Red Sonja Worlds Away, Volume 2 by Amy Chu (via Hoopla Digital)

Red Sonja Worlds Away, Volume 2
by Amy Chu [Hoopla Digital] 

This graphic novel is volume two of Dynamite’s Red Sonja volume four (titled Worlds Away) and includes issues seven to eleven. If you are going to read this you really should read issues 1-6 first as it’ll be confusing if you don’t. In the previous book Sonja befriends a NYC police officer who gets transported somewhere during the last few pages. Sonja and her new modern day friends set off on a road trip to find him. It was a road trip that felt like a road trip because I kept asking myself if they were there yet; it should not take six issues to travel from NYC to California, even side tracking to take down a gang, which they do. I thought it was OK in the last book having Sonja in the modern day, but the story just drags and involves so many modern settings, sub plots, characters and dialog, that I don’t care for at all. It got very irritating after a while as I just wanted her to go back home, change out the yoga pants and use her sword again. You may like it if you haven’t read Red Sonja before, but like Dr. Who and time travel stories, but if you like Red Sonja as a barbarian by Dynamite or especially by Marvel Comics (from the 70s and 80s), then I just can’t recommend this at all.

[If you like this you might like Legendary, by Bill Willingham. It also stars Red Sonja, with other characters, in a world not their own – a steampunk one. I reviewed it a while ago and like this I didn’t care for it, but it reminds me of this one as they are set outside the character’s normal worlds.]

[ official Amy Chu web site ]

Recommended by Kristen A.
Gere Branch Library

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

Red Sonja Worlds Away, Volume 1 by Amy Chu (via Hoopla Digital)

Red Sonja Worlds Away, Volume 1
by Amy Chu [Hoopla Digital] 

This graphic novel is the beginning of Dynamite’s Red Sonja volume four. In the first few issues Red Sonja, barbarian from fantasy times past, is in battle with a sorcerer named Kulan Gath. During the battle she is transported to modern day NYC, meets and befriends a cop, makes some other friends and has a face off again with Kulan Gath, who also had been transported to NYC, although quite a while earlier. At first I really liked it as a fish out of water story. They even had her speaking in Hyrcanian rather than English, so there were language barriers amidst the multiple Sonja versus authority encounters. I thought it was neat that through this language barrier she finds a police officer who can understand and talk to her in Hyrcanian. We later find out that he too was transported (as a very young child) to NYC from Sonja’s world and while he can’t remember this, he does remember his birth parents and their language. They team up and have no problem finding Gath has he’s a multimillionaire whose name everyone knows. While I liked the idea here and the early issues did get me hooked on the story, it started to drag on a little too much. I also didn’t like that there was a switch somewhere that Sonja could all of a sudden speak English perfectly. I understand gradually learning words and phrases, but the language barrier went out the window before this novel was over. It is in my opinion not worth re-reading, as I enjoy the older Red Sonja comics by Marvel too much, however if you have not read Red Sonja before and don’t like barbarians very well, but do like strong female leads in modern day settings, you this might be for you.

[ official Amy Chu web site ]

Recommended by Kristen A.
Gere Branch Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues (on Hoopla)

Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues
[Hoopla Downloadable Movie] 

I’m quite a Red Sonja fan, so I was looking forward to seeing this, but didn’t know what to expect. The animation, if you want to call it that, felt like moving paper cutouts around and filming them. Not everyone will like this but I didn’t mind. One of Red Sonja’s foes in this movie is a former friend who is haunted by ghosts of those she and Sonja were forced to fight in a Colosseum of sorts while they were both imprisoned. There is also a plague ailing the city Sonja is trying to defend from her former friend, and it turns out there is someone unexpected behind it all. I thought the story was fairly good and there were enough flash backs to know the backstory to Sonja and her former friend. The major discussion point of this movie to me is that the dialog came across as comical and I don’t think it was intended to be. Sometimes what they said was so out of place and character it was funny and sometimes it was how said it. This sort of thing would occur in serious conversations but made me laugh out loud anyway; somehow this was not irritating to me but I think easily could be. While I’ve read plenty of Red Sonja, Marvel and Dynamite, I have not read the comics this is based on so that may influence one’s perception, as is the case anytime you read the book then see the movie. If you have little to no exposure to Red Sonja, this could easily spoil your view of her, so see my recommendations below for better introductions to her character. I wouldn’t say this film is for everyone, (I’m not too sure I’ll even watch it again), but if you like movies that try to be serious and fail miserably, then this may be for you.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Red Sonja comics, also on Hoopla: Red Sonja: Vulture’s Circle, Red Sonja: The Black Tower or The Chronicles of Conan Vol 4: The Song of Red Sonja and Other Stories] [Also available in traditional print format.]

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ] | [ official Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues web site ]

Recommended by Kristen A.
Gere Branch Library

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

Red Sonja: The Black Tower - a graphic novel

Red Sonja: The Black Tower
written by Frank Tieri, with art by Cezar Razek

Red Sonja has battled many a strange or unusual beast in her time, but she has not encountered robots until now. Even as just a traveler, she finds it odd when a mysterious black tower appears suddenly in a town she’s passing through. Perhaps stranger yet, robots emerge from it. This is a fantasy world similar to Conan the Barbarian’s, so no one has seen robots before and are therefore justly terrified, especially when they start killing people. Some of the villagers start to worship the Black Tower and some, Sonja included, stand against it. Unfortunately Sonja, strong and brave as she is, is no match for them. I’ll let you read it to find out how it ends. I enjoyed this one mostly for its novelty compared to other Sonja mini-series I’ve read, not just because of the robots but about the ending too. It’s not one of my favorite mini-series, but it’s not bad. As with any Red Sonja comic, there is blood and violence, so it’s for teen and adult audiences!

[If you like the steam punk genre, you may also like Legendary, which gathers together a bunch of Dynamite’s characters, Red Sonja included, for a story set in a steampunk world. You can check out this title, Legendary, and other Red Sonja graphic novels digitally at HooplaDigital.com. You can also get to Hoopla by searching for the titles in our catalog and clicking on the download button.]

[ Publisher’s web page for this graphic novel compilation ]

Recommended by Kristen A.
Gere Branch Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!