|
 |
A Song
of Ice and Fire. For those of you who don’t know the
series, ASOIAF is a series of seven books (as of yet
incomplete) written by renowned and respected
author, George R.R. Martin (come one people, it’s in
the title of the review). It is a tale of knights
and outlaws, lords and ladies, whores and pirates
and minstrels and prophecies and even the odd
dragon. In a word: awesome. Possibly the greatest
series of fictional works ever (only the Lord of the
Rings can equal it in scope). The Hedge Knight was a
short story, originally written for the Robert
Silverberg edited Legends anthology, set a hundred
years before the events of ASOIAF, and follows the
exploits of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg.
This review is a review of the graphic novel
adaptation of the prequel short story of the same
name.
The story is about a young squire to hedge knight
(like a masterless samurai), who at the beginning of
the tale is burying his master, who may or may not
have knighted him. Dunk, the squire, takes the hedge
knights armour, horses and weaponry and realises he
has to compete in the tourney they were travelling
to or sell all of his belongings and scrape out a
living for another year. On the way, he meets a
young stable boy named Egg, who will have more of a
say in Dunk’s life than he does, and takes up the
name Ser Duncan the Tall.
|
|
Adapted by Ben Avery (XIII, the Sworn Sword),
the graphic novel follows the short story to a
word, with much of the dialogue taken directly
from the pages of the short story. The story is
well paced, and translates to graphic novel form
superbly, Ben Avery’s choices of panel
attribution work perfectly. One noticeable
difference between the prose and comic versions
of the story is the narrative - Avery has chosen
to convert it from third to first person, giving
it that comic-booky feel as you read through the
voice over, G.R.R. Martin’s words through Dunk’s
mouth.
Artwork comes by way of Mike S. Miller
(Adventures of Superman, G.I. Joe vs.
Transformers) and is rather well done. Miller
seems to have been made with the sole purpose of
bringing the realm of Westeros to life, and
every fan of the series of books will agree that
he does just that. The characters are exactly as
I imagined them when I read the short story, and
the action sequences (especially the joust
scenes) were nothing short of that word I love
so much: awesomeness.
So to finish off, if you’ve read the story
before, you’ll love the adaptation. If you
haven’t, it’s great, pick it up. A good place to
start for those of you who haven’t read the
series, and a great tale in it’s own right. A
must for fans and newcomers alike.
|
|
