Customer Reviews

The Bones of Giants (Hellboy (Pocket Star Books))

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4 star:		(3)
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I got started on Hellboy's graphic novels, this is a great novel though. I have read it twice and find new stuff in it every time.
Its a great book to read on its own. I'd rather prefer these than the comic series.

This is a significant improvement. Mignola even states in the introduction, 'Chris is a better writer now than he was 4 years ago'. This would certainly seem to be the case. Perhaps a better editor, too. Gone are the dumbed down kindergarten sentences. The characters are handled better.

Oh yeah, and Hellboy becomes HellThor. That is pretty groovy. Mjolnir, Frost Giants, dwarves, and lots of running around in Sweden, which is certainly a pleasant change of setting.

If you were put off by The Lost Army, don't be - this book is considerably better.

If you enjoy Hellboy Mythos and are familiar with it, this is a must read. Otherwise, it might be worth a trip to the library, but not as a purchase.

Chris Golden, who has a surprising number of fantasy talents, has developed a knack for taking from one media and making novels out of them. Hence, countless tales from the Buffy-verse, and now a visit or two to an entirely different story line - Hellboy, the tales of a young demon who somehow was raised to do good. Hellboy, and several of his close, and equally spooky, friends are the action arm of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, a very secret organization formed in the days of WWII when the Nazis tried to conjure up a weapon and wound up calling up a bright ready baby boy demon with a big sweet tooth. Since then Hellboy has been Johnny on the spot whenever really bad things have to be stopped.

It all starts this time when a giant skeleton appears in Lapland, an ancient war hammer clutched in the corpse's hand. Not for long thought. Hellboy, called in to investigate with his friend Abe Sapiens (an amphibiperson) picks up the axe only to discover that it has no intention of being let go off. There's something that need to be done, and Hellboy, in a strange mind meld with Thor himself, has been volunteered. Welcome to the twilight of the gods, part two.

Thrym the Hollow, King of the Frost Giants, has been released by the actions of Professor Aickman, a greedy academic. Norse mythology is about to eat the world. Hellboy must chase after Thrym, helped by a handful of dwarfs and Pernilla, Aickman's daughter. Along the way to the reborn Jotunheim, Hellboy faces svartalves, frost giants, and his usual share of bad luck. The walls separating myth from reality have grown thin, and Hellboy must struggle as well with a legendary hero living in his head.

The story has all the action you would expect from a Hellboy, as well as plenty of the sarcastic dialog that one would expect from a large red skinned guy who has a war hammer glued to his hand. My only complaint is that Golden chose to downplay plot complexities, leaving only the main story arc. This is quite true to the comic book genre in which Hellboy originated, but one of the advantages of writing a novel is telling a more complex tale than a comic book will support. I'm not knocking comic books by any means; it's just that each media has its advantages and Golden chose the lazy way out this time. Still, The Bones of Giants is a lot of fun. If you like the red guy and Mike Mignola's artwork, you're going to want this on your shelves.