Hominids Book 1 (Chapters 1-6), Jordan Kotzebue (Comic Book)

Comic covers for Chapters 1-3

It’s not very often that you can read a book or watch a movie and tell within the first few seconds that you love it. From the first wonderful page of Hominids by Jordan Kotzebue, I was totally hooked.

The comic is based in a mystical, pre-historic forest that is as old as time itself. Within the forest are a number of different human-like species that are all waging war with each other for the scarce resources in the deadly undergrowth.  Dominant among these are the Tree-Dwellers, who try and live pacifist lives and do their best to co-exist with the other species. However, their biggest rivals are the Mountain-Dwellers who jealously look upon the people of the trees and crave their life of prosperity and plentifulness. The Mountain-Dwellers are the most violent faction in the forest and want to consistently wage war on the Tree-Dwellers and turn them into livestock; to help rebuild their once great city.

Nevertheless, when a stray Mountain-Dweller is found wondering the forest, the leader of the Tree-Dwellers Zona hopes to teach the boy that her pack (tribe) do not wish for war and want to co-exist with the men of the mountain. However, men’s hearts don’t easily change and though they befriend the boy, his elders still seek the imprisonment and extermination of the peaceful Tree-Dweller pack.

Page 1 that got me so hooked!

As you can see from the image above, the artwork in this comic is beautiful. I think it’s such a unique twist to base a comic book in a pre-historic forest. This is because most comics are based around futuristic superheroes, which I’m not always a fan of. But for me, artwork isn’t everything when reading a comic. Sure there are thousands of great comic book artists who post on twitter and reddit and though their artwork is great, their writing isn’t always that good.

Hominids Covers Chapers 4-6

I’m please to say Hominids isn’t like this. I thought the writing was great and Jordan did an excellent job of establishing his characters by giving them a short bio at the start of chapter one. Because of this, I found it easy to pick up the characters’ personalities from Jordan’s artwork. In addition, I was totally immersed in the plot and sub-plots of the comic, which isn’t always the case when reading comic books I’ve found on the web! My only small critique is that Jordan obviously tries to get a point across in his comics about the state of the human race and religion. Nevertheless, I think he could make it a little more subtle in his writing when putting this moral into the story, instead of obviously stating his beliefs on the human race (which to be fair, I agree with).

All in all, this was an exceptional comic book and I thoroughly enjoyed it! If you are like me and want to get into comic books I think Hominids would be a perfect place to start and if you are a comic book veteran, why not try something new and refreshingly different?

Please check out Jordan’s website where he posts regular updates to his comics here.

If you’d like to buy any books of Hominids they are available at ComiXology

The Autumn Republic, Brian McClellan

Publishers: Orbit

Pages: 577

Main Characters:

Tamas, Taniel, Adamat, Nila.

After absolutely flying through The Crimson Campaign I was extremely excited to start The Autumn Republic. I thought McClellan left the threads of each individual character perfectly placed at the end of The Crimson Campaign to make this final book in the series incredibly epic! Tamas was on his way back to his soldiers with sixty thousand new men. Taniel had escaped his captures and looked ready to enact revenge on the Kez, and Adamat was prepared to go behind enemy lines to find his kidnapped son.

It saddens me to say that though I was excited to read The Autumn Republic, it left me feeling underwhelmed and a little disappointed. These stories never seemed to materialise at all. Much of the first half of the book was devoted to characters such as Nila, Vlora and Olem and I felt that the main plots for the three leading characters were almost rushed, as they seemed to be concluded so quickly. In addition, as the start of the book was so heavily focused on it; I became invested in Nila’s story. But then the novel then seemed to trail away from her tale and onto something else (Lord Claremonte) and again, only rounded up her story quickly at the end of the book. It almost felt like McClellan wedged in the problem with Lord Claremonte without considering how he could properly round up everyone else’s plots from The Crimson Campaign. And though I did like that the author added a new antagonist, I thought that the big reveal surrounding him was a little too obvious, making me want to read on past Adamant’s detective work around Claremonte until the big fight scene at the end.

However, though I have painted a bleak picture of the book there was some parts that I really liked. Firstly, I still love the world McClellan has created and feel he has left the ending open to expand on that world with new characters. Plus, I did enjoy the events in the book but they didn’t turn out how I expected them to be. If this was a stand-alone novel I would definitely give it five stars, but with the build up from The Promise of Blood and The Crimson Campaign I expected more from McClellan in this final novel.

To conclude, this was an enjoyable read but was a little underwhelming. If you’re a fantasy fan you must read this trilogy though, it’s one of the best!

For author’s official website click here.

Dark Disciple, Christie Golden Youtube Review

Here's my youtube review of Dark Disciple by Christie Golden. It's a great book and any Star Wars fan would love it!

Please be sure to like, comment and subscribe!

Dark Disciple, Christie Golden

Publishers: Del Rey

Pages: 302

Main Characters:

Vos, Ventress, Count Dooku, Obi Wan Kenobi

I’ve only ever read one other book in the Star Wars extended universe and that was Darth Plaugeis by James Luceno . In my review I said it should have been renamed ‘the secret history of the fall of the Republic’ as the book was so packed with boring detail about politics and economics that happen within the SW universe.  Remembering this made me a bit hesitant to try other SW novels, as I was worried that they too would be full of important, though boring facts, about the SW galaxy.

Artist's impression of Vos

So it was my pleasure to find that Dark Disciple was totally different from Darth Plagueis. At its heart this novel is a love story between two star crossed lovers. I know; we’ve seen it all before in SW with Anakin and Padme’s ‘love’ in the prequel movies. However, the two protagonists in this novel: Quinlan Vos and Asajj Ventress (from SW Clone Wars) really made the love story seem believable. This is because they both work alone and don’t need a partner. Nonetheless, when forced to work together by the Jedi council and asked to do something morally wrong in assassinating Count Dooku, the couple find that they need each other to cope with the gruesome task, whilst also guiding each other around the Dark Side.

Ventress

And this dabble with the Dark Side is what I think makes this book extremely addictive as Golden does an excellent job of making you guess if Vos is a good guy or a bad guy. I think the author balances this question on a knife point throughout the last third of the novel by just showing the reader enough to think Vos may or may not be evil, which envelops the reader in Vos’s inner turmoil and his relationship with Ventress.

In addition, by adding well known characters such as Anakin and Obi Wan to the main plot line made this novel very accessible to readers like me who haven’t read that many SW books. This makes it easier for the reader to become immersed in the story as they know and love these characters and can picture them easily in their mind. Plus, it gives a different incite onto those established characters. This is because they are mostly in the background of the novel and the reader gets to see how they interact with other characters that were not in the movies.

Youtube review of the book

All in all, Dark Disciple was an amazing book and is definitely a good place to start if you are looking to get into SW novels. I would love it if Golden wrote more novels about Vos, especially if they were based before he met Ventress.

For author's official website click here.