Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Atria Books (2015), Edition: 1St Edition, 784 pages
Description
Set against the backdrop of World War I, with western civilization on the edge of calamity, the first installment in The Explorers Guild series concerns the Guild's quest to find the golden city of Buddhist myth. The search will take them from the Polar North to the Mongolian deserts, through the underground canals of Asia to deep inside the Himalayas, before the fabled city finally divulges its secrets and the globe-spanning journey plays out to its startling conclusion.
User reviews
LibraryThing member ecataldi
The layout of this book is truly beautiful. Its a mixture of comic panels, text, maps, and illustrations. The eye catching quality of it is what prompted me to pick up this book in the first place. That and one of the authors is Kevin Costner. I was intrigued. The book takes place during the great
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war but it isn't really set in the European Theater, it follows a group of explorers as they travel all over the world, New York, Tibet, India, Asia, and more. Their fearless leader Major Ogden is looking for a "mythical" city in order to save his brother whose only hope at living is to refind this city that he has no memory of. It's full of adventure, british imperialism, swashbuckling fights, Hollywood actresses, and adventure. While it lags in some parts and can be at times confusing, this book was engrossing. It reminded me of an older British Indiana Jones adventure. A must read for adventure fans. Show Less
LibraryThing member Beammey
I'm going to be truthful, some of the time I felt this story was jilted and went back and forth between characters a bit much and didn't follow at first and was confusing, that said I still really, really liked it. One of the best books I read in 2015. It's a long one and you need to concentrate on
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what you're reading or you'll be lost in no time, but I still enjoyed the book. I liked the writing, I thought the graphic novel part of it was very well done. I liked the characters, I was even surprised a few times. What more could you ask for, really? Awesome book. 4.5 out of 5 stars. I would recommend this to any adult interested in adventure books. Show Less
LibraryThing member BooksForDinner
I loved everything about this book. Well written, if in stylized/retro-genre-prose; lots of fun characters to care about; entertainingly and unapologetically derivative of the Kiplingesque adventures; beautiful to look at and hold...it's all great. I also really enjoyed doing some background work
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on the book itself, watching many interviews with the authors on the many year journey it took to get the story told. In addition, I was dubious at first of Costner's involvement, but it appears that he did actual writing and story/character development here. Good stuff. Show Less
LibraryThing member BenjaminHahn
The Explorer's Guild caught my eye back in October as I was browsing one of my favorite bookstores in Alaska, Fireside Books in Palmer. It is a beauty to look at and it is filled with pages and pages of fine illustrations including colored plates. They aren't real colored plates, but they are
This is not exactly an easy story, much less a graphic novel, to just pick up and digest easily. It is written in a dense long form style reminiscent of late 1800's adventure writing (HG Wells, Conrad, ect). Baird has done a great job of replicating that style of writing. In fact, I would wager that the whole point of this book is to show that a book can still be written in that style. There are strange and interesting things going on in the story but you have to be patient. If you are expecting a fast paced pulp fiction adventure, this is not it. It also helps tremendously if one has more than a passing knowledge of World War I era events. There are 784 pages and things don't start really making a whole of sense until page 500 or so. In fact, the last 50 pages were incredibly interesting and made the previous 700 quite meaningful. I found myself flipping back to previous chapters and having those "aha" moments. I love these types of books. I savor them. Neal Stephenson's writing style comes to mind, but with a half graphic novel style.
Again, this graphic novel/traditional narrative split isn't for everyone, much less the writing style. But, I for one look forward to any follow up volumes. Hopefully they won't take 10 more years to materialize.
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inserted into the book to be reminiscent of colored plates. Which gets me to the main point to be made about this book. If you don't know what colored plates are or you simply aren't curious about what those might be, then its a good sign you are not going to enjoy this book. This is not exactly an easy story, much less a graphic novel, to just pick up and digest easily. It is written in a dense long form style reminiscent of late 1800's adventure writing (HG Wells, Conrad, ect). Baird has done a great job of replicating that style of writing. In fact, I would wager that the whole point of this book is to show that a book can still be written in that style. There are strange and interesting things going on in the story but you have to be patient. If you are expecting a fast paced pulp fiction adventure, this is not it. It also helps tremendously if one has more than a passing knowledge of World War I era events. There are 784 pages and things don't start really making a whole of sense until page 500 or so. In fact, the last 50 pages were incredibly interesting and made the previous 700 quite meaningful. I found myself flipping back to previous chapters and having those "aha" moments. I love these types of books. I savor them. Neal Stephenson's writing style comes to mind, but with a half graphic novel style.
Again, this graphic novel/traditional narrative split isn't for everyone, much less the writing style. But, I for one look forward to any follow up volumes. Hopefully they won't take 10 more years to materialize.
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LibraryThing member DarthDeverell
Jon Baird and Kevin Costner's The Explorers Guild: Volume One: A Passage to Shambhala is a pastiche of the adventure story genre from the early twentieth century. The narrative follows the travels of a group of British soldiers during World War I as they travel around the world seeking clues to the
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lost city of Shambhala. Along the way, they meet an interesting cast of characters, including nobility in decline, non-religious priests, madmen and madwomen, a floating giant, and more. They travel by sea ship and airship, go along rivers under the earth and climb through mountains. The story alternates between prose and Rick Ross' art, thereby resembling a serialized, illustrated story. While a pastiche of the genre, Baird and Costner's story greatly expands beyond the relatively simple narratives in the classic stories, clocking in at 765 pages. Beyond this, the overall coherence of the story allows for the authors to plant elements early on that pay off much later, unlike the work of authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose tales tended to be shorter and move from action beat to action beat, without much time for philosophical ponderings. The world Baird and Costner describe is not that far removed from our own, but rather a romanticized version of the early twentieth century when people could still discuss mystic and mythological ideas at the same time they described history and geography. The Explorers Guild: Volume One: A Passage to Shambhala will primarily entertain fans of those earlier novels, but will also appeal to fans of historical fiction. Show Less
LibraryThing member liz.mabry
Didn't realize this was partially graphic novel - not a form I'm particularly fond of. It's not grabbing me at the moment, and it's due at the library anyway. I might try again in the future, but not going to keep working on this now.
LibraryThing member Andy_DiMartino
Interesting read. Loved the way they mixed mediums in the story. Wonder what Kevin Costner's contributions were?
Awards
Historical Novel Society Editors' Choice (Adventure)
Original language
English
Original publication date
2015
Physical description
770 p.; 6 inches
ISBN
1476727392 / 9781476727394
UPC
001476727392