{WARNING: Some spoilery details for both this book and its original show.}
Ah, back at last! As I hope you’ve guessed, that was an unintentionally prolonged hiatus. To be
fair, I was always planning to upload my reviews of Once Upon A Time’s two graphic novels this weekend, but that was
before I realize that the midseason finale was going to be last week. Whoops.
And now I realize that despite both these books being less
than 100 pages long, there’s enough to talk about for each to warrant its own
review. So Shadow of the Queen, you’re
up first! But I’ll discuss both these books a bit more.
I’m actually glad to have waited a week since the show’s
last episode before winter break. I’m clear-headed enough now to articulate the good and the
bad about ABC’s attempts to bring its fairytale-fantasy soap opera to the page.
Well, there’s also the novel Reawaken:
A Once Upon A Time Tale by Odette
Beane (seriously with that pen name?). It’s an extensive recap of all the
Storybrooke events of season one from Emma and Mary Margaret’s points of view.
Not only does it sound like a dull regurgitation, but it also leaves out
important plot elements. If someone wants to tell me it brings more insight
into characters, I might be persuaded
to take a look.
Shadow of the Queen
and Out of the Past differ in that
they bring new stories into the show’s canon. Their validity is supported by
Daniel T. Thomsen and Kalinda Vasquez, even if these writers aren’t working on the show
anymore—so I’m guessing since they haven’t head-written any episodes this past
season. Sadly, where the writing here falls short correlates pretty strongly
with the writing fails on the small screen.
