RAVINETPBv02_COV(DONE)_wlogoStjepan Sejic and Ron Marz wants again bring us into their new fantasy world, Ravine.

It has been a year since the first chapter of this story made it’s appearance on shelves and tablets and It has been a long wait for this next chapter in an interesting story.

With such a long hiatus, it is difficult to know where to begin in discussing this second chapter in the story of Ravine. The easiest place for me to start is the art.

The cover is gorgeous. It has the two of the main characters, Lynn and Stein, in a circular frame of fire and dragons. The colors are bright and have a fall palette that gives it a warm comfy feeling while still being dynamic. It captures the feel of a classic fantasy novel cover without feeling old and over-used. The interior artwork holds up to the promise that the cover makes. Sejic’s art is finely detailed with gorgeous backgrounds that meld together to create pages that are breathtaking throughout. In most graphic novels, there are certain pages that are significantly better than the rest of the book. Here, that is not the case. Sejic’s work starts off strong with the cover and never loses steam. In particular, I enjoy the loving attention that he gives to arms and armor. The weaponry is flat-out amazing and the armor that the characters wear are so finely detailed that you linger to see each one.

The writing is solid. The book opens up giving us a brief glimpse of the initiating action that has started the terrible events that are unfolding. We get to see Azriel and Calisto before they are the weapons that our current heroes wield. This recap is nicely done. It is kept brief and still communicate new information that was not presented in the first book. The book then jumps in where we left off. Lynn has just met Stein and their meeting is not the most auspicious.  As fate would have it, our two wanderers decide to travel together to Wade so that they can continue on Stein’s quest to find the dragon graveyard. What follows is a travelogue. The reader is treated to the growing companionship between Lynn and Stein while getting to see the various other factions that are in movement around these two wanderers.

This wolrd that Sejic and Marz have created has a depth and breadth that one comes to expect from epic fantasy. There are bits of action and adventure intertwined with love, lust and magic to keep any reader turning the pages. I like the relationship that this book builds between Lynn and Stein. It has the feeling of a deep friendship without the tensions that are expected between two so different people. I am hoping that we will get to see this relationship continue though certain revelations are sure to cause difficulties soon.

If I had to voice one complaint, It would be that I have to wait so long between books. The art is great and story engrossing that I hate the thought of having to wait another year for the next installment.

outside of that, this second volume of Ravine is an excellent book and I recommend picking it up.

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