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shane_tiernan's review
4.0
Really liked this one, less dark than the first volume, more action and Barbaros is great! I'm not sure how much if any collaboration there was between Rieber and Gaiman, if any, but this really feels like I'm reading Gaiman, which is a huge compliment as far as I'm concerned.
crookedtreehouse's review
3.0
Sandman flawlessly creates a continuity by first stitching together short stories and introducing you to seemingly unrelated characters.
Hellblazer creates a continuity by unfolding one character's history a chapter at a time, establishing patterns of behavior, setting up expectations and occasionally shattering them. Hellblazer is not quite as successful as Sandman, partially because it has a series of creators, and significantly more story to tell.
Books Of Magic tries to build story upon story, creating a denser world. It wants to be a faerie story, a magic story, a DC Universe story, a coming of age story, a story about neurosies, a romance, a story about fathers and sons, and it it only succeeds in being any of those things on the surface.
This volume reads like an inferior version of [a:Mike Carey|9018|Mike Carey|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1334894864p2/9018.jpg]'s [b:The Unwritten, Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity|6471550|The Unwritten, Vol. 1 Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity|Mike Carey|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327887253l/6471550._SX50_.jpg|6662356]. It actually predates that book by about twenty years, but it hits several of the same notes. But here Books Of Magic sounds like a clunky, but well-conceived album recorded on someone's home 8-track recorder. One that was in dire need of repair. It's charming and fun to experience but it's not great. The ideas are all here but they're fleshed out clumsily, and the story feels too scattered. Where as Unwritten is incredibly focused and polished.
The romance feels awkward and insincere. The rules of magic in the universe are never adhered to. The gun that shows up in the second act is never fired. The foreshadowing is never delivered on.
I can't recommend this series, particularly this volume, to someone who loves the Sandman/Hellblazer/Swamp Thing Universe that this story exists in. It feels like a Much Lesser Sandman side story. Not terrible, but just not up to the standards of the other series it intersects with.
Hellblazer creates a continuity by unfolding one character's history a chapter at a time, establishing patterns of behavior, setting up expectations and occasionally shattering them. Hellblazer is not quite as successful as Sandman, partially because it has a series of creators, and significantly more story to tell.
Books Of Magic tries to build story upon story, creating a denser world. It wants to be a faerie story, a magic story, a DC Universe story, a coming of age story, a story about neurosies, a romance, a story about fathers and sons, and it it only succeeds in being any of those things on the surface.
This volume reads like an inferior version of [a:Mike Carey|9018|Mike Carey|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1334894864p2/9018.jpg]'s [b:The Unwritten, Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity|6471550|The Unwritten, Vol. 1 Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity|Mike Carey|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327887253l/6471550._SX50_.jpg|6662356]. It actually predates that book by about twenty years, but it hits several of the same notes. But here Books Of Magic sounds like a clunky, but well-conceived album recorded on someone's home 8-track recorder. One that was in dire need of repair. It's charming and fun to experience but it's not great. The ideas are all here but they're fleshed out clumsily, and the story feels too scattered. Where as Unwritten is incredibly focused and polished.
The romance feels awkward and insincere. The rules of magic in the universe are never adhered to. The gun that shows up in the second act is never fired. The foreshadowing is never delivered on.
I can't recommend this series, particularly this volume, to someone who loves the Sandman/Hellblazer/Swamp Thing Universe that this story exists in. It feels like a Much Lesser Sandman side story. Not terrible, but just not up to the standards of the other series it intersects with.
crowyhead's review
4.0
Tim Hunter and his girlfriend become lost in faery -- and also in Hell. Very good, with a wicked sense of humor as well.
emlickliter's review
adventurous
medium-paced
4.0
The Books of Magic, Volume 3: Reckonings (The Books of Magic #3) by John Ney Rieber – Timothy Hunter facing down magical forces still manages to make growing up seem to be the hardest job in his wild world! Happy Reading!
gengelcox's review
3.0
Timothy Hunter is a 13-year-old boy with the possibility of becoming the world’s greatest magician–as long as he can survive his first date. Well, that and his alcoholic, guilt-ridden father. Well, not really father, kind of like a foster father, because his real father was Tam Lin (of the legend), and his mother is the Faerie Queen. Not to mention his future self, and a bunch of demons from hell that look suspiciously like Barney the Dinosaur. Confused yet? As the classic TV show Soap used to say, if you aren’t, you will be.
Comics are somewhat similar to soap operas, and that’s not knocking either genre. I loved The Edge of Night when I was 16-17, because it combined a cast of characters that you could look forward to following with very mysterious plots (murder, blackmail, etc.) I would have loved to have been able to see Dark Shadows, which I only encountered as a Gold Key comic in my youth.
“The Books of Magic” and Timothy Hunter were created by Neil Gaiman and John Bolton, and they share some affinity with both men’s other work, although Reiber is quickly establishing his own voice. Perhaps it is similar to the Sandman stories written by other writers in the recent HarperPrism anthology co-edited by Gaiman and Ed Gorman?
Part of the reason I like this series is because I recall daydreams around the age of 13 where I was a powerful magician, similar to Timothy, and it is interesting to see my daydreams committed to page in text and pictures. For people without my strong sense of nostalgia, the humor and style of The Books of Magic raises it above much of the other graphic novels published today (although nothing comes close to Jeff Smith’s Bone, which is a 1990s Pogo, and will likely be considered as much a classic in the comic field as Watchmen if Smith can keep up the quality).
Comics are somewhat similar to soap operas, and that’s not knocking either genre. I loved The Edge of Night when I was 16-17, because it combined a cast of characters that you could look forward to following with very mysterious plots (murder, blackmail, etc.) I would have loved to have been able to see Dark Shadows, which I only encountered as a Gold Key comic in my youth.
“The Books of Magic” and Timothy Hunter were created by Neil Gaiman and John Bolton, and they share some affinity with both men’s other work, although Reiber is quickly establishing his own voice. Perhaps it is similar to the Sandman stories written by other writers in the recent HarperPrism anthology co-edited by Gaiman and Ed Gorman?
Part of the reason I like this series is because I recall daydreams around the age of 13 where I was a powerful magician, similar to Timothy, and it is interesting to see my daydreams committed to page in text and pictures. For people without my strong sense of nostalgia, the humor and style of The Books of Magic raises it above much of the other graphic novels published today (although nothing comes close to Jeff Smith’s Bone, which is a 1990s Pogo, and will likely be considered as much a classic in the comic field as Watchmen if Smith can keep up the quality).
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