Brian De Bois Guilbert, villain in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe , returns as the doomed hero in this thrilling sequel to the classic work. After a brutal death at the hands of Sir Ivanhoe, Brian is reborn as Ravenskull, undead walker of the Shadow World, cursed by an impossible love. To save himself and the woman he loves, he must embark on a perilous journey to the East, facing all manners of monsters, black magic and evil assassins!
Christopher Vogler is a Hollywood development executive, screenwriter, author and educator, best known for working with Disney and his screenwriting guide, The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers, from 2007.
Brian De Bois Guilbert fell in love with Rebecca, a gorgeous healer in love with a competing Knight, Ivanhole. But Ivanhole loves the sweetheart from his youth, the Saxon Princess Rowena, and they plan on getting married. Slighted by her love for Ivanhole, and Brian slighted in his love for her (and then killed by Ivanhole), both are cursed in the world of the dead when Rebecca brings him back from what should have been his demise. Equally cursed by the underworld, they are given powers that allow them to walk in the land of the living while seeing into the world of the dead as well. The Grandmaster tries to help the two by diagnosing their curse and sending them on their way to hopefully find a talisman that can undo the curse and bring them back into the world of the living.
Overall this was a good read. The illustrations of the novel were well done and clear for interpretation. Though it is anime or magna-style it isn’t overly revealing, nor did it contain blatant nudity. The plot is interesting and interwoven with subplots and characters that have more than one dimension. The characters change over the course of the text, and likely continue to do so throughout the series. The history of the Templar Knights, jousting, knights, honor, tournament, and the quest for the Holy Grail are explored. The novel goes as far as showing a slightly different side of King Richard, Brian even questioning his right and place as a good King to the people since he isn’t attentive to them and is so commonly away or busied with other matters than his own country or people.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Between the story and the author, I expected a little better. I love the Ivanhoe story and looked forward to a graphic novel version. Turned out this was a spin off story. Ok, I could handle that- it sounded interesting. Ivanhoe bad guy gets to tell his own story, with death and hell and dead walking things thrown in. The story is told in the way of true manga of the eastern rim of the Pacific- you start at the back, read the speech balloons left to right, and travel on this uneasy path of mirror-reflection sensory disorder. I could even handle that. It was new for me, intriguing, and a taste of manga. Which I WAS curious about. The problem I had was with the level of story telling. There were few pictures that 'spoke' to me- my reviews are entirely subjective after all- and the storyline held promises...which it never delivered on. Not to my satisfaction, anyway. And it had some few adult themes in it, such as near naked winsome lasses for the tastes of men who have died and gone to their version of orgy heaven(?) which didn't fly in my idea of what my children should be reading. The story fell flat. The romance fell flat. The characters didn't earn my regard. It just sizzled over all, not in a juicy frying pan way, but like the air sizzing out of a tire just when you are expecting to go somehwere new and different. Maybe it was just my age. I like graphic novels, so some part of me must still be immature enough to appreciate this book (!). Nope. It just fell flat for me. And with some adult issues in there, my kids didn't get to read it either. Oh well.