Petersen, David

About the Author:

David Petersen was born in 1977 and earned a BFA in Printmaking from Eastern Michigan University.  He lives in Michigan, USA with his wife Julia and two dogs.

AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:

4 out of 5

(1 book)

Mouse Guard: Fall 1152

(Art by David Petersen)

The first book of the Mouse Guard series.  Here we're introduced to the medieval society of the mice, with their hidden cities and the constant dangers of large predatory creatures.  Protecting this society is the Mouse Guard and here they're faced with a threat from within as a traitor gathers an army to overthrow the Guard, leaving just a handful of valiant mice to thwart the plot.

Having fairly recently read one of Brian Jacques' Redwall books which thoroughly disappointed me, I was a little wary of another story with anthropomorphic mice in a medieval fantasy setting, but as it was a graphic novel rather than a prose one I figured I'd give it a try.

I was very pleasantly surprised.  Petersen introduces us to a world and a cast of characters which have surprising depth and which, personally, left me very much interested in reading more.  'Fall 1152' is a proper adventure story, with warriors old and young banding together to defeat a ruthless warlord and don't be fooled into thinking it's for kids either; the themes and images are all fairly adult.

Speaking of the images, a big part of what I loved about this book was the author's artwork, which adds tone to the story brilliantly and gives us some really great scenes, in particular those where the mice confront predators (all of which are, naturally, on a huge scale by comparison) such as the snake or the crabs.

A surprising gem, albeit far too short to satisfy some readers.

4 out of 5

Read more...

Fantasy (here)