If you are a fan of OOTS, don't miss this book. The origin stories of Redcloak and Xykon are the best D&D character backgrounds that I know of. This beats the pants off the first prequel book. ( )

Paltry fantasy hars. ( )

Does a fairly decent job of covering the origins of the villains of the webcomic Order of the Stick. An enjoyable read. ( )

The book is numbered "-1" in the Order of the Stick series, and that's because it's a prequel book. It's the prequel to the prequel book, in fact; the origin of the villains we all know and love to hate. It's also quite good, very much on par with the more recent OoTS strips and books; the fact that Burlew's growing as an artist and a storyteller with every new entry in the OoTS world shows. It's particularly nice that he held off and didn't publish backstories for his characters until after he had quite a bit of polish under his belt (to mix metaphors); the stories flow much better than some of the original strips do. ( )

Burlew sheds some light in the darkness that is the beginning of the OotS's nemeses. He does so with the same brilliance as he twists the tales of the OotS, but in Start of Darkness, he can do so more cohesively as he is not bound to the joke-a-page tempo of the web comic.

A definite read for everyone even mildly intererested in the world of OotS (and if you are not, you should be!). ( )