Thursday, February 3, 2011

The Dark Hunters Volume 1 Story by Sherrilyn Kenyon Art by Claudia Campos


The Dark-Hunters (Dark-Hunter, Bk 1) Synopsis from Goodreads.com:Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon
In the war against vampires, mankind has only one hope: The Dark-Hunters. Ancient warriors who died of brutal betrayal, the Dark-Hunters have sworn themselves into the service of the goddess Artemis to protect us. — It’s a pact with pretty good perks. Immortality, power, psychic abilities, wealth and a cool wardrobe. But it comes with a few drawbacks: fatal sun poisoning and a new, irreparable dental problem. But aside from the fangs and nocturnal lifestyle, it’s not so bad.

Until Kyrian meets the most frightening thing imaginable. An accountant who’s being hunted by one of the most lethal vampires out there. If Amanda Devereaux goes down, so does he and no offense, he doesn’t want to die (hence the whole immortality thing). And he doesn’t want humanity dead either which is a good thing for us since he and Amanda are all that stands between us and oblivion. Let’s hope they win.

From the wild imagination of Sherrilyn Kenyon comes the humorous and suspenseful manga debut of the #1 internationally bestselling Dark-Hunter series. The world of manga will never be the same again.

My thoughts:
When I decided to try out this book I thought it was a graphic novel but then I saw it listed as manga. Honestly I am not all that sure of the difference. This is the first book of this genre that I have read and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I have read a good part of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series. I don't think I am all the way up to date but I've read most of them. I thought that this book would be the whole story of Kyrian and Amanda, but it wasn't. This is a little embarrassing to admit but when I first picked it up I knew it read from the opposite side of the book but I was still reading the pages from left to right. After a few pages of thinking it didn't sound right I realized that I need to read all the pages right to left just like the book. At the very end of the book, at what would be the first page in a regular book, there was even a diagram on how to read the pages. It is a mistake I will not make again but it feels weird to read in the opposite direction!

It seems that this book was more efficient in telling the story than the novel, but I know large parts of what the characters were thinking must have been omitted. Kind of like cliff notes for the novel with illustrations perhaps? That said, I did enjoy it and I loved how quickly it read. It seemed to take almost no time at all to read it. I already added the next book to my wish list so I can read it. I was also thrown by the lack of page numbers, I have a thing with wanting to know what page I am on and how much I've read and I wasn't able to do that with this book. So along with reading backwards I had not knowing how much I was reading, I guess I was really out of my comfort zone!

I liked how the illustrations added to the story to make up for the missing text and I can see the draw to read books of this type. A part of me had considered manga something for kids not adults, but just as YA books can also appeal to adults I guess so too do manga. I think even for someone unfamiliar to the Dark Hunter series there would be no problem with following the story and understanding all the elements.

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