The Brotherhood Restored by Xiao Long Liang and Wei Dong Chen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Received from publishers Myrick Marketing and Media via NetGalley this is a graphic novel in ebook format, read using Adobe Digital Editions. The book does translate well onto a Kobo, but with this style of ereader only showing black and white, all colouring and related impact is lost
At the start of the book, and each significant chapter there is a brief summary, putting the story into context about who the significant players are etc. The volume covers some historical stories in China from approx 200AD – westerners of a certain age group will remember earlier tellings of “Monkey” (Japanese program of an older Chinese tale) and similar straight Chinese programs.
This is book 7 in the legends cycle, Bei Liu and his brothers are reunited in their fight against Cao Cao, and they muster forces to fight him. However, despite overwhelming advantages in terms of number of troops, the group is only as strong as their weakest link, and the brothers and their commanders fall into a trap that sees their plans fail – despite having nearly 1 million soldiers, only a few hundred return alive.
The panels are light and generally uncluttered, with blues and greys the primary colour scheme. This marks a difference with Western graphic novels that are often dark and cluttered. The larger set panels are impressive with their scale and detail. The lettering is clean and the book flows well.However, there is still a level of death and violence in the stories that would make this inappropriate for younger children.
Writing about books 