Spera: Ascension of the Starless Vol 1

The Starless Queen is plotting an invasion of Spera, and has sent the merciless General Zeal to secure its capital. Unfortunately for the Queen, her daughter—the exiled adventurer Princess Pira—and Pira’s best friend Princess Lono have discovered her plot…and will go to any lengths to stop her. Along with their friends—the fire spirit, Yonder, and the ruthless cat Chobo—Pira and Lono must set off on a perilous journey to warn the Speran King, up monster-infested mountains, through villages full of crazed warriors, and down dark tunnels walled with madness itself.

More often than not, I jump straight into a fantasy adventure with great anticipation.  There are so many directions that it can go in and I love seeing new heroes and heroines embark on a journey.  The epic stories within Spera were unfortunately new to me until now.  Given that fact, I was curious to see how the first volume of Spera: Ascension of the Starless would turn out.

Admittedly, this took me a bit to gain any traction and really start moving along with the story.  I’m sure it didn’t help having no knowledge of princesses Lono and Pira beforehand.  Regardless, this time we see them taking on the challenge of stopping the hostile intentions of the evil Starless Queen.  As it turns out, she also happens to be Pira’s mother.  *queue dramatic music* Although it was a bit slow for me at first, once the ball got rolling it’s a great story.

The plot as a whole is split up into different chapters showing us various sections of their trek.  What’s really neat is that they all feature a separate artist taking on the responsibility of illustrating the adventure.  Each one definitely comes at it with a completely new style, yet they all maintain enough familiar aspects to keep the story glued together visually.  As varied as they were, all of them were really well done and did a great job piecing the book together.

Current Spera readers will likely have no problem at all reading this fun book.  Even with the difficulties I had for a short time, I ended up really enjoying this book.  I can’t say for sure how well this stands on its own, but I can confidently say it’s a good read either way.  New or old to these kingdoms, this is a book worth checking out.

For more on Spera: Ascension of the Starless Vol 1 or other Boom titles, check out Boom! Studios.

Geek-o-Rama received a copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts, comments and opinions are those of the individual reviewer.