Product Description: The Wood Boy is an adaptation of the short story by fantasy master Raymond E. Feist that first appeared in the Legends anthology (edited by Robert Silverberg) and offers a unique side story to the events depicted in his beloved book, Magician. The Wood Boy is an exciting story that offers readers an excellent introduction to Feist's Riftwar Saga. The Burning Man was written by world-renowned science fiction and fantasy author Tad Williams (Otherland) and originally appeared as a short story in the anthology Legends as well. A ghostly coming of age tale rendered in a beautiful, ethereal style by popular comic book artist Brett Booth (Thundercats: Dogs of War), The Burning Man is an exciting and thought-provoking story about life and death, love and fear, and innocence and betrayal.
50% good art, 25% good storytelling As a long-time fan of all sorts of literature--from sci-fi/fantasy and graphic novels to literary fiction and contemporary poetry--I came to this book with high expectations and a definite willingness to suspend disbelief. Also, the raw elements of these two storylines--betrayal, love, and doubt--SHOULD have appealed to me... but they didn't. Really, it's impossible to review this book without breaking it down into four parts.
"The Wood Boy", story: Without spoiling the "twist" ending, I have to say that I was shocked by how cliche-filled and unrealistic this story was! For example, the story opens with a heartbroken, half-starved young peasant speaking in long, lordly sentences! Talk about unrealistic! And the "twist" of the ending is extremely predictable, at best.
"The Wood Boy", artwork: To call this artwork mediocre would be a compliment. The characters look extremely goofy and unrealistic, with poorly disproportioned poses and badly exaggerated facial expressions. For example, there's a scene wherein the main female character (who is supposed to be beautiful, but looks more like a box with breasts) charges someone in a fit of rage. But her face and flailing arms are so badly drawn that I burst out laughing--which drew a strange look from the person sitting next to me on the plane.
"The Burning Man", story: OK, this is hard to write, because I really liked every inch of this story... until the very end, which is frankly insulting and awful. Why? BECAUSE THE AUTHOR FORGOT HIS OWN STORY!! Beware any author who has no respect for his own audience. At the risk of spoiling this, suffice to say that the story revolves around a grieving, exiled warlord who summons a kind of demon to answer a metaphysical question inspired by the warlord's tragic losses and spiritual doubts... a question that the entire story has built up to... which the author then forgets!! This story makes not even the slightest attempt at closure. The demon simply disappears. Did he answer the question or not? If so, what was his answer? If not, why--and when--did he disappear? We don't know these crucial details, because the author just decided not to tell us. Furthermore, the narrator--who up until then was giving detailed descriptions of the entire story--doesn't appear to wonder about this, either! That's such a huge breech of trust between author and audience that the guy who wrote this had better hope he never meets me in a dark alley. I like stories in which the author allows the reader to fill in some gaps, but this author apparently decided to just leave out the whole last chapter!
"The Burning Man", artwork: fantastic! Seriously, the artwork of "The Burning Man" is the ONLY reason to pick up this book! It easily runs circles around EVERY other element of this book, both stories combined!
amazing illustration I was not aware that I was buying an Illustrated or Graphic novel when I purchased this. I was greatly pleased at the illustration to go along with the story. I had read The Wood Boy in the Legends Series but to add the illustrations made it come to live. As for the Burning Man, reading this graphic novel urged me to read more of Tad Williams also. I would highly recommend this.
Falls apart, horrible production value This book is half good. Half of the Wood Boy story is really well illustrated, then the second half is drawn by some amateur. Same thing with the second story, the first half looks like the artist took his time to craft a lovely visual, then the second half it looks super-rushed, and half-assed.
Then the production value, filler pages flood the middle of the book advertising another series. ADVERTISTING. In a GRAPHIC NOVEL. Then at the end of the book you get a bunch of low resolution sketches that look like they were taken off a website at 72dpi.
Whoever ran the production and editing on this book should be kicked out of the comic book world until they have a clue how to put a decent book together.
Wonderful Adaptation of Two Novellas This graphic novel combines two stories that were adapted from two stories that originally appeared in Robert Silverberg's mammoth anthology LEGENDS in 1998.
This graphic novel collects: Raymond E. Feist's THE WOOD BOY (a Midkemia story) and Tad Williams's THE BURNING MAN (a Memory, Sorrow and Thorn story).
I think that the WOOD BOY actually improves the story, because it adds visual depth to an otherwise rather lame tale. I have not read the story in a long time, but I remember that it was rather average. But the adaptation was very good and I am looking forward to MAGICIAN.
I think BURNING MAN must have been much more diffcult to adapt because it does not have a lot of outward action, but rather a lot of introspection. A lot hinges on atmosphere rather than plot. But I enjoyed the adaption quite a bit. It was very faithful to the text, but also added a couple of lines of dialogue here and there to make the story livelier. I think that worked rather well.
One little caveat though. When Sulis finally asks the Burning Man his question that he so desires to ask, the answer of the Burning Man is left out and the action resumes with the attack of Tellarin. Is that the point where the other two artists took over from Brett Booth? That was an odd moment, and I think that something is missing there.
But it is a nice book. The characters looked "right" enough to me and I would definitely like to see more of them.
Unfortunately, the Dabel Brothers have currently no other Tad Williams projects in the works (as far as I know), but I hope that that will change soon.
Meanwhile, I am looking forward to MAGICIAN, RED PROPHET and THE SWORN SWORD.
Short but very good. This "comic" is very good, it has a nice story, very much like other Fiest works (you know, a few fights and near death experiences, throw in a token bit of magic and royalty) and the graphics in this book are amazing.
Personally I felt that they could have been sold seperately so collectors only get the authors work they want, but both stories are good.
Besides that it is very short, takes under 10 minutes to read.
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