The Circle Trilogy

Last month I read Black: The Birth of Evil, a graphic novel by Ted Dekker. Well, I finished the series and here is my follow up with the next two.

Red: The Heroic Rescue

Sticking with what I said about Black, I wasn't thrilled with this one.

While it has an intreguing premise, it just doesn't translate well to the graphic novel format.

This one starts off simultaniously years after the events in the last one and only moments later. Let that mess with your mind. And while you get glimpses of what filled those 15 years in one world, mostly you are just expected to live with the gap. Because the story must move on.

Also, while the Christian God/Elyon correlation was there in the first one, it goes above and beyond in this one with Elyon sacrificing himself, demanding the followers "drown" in his blood (baptism), and then offering a salvation. If the Christ story is not your thing, you'll want to avoid this series.

And yet I was still interested to know how Dekker was going to make ends meet. So on to the next one.

White: The Great Pursuit

Reading this one led me to believe that with each installment, this story got just a little harder to read. The gaps between them in terms of years going by in one reality, coupled with all the story Dekker tried to cram into just three short books, became just too much. And with this last one, my suspension of disbelief was stretched too thin, making it hard for me not to roll my eyes and think "well of course things fell into line for this guy."

With each new event, particularly in this book, things just got harder and harder to "roll with." Of course so-n-so was someone conveniently placed in a position of influence in both worlds. Of course Thomas magically convinced the bad guy to help his cause. Of course everything was just a little too convenient and easy to fix. I was expecting more from Dekker and I just don't think graphic novels are his medium.

All that being said, I still find the concept mildly intriguing and perhaps in the future I will still pick up the novels, read the story in a format that gives Dekker more room to move and tell his story, and hopefully the result will be better.

Until then I can only willingly encourage hardcore Dekker fans to pick up these graphic novels. Sorry. They just weren't my thing.

Black: The Birth of Evil

Oh guys, I really hate to say this, but this was not a good read. Let me explain a little further, you may still want to give this one a chance, especially if you prefer graphic novels.

Ted Dekker is an amazing writer. My husbands loves his work, I have many of his books, and I always look forward to them. In fact, I have the book Green which is book zero in the Circle Series, I just haven't had the chance to read it yet. So imagine how thrilled I was to find a graphic novel version of his circle series, sans Green though.

However, despite being a great storyteller, Dekker does not translate to graphic novel so well. I don't know, this is just my personal opinion and without the comparison of the books this series imitates, so take all this with a grain of salt.

The Circle Series follows one Thomas Hunter who falls asleep after a gunshot grazes his head and finds himself in another world, where he is just waking up. What follows is a crazy switch between two worlds, the second o which could be the future of this one if a giant talking white bat is to be believed. Thomas then continues to bounce back and forth between the two worlds to save one and live in the other (complete with learning to fight and wooing a woman). The back and forth is just too much for this format. I think it was missing a little too much in the narrative, something that you have to be careful with when writing a graphic novel. Because of this, I find some of the conversations and events to be a bit ridiculous. And it actually took me 2 days to finish this one.

That being said I sat down at my computer fully prepared to tell you that not only did I not enjoy this, I had no plans to pick up the next two installments. But, no, you know what, I think I will. After all, they are simply graphic novels, short and easy to read. Dekker took the time and believed that it was worth moving his story to this format, I can give him a little bit of my time to finish the series, see if it gets better. And even if I don't like these I will also be picking up the novels, because I already told myself I was going to read them, and I believe this concept will be great as told by this writer.

So I won't tell you not to read these, I just won't push it on you like I have other books. And check back in a day or two for the reviews of the next two books. I'll attach them to this one for convenience.

Edit: I finished the series and posted my review of Red and White.