The Books of Faerie
Bronwyn Carlton & Peter Gross (with John Ney Rieber)
Titan pbk, 136 pgs (large), £9.99
Reviewed by Philip Douglas (1998)

Collected from the Books of Magic series and at the same time forming a kind of companion to it; two stories. The first of these, in three parts, revolves around Titania, going back to 11th century England. It's a prequel, set before Neil Gaiman's original 4-issue Books of Magic series, and is chronologically the first instalment, though originally written and published in the USA some time later. The other has Timothy Hunter’s first meeting with his true father. It’s set after that first series but before the ongoing Books of Magic series and is therefore the third, and ties in nicely with Gaiman’s Sandman and Death series as well. Complicated? Not really. One of the ways in which it's nice is that you don’t need to have read tons of other comics to be able to follow this book.

Nice artwork throughout this volume, and both stories are good fantasy tales. They also fill in some gaps in the saga and clear up some of the mysteries set up by the earlier works. The storytelling is important continuity-wise as well as good, so I’m not going to give it away. The ongoing series itself is not, perhaps, worth the particularly discerning reader's attention, but this is okay, particularly for those looking for something to replace The Sandman.