Thorgal Vol 18: The Kingdom Beneath The Sand

By Rosinski & Van Hamme
Publisher: Cinebook
ISBN: 9781849183451

It seems like an age since we last had a Thorgal book, so I grabbed this one as soon as it arrived and delved straight in.

Thorgal and family have been searching for a new home for some time now, steadily sailing further and further south alongside warmer lands, leaving their Viking homelands far behind them. It’s been a trying time for all of them, but Aaricia thinks that despite the dangers their family would face they have achieved little in the many months since they set out and perhaps they would fare better facing up to those threats back in the north. It’s a difficult decision for Thorgal, and one he eventually bows to. So when two strangers arrive across the sand and are invited to share a meal Thorgal finds himself already keen to get on the return journey and so declines their offer of hospitality at their village. That night disaster strikes as their boat is engulfed in flames, stranding them on the arid shore and halting their plans before they can enact them.

Reluctantly they end up accepting the help of the two strangers, but when a trek across the desert sand almost ends in disaster for Wolf Cub the true nature of the strangers is revealed. They are not local natives at all, but are travellers from the stars, returning to Earth to seek missing colleagues – more importantly, they are Thorgal’s people, although Thorgal refuses to see them as such. Sargon, their leader, sees the backwards people of Earth as ripe for exploitation, starting with the Viking north, and expects Thorgal to join him, a notion that would free Thorgal from his banishment and return him home in hours rather than long, long months. Naturally, Thorgal resists…

Before you open the pages of a Thorgal book you can never be sure if you’re getting a sword and sorcery epic, a historical-based adventure, or, as in the case, a science fiction infused escapade. The fresh and tantalising possibilities such a combination suggests drags you right in, unsure of quite where it’s all going to go, which is exactly what makes the series so great. All credit to Van Hamme for achieving this, and to Rosinski for bringing it all to life upon the page.

And if you liked that: Lots more Thorgal at www.cinebook.com

, ,

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply