly identical haircuts/stubble/features/outfits/ways of speaking and behaving. Miss Harrow and Corporal Buchan's relationship was as predictable as it was boring. And it would have been nice to have more development between John and Arthur Ogden, whose brotherhood technically fueled the story, except it sure didn't feel like it (especially because John kept claiming to be helping his brother because his sister wanted him to, because of course men can't care for other men without some intermediary woman—something that was never dealt with or used as an opportunity for character growth).
But honestly, I've seen books (and movies, etc.) do a lot worse when it comes to investing us in characters. I would've liked more character development, more focus on relationships, but we did get some, and I did get invested in certain relationships and characters through a combination of sometimes-the-authors-did-try and I've-just-spent-so-much-time-reading-this-book-that-I've-bonded-to-the-characters-despite-their-thinness. In roughly ascending order of investment, I cared about: the general brothers-in-arms bond of the dragoons (and Buchan's acceptance into this), the O Captain! My Captain! dynamic between Ogden and his men (Mr. Renton especially), Sergeant Pensette's protectiveness of little Bertram, and Mulcairn's devotion to his horse. There were all sorts of opportunities the book missed to make me care more (chief pet peeve: the sidelining of Betram and Pensette for Miss Harrow and Bertram, because of course the one woman has to be the one who takes care of the kid and grows to love him as her own, even though she's never liked children before). But I did care.
This review has been almost entirely criticisms, I realize. Partially because they needed to be said (particularly the racism and sexism stuff), partially because it's just easier to write in detail about the stuff that was bad than the stuff that was good. For the record, and in much shorter terms, here are the things I liked about the book: as a physical object, it's beautiful. A work of art that you can tell a lot of work went into, and a lot of attention was paid to detail. I'm always a sucker for multimedia storytelling, and this book's mix of comics and prose was wonderful. I cared about some characters and relationships, as written above. The adventure and mystery of it all kept me intrigued and moving quickly along. (The fact that so much of this book is comics keeps it from feeling like a slog, too. Not only did I not get that "ugh, this book is so fucking long feeling," I actually got to feel extremely accomplished for gobbling up so much of the book at a time.) And most of all, the prose is delightful. It's rare to find a pastiche that really works well, that doesn't feel like a hollow imitation but actually captures the spirit and charms of the genre/inspiration it's trying to. (Let's just say I wasn't as impressed with those Star-Wars-in-the-style-of-Shakespeare books as everyone else was.) John Baird's writing succeeds. So many turns of phrase made me smile. It's got exactly the clever wit and humor of the late 19th-/early 20th-century books it's imitating, adjusted to 21st-century conventions just the right amount. At times (needless to say, not that time) Arthur Ogden's diary reminded me of P.G. Wodehouse's writing, which is one of the highest compliments I can give.
All told, this is a tremendously flawed but tremendously fun book. They're always the toughest to grapple with, these stories with such extremes of high and low, good points and bad—much more difficult to reconcile than books that are just consistently mediocre. I'm glad I read it, but I'm also glad I got it for free. I'll keep it on my shelves, but I won't eagerly press it into the hands of friends and insist they've got to read it. If Volume 2 ever materializes, I'll add it to my TBR, but I won't be disappointed if it never does. I don't think it deserves as low a rating as it currently has on GR, but I'm also glad its low rating sent me in with accordingly low expectations, because that probably helped me like it more.
(Incidentally, The Explorers Guild has a lot in common with The Mongoliad, another ambitious project with multiple authors telling a multimedia tale of epic adventure in an alternate/"secret" history setting. The latter is still on my TBR, but I've seen the same type of criticisms lobbed at it—the lack of heart, of characters and relationships the reader actually cares about in the midst of all the bells and whistles. Though I've yet to read the "main" story, I have read Cimarronin, a graphic novel set in that world. In terms of character and plot, I would say much the same things as I did about The Explorers Guild: I could've cared more, but I did care, and I found the story/setting enjoyable. But Cimarronin does much better in terms of the whole straight white male author thing. Women and characters of color have purpose and agency and prominence and multidimensionality! I'm not going to hold it up as some paragon of representation, but there's a counterexample to go along with The Explorers Guild's what not to do.)
When I first found this book I purchased it immediately. It looked like a fun adventure story, but the thing I was most interested in was the combination of prose and comic panels. However, the execution of this novel fell short. The graphic novel sections were largely boring, and not used to their full advantage. Instead of showing off the beautiful setting or fight scenes, for example, the panels most often showed characters just standing around talking or the main character walking around. In a word, they were boring.
That's how I found myself through most of the novel, to be honest. It wasn't bad by any means, but I found myself easily distracted and wandering off to different books. It took quite some time to finish the book. The story's sort of faded from memory too. The details have grown fuzzy now. But if this sounds like something you'd like, do pick up a copy and read it for yourself.
That's how I found myself through most of the novel, to be honest. It wasn't bad by any means, but I found myself easily distracted and wandering off to different books. It took quite some time to finish the book. The story's sort of faded from memory too. The details have grown fuzzy now. But if this sounds like something you'd like, do pick up a copy and read it for yourself.
This was a book of incalculable ambition but it falls short of it's goal. I am a big fan of the prose/graphic novel style and the ideas involved were fascinating (the abbot is so obese he's been turned into an island!) however in the execution of this story the actual story itself gets lost. Who are we rooting for, what is the adventure about? I feel as though I've missed something vital that would pull this book together for me. If this had been chopped up (seemingly random things just happen for no reason) and filled in (scenes are just dropped and not really explained), picking a central character and following that character throughout all of the adventures (so many points of view here I struggled to figure out who was doing what) this would have made an awesome novel and/or graphic novel. As it is though it is a book to be commended on it's beauty and the care given to it's appearance.
Great idea and potentially an amazing book and yet... The writing was confusing and flowery. Really disliked the characters and was more often confused than not.
I now have an aversion to any book that addresses me as a "gentle reader."
I guess in the end I feel like they just tried too hard.
I now have an aversion to any book that addresses me as a "gentle reader."
I guess in the end I feel like they just tried too hard.
People will make comparisons to H. Rider Haggard and the Adventures of Tintin because those comparisons are helpful and accurate. People will evoke Kipling and Victorian adventure tales and the authors of this thing are hoping that you will do exactly that. But there's something more pressingly obvious that this review must address before moving on to the content of the book.
The corpus codex, if you will, the stuff of the book itself, the actual item you hold in your hands. If you are reading this book electronically, it is possible that (in this case alone, we shall restrict our judgmental assessments) you have altogether missed the point, and if not, at least a singular joy. The item is gorgeous, lovingly constructed with gilded map interiors and lavish color illustrations at the beginning of each "book" within the tale. The book is printed to look as though the pages have been affected by dust, water and age over time spent, one pictures, in a library which catches the sun about five hours a day, and the scent of brandy and pipe smoke for a minimum of ten. It closes with a reassuring "wumph" of paper and cover and authority and it's just a fun book to look at, switching as it does from rafts of antiquated typeface to sepia-graphic comic content and back again. You could buy this book and just set it out, and that would be okay, but you'd miss out on the stories within.
Crafted to ape a "boy's adventure story" in the form of a collected volume of penny dreadfuls, this book capitalizes on some of the tired stereotypes - the gruff man of action, the concerned young woman, the manipulated child, the violent Irishman and sage Sikh - while reminding you that perhaps these archetypes only become tired and useless when written poorly. Each primary and secondary character is given some room to shift about, and this refreshes what could be a boring use of stock "types" by making this into a story not so much of heroes and villains and monsters and neophytes but of people with sliding motivations and complex histories. The journey is the thing: the objective / destination is only part of that trip.
It's a big book at 700-odd pages, but much of that is graphic comics content, but don't let that fool you, either - some of it is quite dense. There are going to be people bored by this, because it's old-fashioned and takes every bit of its length to get where it's going, but I would ask you to get the book, pour a cold drink, put away your fucking phone and eschew the company of prattlers for the time it takes to complete an epic journey. Mssrs. Baird, Costner and Ross have completed a thing that if you don't at least look at it, you'll be poorer for the experience.
The corpus codex, if you will, the stuff of the book itself, the actual item you hold in your hands. If you are reading this book electronically, it is possible that (in this case alone, we shall restrict our judgmental assessments) you have altogether missed the point, and if not, at least a singular joy. The item is gorgeous, lovingly constructed with gilded map interiors and lavish color illustrations at the beginning of each "book" within the tale. The book is printed to look as though the pages have been affected by dust, water and age over time spent, one pictures, in a library which catches the sun about five hours a day, and the scent of brandy and pipe smoke for a minimum of ten. It closes with a reassuring "wumph" of paper and cover and authority and it's just a fun book to look at, switching as it does from rafts of antiquated typeface to sepia-graphic comic content and back again. You could buy this book and just set it out, and that would be okay, but you'd miss out on the stories within.
Crafted to ape a "boy's adventure story" in the form of a collected volume of penny dreadfuls, this book capitalizes on some of the tired stereotypes - the gruff man of action, the concerned young woman, the manipulated child, the violent Irishman and sage Sikh - while reminding you that perhaps these archetypes only become tired and useless when written poorly. Each primary and secondary character is given some room to shift about, and this refreshes what could be a boring use of stock "types" by making this into a story not so much of heroes and villains and monsters and neophytes but of people with sliding motivations and complex histories. The journey is the thing: the objective / destination is only part of that trip.
It's a big book at 700-odd pages, but much of that is graphic comics content, but don't let that fool you, either - some of it is quite dense. There are going to be people bored by this, because it's old-fashioned and takes every bit of its length to get where it's going, but I would ask you to get the book, pour a cold drink, put away your fucking phone and eschew the company of prattlers for the time it takes to complete an epic journey. Mssrs. Baird, Costner and Ross have completed a thing that if you don't at least look at it, you'll be poorer for the experience.
Čekala jsem něco lepšího. Grafická úprava vypadá na první pohled fantasticky, střídání textu s komiksem taky, ale ve výsledku se dost špatně čte. Pamatuju doby, kdy se dobrodružný román vešel do polovičního počtu stránek - i Viktor Hugo dokázal napsat kratší román a to do něj vkládal historické a filosofické kapitoly.
A book you should take your time with. Beautiful and imaginative.
https://youtu.be/F9I4f36aL6I
https://youtu.be/F9I4f36aL6I