SAMWISE DIDIER

I'm going with a completely middle 0f the road rating on this one. Here's the thing:

The art in this is very good. I know this is being marketed as a graphic novel, but it's no more a graphic novel than the Cemetery Dance versions of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, with their gorgeous art interspersed throughout the novels are. Yes, this one may have more art than average, but it's a short novel with a lot of illustrations. A graphic novel, by definition, shouldn't make much sense if you pull away the "graphic" portion, that is, all the illustrations. It should collapse. Pull the illustrations out of this one, and you still have a perfectly good story.

So. It's not a graphic novel. But 5 full stars for the art.

Second, the story. A werewolf, Frankenstein, and Blacula walk into a bar located just outside a carnie on the apocalyptic side of town...

Seriously, there's enough imagination thrown in here to have an ongoing series (which I think may be the case, considering this is "volume 1"). There's lots of twists and turns, there's great action, and the characters are fun.

So, 5 full stars for the story.

But then you get reading it. And I have to say, it's written in one of the most annoying narrative voices I've ever read. The word "of" does not exist. It's always "o'", as in "will o' the wisp". Not a single "ing" word ends in "ing", instead it's all fightin' and swearin' and such. There's no "for a moment" or "just a minute"...there's only "a tick".

Had the author chosen to perhaps open and close the novel with a colloquialism-filled rant, sure, I can get on board with that. Set the tone, no problem.

But almost a hundred and fifty pages of reading this? I could literally only read maybe ten or twelve pages at a go, then I'd have to set it aside. And every time I started up again, I just got annoyed.

Pro-tip: You never want your writing style to annoy your reader.

While this may be a great book to look at, and have a great story at its core, I can easily say that, simply due to the aggravating-as-fuck style, I'll never pick up any of the subsequent volumes.

And that's a shame.… (altro)

Captain Grimbeard. He's rough. He's tough. Hates Elves and loves a good fight. And he's the hero of this collection of short stories.

Fun read!

Grimbeard is hacked off. And it's understandable. He wakes up after a night of partying to discover that not only has he flashed 1000 years forward in time, but he's also the last dwarf. The very last one. And there are freaking elves everywhere. These six stories follow Grimbeard as he grumps his way through life organizing fights, avoiding elven bounty hunters, does piratey things and generally fights his way through life.

Very entertaining! Fun to read! I passed the book on to my husband when I finished and he's enjoying it too. He keeps popping into the room to exclaim about things happening in the stories. ha ha :)

I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway. Glad I entered -- this book was just ridiculously entertaining!

**I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads.com giveaway. I voluntarily wrote this review and the free copy had no bearing on my opinion. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**… (altro)