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The Books of Magic
Books of Magick: Life During Wartime, Vol. 1
This horrific, disturbing graphic novel is a new direction for the acclaimed Books of Magic, conceived by the writing genius behind Sandman, Neil Gaiman. Like a Hell-born Harry Potter, mage-in-the-making Timothy Hunter finds himself as the nexus for overlapping alternate universes, where a forthcoming war has spilled out over the Earth and its shade reality, Faerie. This mystic apocalypse will span the cosmos and wrench Tim into a reality that brings with it all the psychological horrors and blood-red savagery of a universe gone mad! Like Death and the Sandman himself, Tim Hunter is another of Neil Gaiman's unforgettable creations, but this time he's taken it and twisted - really hard!
128 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2005
About the author
Si Spencer
115 books28 followersBritish Writer and editor for both comics and television. Best known in the US for his work at DC/Vertigo.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
December 8, 2008
A Books of Magic AU in which everything is very different from the world Neil Gaiman first laid out. Namely, everyone is an unsympathetic asshole. Strictly as a horror comic, this is pretty awesome—Spencer has a lot of ideas that are original and very scary. But he made me hate everybody, including characters I usually love. A universe where you’ve got no reason to root for John Constantine is a sad, sad place, and I don’t want to hang out there.
November 8, 2016
DC universe magic users is not enough to make this interesting.
July 30, 2007
You'll probably want to read up on Hellblazer and Books of Magick before you dive into this volume, but even without the backlist you'll be mesmerised by all the weird, cool, and yes ... magickal things this one will show you.
January 7, 2012
The illustrations are great. The concept is interesting. But it didn't quite pull it off to a level I hoped for. Worth it for the great illustrations.
September 28, 2023
I have yet to read any of the Books Of Magic series and think "This is a coherent, well-told story that I can follow and enjoy."
It's mostly a mess of continuity that never quite knows where it's from or where it's going. If John Constantine is involved (and he is in this one), he's always at least slightly out of character but still far more entertaining than anyone else in the story.
Here, we're thrown in the midst of a war involving faeries and humans (or "bred" and "born") while Tim Hunter, once a boy wizard, now a teen ne'er-do-well, does drugs and has sex in a pocket dimension he made so that he could have a normal life. I loved the in media res, and some of the concepts in the story but it quickly devolves into magic gobbledy-blah (which, I know, the series has magic in the title but I've read books where magic is explained or unexplained in satisfying ways but none of them were part of this series). the characters become indecipherable. There's a point late in the story where a character is killed, and it seems to be an important character we were following but he's called by a different name (and the character we were following already had three different names for some reason), and then the character I thought was dead shows up a page or two later like nothing had happened so ... I have no idea who died and why I was supposed to care.
That's a lot of what this book is. Supposed major events happen, unhappen, rehappen to characters I just don't care for.
It gets three stars because I was at least interested to see where the story was headed, even if it ended up not going anywhere particularly interesting. The art is a perfect blend of 90s/early 2000s Vertigo and Mike Mignola sketchy horror. I'm pretty sure I hadn't encountered most of the demons/faeries before but they all looked familiar in a way that filled me with positive nostalgia.
Who do I recommend this to? I don't know. It's tone is more adult than the previous books in the series but it's not really good enough to stand on its own. I guess if you love fantasy it's worth a flip through at a library. Unfortunately, the ten issues which followed this book were never collected into trade but are available in expensive hardcover omnibus form.
It's mostly a mess of continuity that never quite knows where it's from or where it's going. If John Constantine is involved (and he is in this one), he's always at least slightly out of character but still far more entertaining than anyone else in the story.
Here, we're thrown in the midst of a war involving faeries and humans (or "bred" and "born") while Tim Hunter, once a boy wizard, now a teen ne'er-do-well, does drugs and has sex in a pocket dimension he made so that he could have a normal life. I loved the in media res, and some of the concepts in the story but it quickly devolves into magic gobbledy-blah (which, I know, the series has magic in the title but I've read books where magic is explained or unexplained in satisfying ways but none of them were part of this series). the characters become indecipherable. There's a point late in the story where a character is killed, and it seems to be an important character we were following but he's called by a different name (and the character we were following already had three different names for some reason), and then the character I thought was dead shows up a page or two later like nothing had happened so ... I have no idea who died and why I was supposed to care.
That's a lot of what this book is. Supposed major events happen, unhappen, rehappen to characters I just don't care for.
It gets three stars because I was at least interested to see where the story was headed, even if it ended up not going anywhere particularly interesting. The art is a perfect blend of 90s/early 2000s Vertigo and Mike Mignola sketchy horror. I'm pretty sure I hadn't encountered most of the demons/faeries before but they all looked familiar in a way that filled me with positive nostalgia.
Who do I recommend this to? I don't know. It's tone is more adult than the previous books in the series but it's not really good enough to stand on its own. I guess if you love fantasy it's worth a flip through at a library. Unfortunately, the ten issues which followed this book were never collected into trade but are available in expensive hardcover omnibus form.
December 30, 2017
The main body of the story (issues 1-12) start off beautifully, such a fun set-up - then it peters out and falters through about 40% to the end - - but the follow-up short (issues 12-15) has the job of playing clean up to the rushed finish, and those three issues are really good again.
Published at an awkward point in comics, and flogging a few dead horses w/ characters learning that gay people walk among us - which probably felt like progress at the time, and now feels awkward and heavy-handed.
I would have liked the dynamics of The Bred vs. The Born to be explored more deeply - mortals vs. faeries, in half a dozen interesting configurations, was a really fun backdrop. Constantine at the center of a long-standing siege was fun, too.
Somehow, Tim is written as the least interesting character in the book. Bizarre - b/c Tim Hunter in some pretty clear ways, was the most direct precursor to Harry Potter. The times were ripe to make him the Vertigo HP, and the ball was dropped. Maybe deadlines and other circumstances damaged the book. Whatever the case - I had fond memories of the series, was previously missing a few floppies, filled in my run and read it through. Glad I didn't follow my instinct to toss it out after issue 12.
Published at an awkward point in comics, and flogging a few dead horses w/ characters learning that gay people walk among us - which probably felt like progress at the time, and now feels awkward and heavy-handed.
I would have liked the dynamics of The Bred vs. The Born to be explored more deeply - mortals vs. faeries, in half a dozen interesting configurations, was a really fun backdrop. Constantine at the center of a long-standing siege was fun, too.
Somehow, Tim is written as the least interesting character in the book. Bizarre - b/c Tim Hunter in some pretty clear ways, was the most direct precursor to Harry Potter. The times were ripe to make him the Vertigo HP, and the ball was dropped. Maybe deadlines and other circumstances damaged the book. Whatever the case - I had fond memories of the series, was previously missing a few floppies, filled in my run and read it through. Glad I didn't follow my instinct to toss it out after issue 12.
May 29, 2019
Desde luego, Los Libros de la Magia: Vida en Tiempos de Guerra es una historia diferente. Luego ya se puede entrar en si gusta o no gusta, pero desde luego es diferente. Vida en Tiempos de Guerra nos muestra un mundo extraño... o al menos un par de ellos. En uno de ellos, no existe la magia, y nos encontramos a Tim Hunter (el primer niño mago con gafas de la historia) junto a tres amigos (Cat, Perro y Molly) viviendo la vida loca a base de fiesta, drogas y rock and roll. Pero por otro lado, hay un mundo rebosante de magia, donde Constantine y Zatanna forman parte de una resistencia que se enfrenta a la Reina de las Hadas en busca de los Libros de Magia que convocarán al Cazador (Hunter). En ese mundo, los Nacidos (las criaturas mágicas) libran una guerra secular contra los Criados (los humanos), cuyo último refugio se encuentra en Cracovia, liderados por Constantine. Y por otro lado, Zatanna se ha infiltrado en Jerusalén, centro de poder de la Reina de las Hadas.
Con estos dos mundos dirigiéndose a una colisión inevitable y tratando de entender qué ha pasado con Tim y cómo se ha llegado a plantear esta situación. La historia es buena, los dibujos, aunque raros, pegan con la historia, y desde luego, es un planteamiento muy diferente de personajes ya conocidos...
Con estos dos mundos dirigiéndose a una colisión inevitable y tratando de entender qué ha pasado con Tim y cómo se ha llegado a plantear esta situación. La historia es buena, los dibujos, aunque raros, pegan con la historia, y desde luego, es un planteamiento muy diferente de personajes ya conocidos...
May 30, 2021
Neato. Blood, sex, magic, demon babies, dual universes, suicide bombers, vomiting so hard your eyeballs fill up with blood, gender issues, murder, mayhem, a flying VW bus, one unlikely hero. Yay! I want all of the rest of it right now.
August 1, 2020
Wanted to love this story, but took forever to go nowhere.
March 29, 2022
Non sono convinta, inizio abbastanza moscio per ora.
November 30, 2014
I've had this on my list to read for at least 5 years now, probably closer to 7 or 8, and I can totally see why I would have been drawn to this really weird, really different tale. Learning that it's based on a Gaiman story might be why it, at least in part, wasn't totally my cup of tea, but more often than not it's that it was a little more weird and disjointed for my tastes. Too much of it just wasn't doing the trick for me.
Not a bad read, just not great and not for me.
Not a bad read, just not great and not for me.
June 20, 2011
Woefully disappointing in some ways, interesting in others. As someone who read all the original stories of the character Tim Hunter when they were coming out, meeting this adult version is just a let down. A vastly altered Zatanna and Constantine continue the disturbance. Treating a fairy war as a variation of the wars we deal with today, with terrorists and such, that was a good touch. But man, they just had to turn Tim into a druggie wanker, i expected more than that.
September 8, 2012
This is one of those deals where I wonder if it would have been more interesting if I had read it when it first came out.
It's not a terrible comic, but mostly it now falls under the category of "like Fables, but not as good." It reads like a rip-off of Fables, but a poorly done one. Which of course it isn't, given that it came out first.
But really, this comic just makes me want to read more Fables.
It's not a terrible comic, but mostly it now falls under the category of "like Fables, but not as good." It reads like a rip-off of Fables, but a poorly done one. Which of course it isn't, given that it came out first.
But really, this comic just makes me want to read more Fables.
May 4, 2012
La mejor frase de la historia: (en medio un un campo de batalla): "Solo falta que llegue el hada de los dientes a salvarnos, excepto que no va a llegar porque esta empalada alla abajo..." Este es el tipo de historia y humor en el libro. Altamente recomendable.
Want to read
September 6, 2007Note to self: Read Hellblazer first.
April 28, 2009
Ineresting read...I like the illustrations..awesome imagination.
September 20, 2011
Considering that I loved the whole BoM universe... this two stars rating is really pathetic.
July 5, 2013
Overly confusing and definitely written for a male audience.
May 28, 2021
Jeg har skrevet om Timothy Hunter og Books of Magic på bloggen min Betraktninger
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews