The Explorer's Guild: Volume One: A Passage to Shambhala

I really wanted to like this book. I wanted to fall head over heels in love with it from the moment I saw it. The book itself is gorgeous. My mother-in-law got me the hardcover version for Christmas, and I can't imagine reading it any other way. The formatting is so integral to the story-telling that I even wonder how this will work as a paperback or e-book. It's part prose, part graphic novel, with a smattering of illustrations, both colored and not, throughout. Even the pages are colored in a sepia-toned gradient to look old-timey. The switches between prose and graphic novel are handled very well, especially in the beginning. It leads to great pacing and lends a sense of loving craftsmanship to the entire book.

So it was disappointing to discover that the story itself was subpar. The book jacket describes The Explorer's Guild as an action-packed adventure story in the style of Rudyard Kipling, a return to the "golden age" of adventure stories. Unfortunately it fails to examine what the means, and the result is a book packed with just as much racism as anything Kipling wrote. It's a lazy bit of nostalgia for nostalgia's sake, a tired old tale dressed up in a pretty package.

It's a shame, because the book is obviously a labor of love. The story is intricate, and it demands that you pay attention. It's the sort of thing that would benefit greatly from a second or third reading. Small details place early in the story become hugely important later. And I'm sure I missed my share of hints and foreshadowing. But that was largely because I didn't care. The details are exquisite, and the various plot threads come together quite admirably. But the characters are interchangeable and mostly unlikable. Even Miss Harrow, the one bright spot, suffers an abysmally predictable arc, going from fantastic actress/explorer to stand-in mother for no real reason other than the fact that there's a child present.