Fever Moon
Author: Karen Marie Moning
Illustrated by: Al Rio, Cliff Richards
Adapted by: David Lawrence
Publication Date: 7/10/12
Publisher: Del Rey
[Goodreads|Amazon]
Blurb: In Fever Moon, we meet the most ancient and deadly Unseelie ever created, the Fear Dorcha. For eons, he’s traveled worlds with the Unseelie king, leaving behind him a path of mutilation and destruction. Now he’s hunting Dublin, and no one Mac loves is safe.
Dublin is a war zone. The walls between humans and Fae are down. A third of the world’s population is dead and chaos reigns. Imprisoned over half a million years ago, the Unseelie are free and each one Mac meets is worse than the last. Human weapons don’t stand a chance against them.
With a blood moon hanging low over the city, something dark and sinister begins to hunt the streets of Temple Bar, choosing its victims by targeting those closest to Mac. Armed only with the Spear of Destiny and Jericho Barrons, she must face her most terrifying enemy yet.
Review:
This is a surprisingly coherent and well-written graphic novella (it's a bit too short to be called a novel, IMO). Very often graphic novels are nothing more than money-grabbing ventures, when the same story is sloppily repackaged in a different format. Fever Moon, to me, is not only a novella that offers some new content, but it is also a well-adapted story, unlike, let's say, The Exile, an Outlander graphic novel that wasn't cohesive and wasn't laid out properly, in addition to the inconsistent character images.
Fever Moon is set in somewhere in a middle of Shadowfever. Jericho is back, he and Mac are still searching for the Book, their relationship is in a limbo. Dani is doing her savior job on the streets of Dublin and one day comes across several victims in coma who are also missing some of their face parts - i.e. an eye, a mouth, an ear. When Dani falls victim to the same kind of plight, Mac and Barrons have to step in and find out who is to blame. Obviously, some bad Unseelie is involved.
This is a pretty self-contained mystery that doesn't have a bearing on the main story arc (or maybe I am wrong and some of it will figure in future Fever novels? hmm, there is definitely a possibility, if the author is keen). I actually enjoyed the story much more than I had thought I would. Besides a bit strange conclusion of the mystery and issues with some imagery, which I will detail later, I thought Fever Moon was quite successful. I liked that it recapped Mac's back story rather nicely and also introduced some new information about the Unseelie King and his concubine - the most intriguing part of all Fever books, if you ask me.
Now to the gripes. The portrayal of some characters here is rather questionable. Like Emily astutely noted, Mac's breasts do look more or less like boulders. And generally ALL women in this graphic novel are allowed only one body type, which is extra busty. Even our young Dani (how old is she, 14, 15?) has a couple of good-sized grapefruits stuffed down her shirt.
Author: Karen Marie Moning
Illustrated by: Al Rio, Cliff Richards
Adapted by: David Lawrence
Publication Date: 7/10/12
Publisher: Del Rey
[Goodreads|Amazon]
Blurb: In Fever Moon, we meet the most ancient and deadly Unseelie ever created, the Fear Dorcha. For eons, he’s traveled worlds with the Unseelie king, leaving behind him a path of mutilation and destruction. Now he’s hunting Dublin, and no one Mac loves is safe.
Dublin is a war zone. The walls between humans and Fae are down. A third of the world’s population is dead and chaos reigns. Imprisoned over half a million years ago, the Unseelie are free and each one Mac meets is worse than the last. Human weapons don’t stand a chance against them.
With a blood moon hanging low over the city, something dark and sinister begins to hunt the streets of Temple Bar, choosing its victims by targeting those closest to Mac. Armed only with the Spear of Destiny and Jericho Barrons, she must face her most terrifying enemy yet.
Review:
This is a surprisingly coherent and well-written graphic novella (it's a bit too short to be called a novel, IMO). Very often graphic novels are nothing more than money-grabbing ventures, when the same story is sloppily repackaged in a different format. Fever Moon, to me, is not only a novella that offers some new content, but it is also a well-adapted story, unlike, let's say, The Exile, an Outlander graphic novel that wasn't cohesive and wasn't laid out properly, in addition to the inconsistent character images.
Fever Moon is set in somewhere in a middle of Shadowfever. Jericho is back, he and Mac are still searching for the Book, their relationship is in a limbo. Dani is doing her savior job on the streets of Dublin and one day comes across several victims in coma who are also missing some of their face parts - i.e. an eye, a mouth, an ear. When Dani falls victim to the same kind of plight, Mac and Barrons have to step in and find out who is to blame. Obviously, some bad Unseelie is involved.
This is a pretty self-contained mystery that doesn't have a bearing on the main story arc (or maybe I am wrong and some of it will figure in future Fever novels? hmm, there is definitely a possibility, if the author is keen). I actually enjoyed the story much more than I had thought I would. Besides a bit strange conclusion of the mystery and issues with some imagery, which I will detail later, I thought Fever Moon was quite successful. I liked that it recapped Mac's back story rather nicely and also introduced some new information about the Unseelie King and his concubine - the most intriguing part of all Fever books, if you ask me.
Now to the gripes. The portrayal of some characters here is rather questionable. Like Emily astutely noted, Mac's breasts do look more or less like boulders. And generally ALL women in this graphic novel are allowed only one body type, which is extra busty. Even our young Dani (how old is she, 14, 15?) has a couple of good-sized grapefruits stuffed down her shirt.
 Mac in her male wish-fulfillment glory |  Dani and her grapefruits |
As for Jericho and his crew, they all look like tanks. I kind of expected Barrons to have a more polished, less thuggy, lankier look. And don't get me started on Ryodan. His "look" is wearing a stripy half-sleeve buttoned down shirt which you can often see on fast-food employees. I don't know if I can see him as a desirable man in future Fever World books in that getup.
Ryodan, Barrons and their square bro-mates
The Seelie guys, on the contrary, are all much better shaped and overall better looking, of course if you into Fabio look. (Apparently, I am. And, after looking at Velvet some more, is he really less muscly? Oh, I don't know, I don't know!)
Meet Velvet
But even with all these complaints, Fever Moon is still a very entertaining and visually pleasing book. I am even contemplating buying me a copy.
4/5 stars
4/5 stars
