Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Vampiric Social Order: Proof that Height does not a power make. , March 22, 2008
If you haven't read the first, second, and third book about the struggles in Barrow, you need to return there first. The first and second book are especially worth visiting, and all are referenced here. So, if you read on, you might spoil something.
Consider yourself warned if you didn't read the first novels now.
After the second 30 Days of night, we found our beloved sheriff's wife with the means to bring back something belovedly lost at the end of the first novel. The ash of her lost husband, the center of all her anger, stood in her hand with instructions of a sort on how to raise him.
The ending was quite good although it received mixed reviews.
In the third novel (not as good as the first two in my opinion), she and this no-longer lost piece of her life joined in a fight for Barrow as it tried to strengthen its resolve. She did it as the thing she fought against before, too, and seemed to enjoy herself thoroughly. Will it was good to see Stella this way, what of the gap between? Somewhere in the middle of it all was a change, and somewhere in the midst of that change, was a story that really needed to be told. From the end of the 2nd installment I could have predicted the fangs, and from the latter parts of the 3rd I could have said, "She is the reason behind it." But why? Well, in this installment of 30 Days of Night, this is not only answered but also rendered beautifully.
And it is about time, too.
I've worked my way through the 8 books that have hit the shelves thusfar and can say, without a doubt, that this story arch is the best one to read (by arch I'm not talking about this book alone). When you join the first, second, and this volume together you get a continual story that not only focuses on Barrow and its aftermath but also on what constitutes the undead and how their governance is forged. In this book that meant some graphic love that comes on the wrong set of fangs, a story about the oldest vampire and how to control it, and about how our beloved sheriff and his wife become so powerful.
For those who loved the artwork in the early editions, the style has changed but it isn't a bad thing. The color choice has been kept to show the muted blue and the vibrant red, and the shadows have still been allowed to talk a seductive game. The difference is in the style brought in earlier editions by Templesmith and the more polished coloration added now. This isn't to say that Templesmith was not a beautiful artist; his colors accented what was important and left the rest in the shadows so one would see what needed to be seen. This is still the case in some ways, only the polish makes it more accessible to a wider audience and, biases aside, it is also well done.
As far as recommendations, I give this one a good one on the condition that you finished the 2nd installment. If you don't know about the book and the plan and the way Stella got her groove back - well, you are a little out-of-place in this story. The good news is that you only need to read up to the 2nd book and then skip to this one to bring order to the storyline.
The one thing I like about the 30 Days saga is that it really makes vampires sexy in a way that sexy normally misses. It makes them the things they really should be; humanity and the monster it can be if given a power beyond power. You have to take each book on their own as far as stories and learn not to twine it all together because the common thread, Barrow, is not a common thread through-out.
You can always sample the book if you want online, looking at a previw to see if it suits you.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good but not great..., December 13, 2007
I bought this along with Bloodsucker Tales and Three Tales one day at the local Hastings when I finally found them. I was so excited, because I LOVE 30DON, and this was the one I opened and read first.
What I didn't expect, however, was such a... confusing story.
To tell you the truth, they should have NEVER used anyone BUT Ben Templesmith. Ben's art was mainly the reason I loved the first three 30DON so much, because he's such a great artist and his style really fit the comics. Beautiful artwork, and without him, it's just not the same. You could tell his characters from one another, and to be honest, I had a little trouble with that in this one. It jumped around a little too much, from one point to another too quickly without explanation for how they got there. The point that I got truly lost at was when Eben is sitting in the diner. At first I didn't even know that was Eben, because the only shot you get of him in the comic up to that point is of him [...] naked. Not a pleasant sight. And what the hell was up with the vampire baby? That was just plain weird.
However, for all the confusing flaws of the comic, it was nice to see what happened between Stella and Eben. Worth the price, but be prepared to be a little confused. Good comic, confusing story.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Sequel That Bites, November 19, 2007
After the film adaptation of 30 Days of Night received only so-so reviews, instead of waiting for the movie on DVD, I decided to take a look at the original comics/graphic novels created by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith.
There is the original 30 Days of Night that the movie was adapted from, and it was very good; there is #2 called Dark Days; and there is #3 called Return to Barrow. Dark Days and Return were good, but not great like the original.
The first is the story of vampires that invade a small town (called Barrow in Alaska) at dusk on the first evening of 30 days before the sun will rise again. The second story is one of revenge; a survivor of the first story hunts and seeks to expose the existence of vampires; and the third story has the brother of a victim from the first story returning to Barrow to discover and expose the awful truth of what originally happened in the town. There are even more in the series too, but the above three complete the trilogy created by the original partnership of Niles & Templesmith.
The November 2007 release of 30 Days Of Night: Eben And Stella picks up and fills in an interesting gap that attempts to explain the cliff-hanger ending of Dark Days. So...chronologically it's the third in the series, but technically it is the seventh 30 Days release. It's the story of the fate of the sheriffs (Eben & Stella) of the original 30 Days, and if you're new to the series it pays to at minimum read the original and Dark Days first.
Niles is back for Eben and Stella, but Templesmith is out. It is co-authored by Kelly Sue DeConnick, but I'm guessing that she really did most of the writing, and Niles simply got paid for pretty much attaching his name to the seventh in the series. The story flow is just not as well put together as its predecessors.
It's a fast read that took less than an hour to get through. The sloppy way the vampire's lines were written in the predecessors' text bubbles is a bit straightened out for Eben and Stella; it is replaced by smaller type, and in some cases extremely small to the point that it made for some hard to read, headache inducing text.
Overall it's a fun series. But I believe that the cash-in is now here, and anyone looking to truly explore this series-in-print might serve himself/herself well to stop after Return to Barrow.
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by Ben Templesmith
by Ben Templesmith
by Ben Templesmith
by Steve Niles
by Steve Niles
