Saturday, September 11, 2010

Le Mystérieux Destin de Timothy Hunter: Initiation [Book Review]


Carla Jablonski's Le Mystérieux Destin de Timothy Hunter: Initiation is the first book in a six-volume series about DC Comics character Timothy Hunter. With the help of other well-known characters like John Constantine, the Phantom Stranger, and Zatanna, Hunter learns his potential to be the world's greatest magician. Most of the book concerns him being taken to various places (the age of Merlin, the end of the universe, the Faerie Kingdom, etc.) in order for Hunter to see what the magickal world consists of. At the end, he has to choose whether to accept his role and learn wizardry, or return to a mundane, much far safer life (anyone who's ever read genre novels will have a pretty good idea of which course he'll follow).

The books are an adaptation of a story (comics?) by Neil Gaiman and John Bolton. On the whole, I'd say they were okay. John Constantine and Zatanna have interesting personalities, and Timothy Hunter is not intolerable. The constant jumping from place to place kept, in my mind, a coherent plot from developing and was more in the nature of a travelogue. Still, it's fun to seeing DC Comics characters in novel form so I'd probably pick up book two someday . . .

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