Review for Bone, by Jeff Smith

I give it four stars, because it managed to make me laugh out loud in the middle of the night. For general readers, I feel that if you liked LOTR and cute creatures, you should read Bone. The strong female characters are a plus, which the sci-fi community needs desperately. This long comic book would be of the traditional fantasy genre.

Characterization is a big thing for me, and it was certainly very well done with the three Bones and Grandma Ben. Smiley Bone was indubitably my favorite character. I also thought that everyone received poetic justice at the end. The idea of the dream eye, or the third eye, influencing reality makes the writer in me happy. The author also made good use of the locust insect and its mythical meanings, as well as the creator dragon queen, Mim. By the time we reached the identity of the Lord of Locusts, I thought he was stretching it, but then again, I was also reading this nonfiction book about ghosts and poltergeists recently, so I thought that maybe leftover excess mental energy creating a ghost or zombie might be viable.

Farming was a good excuse for Thorn and Grandma Ben's super strength. Same goes for the bartender Lucius and his bar-goers, as well. The disbelief in dragons and the Lord of Locusts among these ordinary citizens seems to set the story a little back into reality, which was missing in LOTR if we were to contrast the two. Also, the random motives of the cast of characters make them gray, neither on one side or the other, and I felt that that was also missing from LOTR. The largest element missing from LOTR was the element of comedy, which the Bones themselves provided much of, especially that whole arc about the Lord of Locusts being intimidated by Phoney Bone.

The rat creatures were rather cute, and I was happy that there were two in the fray who didn't really have any loyalties except to food, and minimal awareness that they are monsters and what they're supposed to do, rather than what they want to do. I was also happy that Bartleby was a part of the cast, makes me want a rat creature myself. Plotwise, I thought everything started becoming kind of ordinary once the enemy started running its army around looking for a few of the main characters, and also went downhill once the actual battles and war started. I didn't feel all that impressed from then on, because you can feel the author moving the characters around on the chess board trying to figure out and end the dilemmas for a remotely happy ending.

I enjoyed the reasons for the Bones being out of Boneville and here at the city of Barrel Haven. It suggests that there is another series where the Bones are at home, a shorter comic series that comes in daily episodes, like the Peanuts or Charlie Brown. The amusement with Phoney Bone's schemes to get back home with a boatload of treasure was also amusing at first, then became very exasperating by the time the battles rolled around, but that was not something that could be changed, because he was such a strong character and he doesn't listen to anyone, but it just proved to be a bit distracting.

The little friends that the Bones made, all those little animals who are orphans, also disappeared, which I thought was too bad, but I guess there wasn't that much use to them in a battle between humans and rat creatures for ownership of the valley. At one point, I thought there were too many characters, but that may also be personal preference. The LOTR series had that problem as well, too many characters. It makes it seem like it might do better as a video game where you take the main character, create parties and go visit people, rather than something we should watch on the big screen.

What little romance was in this story was also played off as either comedy or a way for Fone Bone to just keep following Thorn wherever she went. I'm just happy that this story is more for children, and there were no sexual harassment, dirty jokes, or semi or full on sex scenes, which is all too rampant in the movies that they have in the theaters today. The feminist movement would approve. Though I guess there was that one moment between Briar and Lucius, and they both paid for it, and that was part of the poetic justice I was talking about.

Overall, I felt like this was a very good read, and LOTR kept coming to mind because of the sheer length of the book, even though they were pictures, all the species involved, and the whole 'balance of the worlds' kind of theme. Recommended for those who like a good fantasy story.