Warcraft, Vol. 1: Dragon Hunt - Softcover

Grade 8 Up-An accomplished fantasy author has extended the popular world of "Warcraft" (S & S) into manga. This first volume opens with eight pages of back story. Readers meet Kalec, a blue dragon who can shapeshift into a young man and who is being pursued by a band of dwarves. He nearly dies from their missiles, but Anveena, a local peasant girl, finds him and brings him home. Thus begins a quest of sorts, marred by derivative writing and formulaic plots. When her parents see their daughter with a strange, wounded man with shredded clothes, they inexplicably call out, "Hello, what's your name?" Their faces never change from huge grins, even as they're about to be murdered. Anveena then goes along with Kalec, who is engaged to another woman. It's hard to imagine that this title will appeal to any but the least discerning "Warcraft" devotee, given the huge gaps in logic and absurd action. Why build intelligent, dramatic tension when each moment of crisis can end with some new character swooping in with a huge monologue to deliver? Also, the illustrations, while appropriately grotesque, seem unpolished and amateurish. A final scene with an undead army is built up as an epic battle, but ends with someone saying, "Is that all?" A fan base alone may not be enough of a consideration for purchase when a title has so little to recommend it.-John Leighton, Brooklyn Public Library, NY
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From the world of the incredibly popular Warcraft online role-playing game comes this first manga of a trilogy. The war-torn world of Azeroth is plagued on all sides by evil dragons, power-hungry elves and the armies of the Undead Scourge. Just as a wary peace seems possible, the Sunwell, a source of unimaginable power previously thought to be lost, resurfaces. Kalec, a blue dragon who takes an appealing human form complete with Farrah Fawcett hair, is on a quest to prevent the Sunwell's destructive power from being realized. He is joined by Anveena, a quaint country girl with a world-changing secret. Together they encounter the stock set of fantasy characters: surly dwarves, stupid orcs, rugged warriors and beautiful maidens. There's betrayal, magic and, of course, pages and pages of sword fights. The backstory for the Warcraft world is so complicated it requires eight pages of prose to explain it in brief, and still much of the comic is spent on exposition. This volume manages to be incomprehensibly complicated and yet at the same time insipidly transparent. The art is attractive and easily digested, but the characters and plot are purely cookie-cutter creations. This work will please only hardcore fans of the game. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.