Reviews

Rex Mundi Volume 1: The Guardian of the Temple by Arvid Nelson

albertico66's review against another edition

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4.0

I enjoyed this first volume of religious-conspiracy noir.

Story keeps moving at a nice pace of action and intrigue. I can use a little more character development time, but I assume there will be more of that in the next volumes. I find the world building to be interesting, as I always do (part of the reason why I enjoyed Rucka's LAZARUS).

Art is not to my liking, but I think it still does the job for the type of story. I would prefer someone along the line of Alex Maleev, Sean Phillips (obvious preference for noir/crime), Lark, or Azaceta.

ivanssister's review against another edition

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2.0

Nice artwork, fairly interesting storyline, but I don't think I need to plow through the entire series. I have bigger fish to fry.

shane_tiernan's review against another edition

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1.0

I'd actually give this 1.5 stars if I could because I liked the one shot at the end. I was pretty excited about this but it turned out that it just didn't do anything for me. 75% of the frames didn't have any words but then in between chapters there were these "newspapers" that I came to dread. The art was nice but the style of straight on face shots was repeated so much that it became annoying.

The writing for the newspaper articles seemed to slip into modern verbiage a lot. I'm not sure if the word "terrorist" was in use in 1933 and that along with words like "press conference" kind of took me out of the setting and into the modern day. Maybe it's because I mistakenly thought the time period was even earlier until I was almost done with the book.

Overall it just went too slow and the parts with the most writing were rather boring.

magnetgrrl's review against another edition

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3.0

I forgot how much I liked this series and how much I wish it had continued to the finish.

bloodravenlib's review against another edition

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5.0

This story start in an alternate world where the U.S. Civil War ended in stalemate, and most of the European powers are still colonial powers, Europe is on the verge of war. And did we mention sorcery works and the Catholic Church has a strong grip on society? Yes, all that and more. The story is a quest to uncover the truth about a murder and a stolen scroll, which lead to what appears to be some secret society.

For people who like alternate history stories, they will definitely enjoy this tale. There are conspiracies and secrets, so I suppose people who like things like The DaVinci Code may like this, though this is a lot better written and plotted than that piece of tripe. The art brings the story and the details of the Paris of this time to life. There is much close attention to detail. The details of the alternate world are very rich, and the intriguing story pulls you in. The only small detail, which may irk some readers, are some segments between chapters, in the form of newspapers, which on the one hand interrupt the flow of the story. On the other, this is where you get a lot of the glimpses of the alternate world as well as more connection to the story. So, I leave it to readers to decide if they like the technique or not. I thought it was ok, especially reading some of the small articles on the Confederate States. Overall, this is an excellent series. I will be looking for more.

ubalstecha's review against another edition

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4.0

Clever alternate history cloaked in a murder mystery. In a France still ruled by the Burgundians and where the Catholic Church enjoys absolute authority, Doctor Julien Sauniere stumbles across a mystery of disappearing documents and magical, ritual murder.

A very interesting story weaving the Catholic Religion, Victorian era Paris, magic and murder mystery. A cute little, and much lighter, story at the end of the book rounds this volume out nicely. Good read.

stellalectorem's review against another edition

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5.0

Fans of Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code would enjoy this noir tale.

birdmanseven's review against another edition

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3.0

Intriguing start to an out there series. I like the main character and the setting is unique. A little violent, but overall a good mystery story. I'm looking forward to volume 2.
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