The Books of Magic Book 1: Bindings

This second volume in the Books of Magic series (numbered, confusingly, as volume 1) further develops the character of Timothy Hunter and begins to explore his mythic origins. When Tim is drawn away from his world by his birth father Tam Lin, we witness his first true trial--capture by the manticore--and learn of his otherworldly genesis. Unfortunately, the story suffered a bit in some of the same ways that the first did--sometimes I felt as if I had missed large swathes of the story, I suspect because some action took place in some comic book or another that I missed--and Tim, though his characterization is drastically improved here, still felt a little thin.However, there were a handful of stand-out scenes that made this book show more memorable: Tim's experiences in the manticore's den, his interactions with Death, and the rambling monologue of his surprisingly empathetic one-armed foster father. I'm having trouble evaluating this series so far as I normally do. The bits I like, I like very, very much, but as a whole, the graphic novels seem to leave me scratching my head. They're wispy and dreamlike, not always to good effect, but the parts that were well done were well done enough to keep me reading. We'll see if there's any improvement. show less

The original "The Books of Magic"as written by Gaiman was great reading. Rieber takes over writing chores for the regular series and manages to put together a decent arc in "Bindings".

There are a few subplots in the story, but the main driving force is Tim Hunter's battle with the Manticore. The Manticore is a changeling beast that captures children, "educates" them and eventually eats them. This is vintage Vertigo horror stuff, and is creepy enough to make you think that Gaiman might have ghostwritten it.

Great introduction by Jane Yolen and I really do agree that indeed, "The world's glue is story...To move is to miss a part of the tale."

Overall, it's an interesting tale of Timothy Hunter, perhaps the greatest magician of all time, and show more the illegitimate son of Tam Lin and Queen Titania of the Faeries. While I found the story tight-paced and enjoyable, I wished they'd give us a little more backstory as to how Tim knows who his true father is. But I guess readers of "The Books of Magic" would have to just find themselves copies of "The Books of Faerie" for the background story on that one. I also felt that the explanation for the dying Faerie lands was just thrown in but wasn't given a chance to be fully developed.

"Love is the stuff that keeps things moving so they stay together. Fear is the stuff that makes things hold so still they fall apart."

I was quite surprised by the cameo appearance of Death--although I have a feeling that she's going to play a greater part later in the series. I can hardly wait for that. And please, can I loiter around the Keep of the Three Enigmas a little bit longer?

The artwork was pretty bad - often it shifted from one frame to another, becoming well-defined in one frame and blurry in another. Dimensions altered. And Titania was terribly drawn - she's supposed to be beautiful; after all she's the Queen of Faerie! Charles Vess' cover artworks won't disappoint, although a lot of details were lost due to the smaller reproduction for this volume.

Book Details:

Title The Books of Magic: Bindings, Book 1
Author John Ney Rieber; Neil Gaiman (Consultant)
Reviewed By Purplycookie show less

When I started this new series I thought it started with #5 because the original series was 1-4. Then after reading about 20 issues I found the "new" 1-4 (this one). Good stuff. Wish I would have read it first, probably would have made things make a little more sense.

Not as thrilling and magical as the original but how can it be. Good because i want to figure out what happens next,I really want Timothy Hunter to grow to be a great
magician, so i wouldn't like it if the rest of the books were just his
education in magic. it should really be the full story, with a
beginning or an end.

The start of Timothy Hunter's story. He's an angry young man with magical powers in an ordinary life who needs to find a place for himself before the powers around destroy him.

In which Timothy Hunter finds out that his parents aren't his parents and almost dies. I love this series, but I like the later issues or trades better.

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