Name: Prince of Persia
ISBN: 9781596432079

A. B. Sina

LeUyen Pham

Alex Puvilland

Jordan Mechner

In different centuries of historic Persia, two princes despair over the corruption in their worlds, and as everything they believe in begins to fade, the princes find that only they can stand against the twilight of their eras. Original. Media tie-in. 125,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo.

Prince of Persia

Ken Yuen

"Oh wow, they turned the video game into a graphic novel!"

And it's a pretty good story for the most part? I love the setting and the characters. The art style is really interesting and there's certainly a lot of interesting imagery (some of which is disturbing). 

Unfortunately, some of the decisions made in the way the story is told hamper my ability to enjoy the world. For one thing, there are two stories being told, several hundred years apart. But they're also told concurrently and maybe not chronologically?

Maybe because of this, or maybe because the art just doesn't put enough distinguishing features between the characters, but I kept confusing the three male leads with each other. This is somewhat helped by the fact they tend to be color coordinated like the power rangers, but I couldn't guarantee that I knew where I was in the narrative from moment to moment. 

I mean, in the end I enjoyed the book, but before you start your story and show me characters and do time jumps within 5 pages of your story, introduce your freaking characters so I know who I'm following.

Another unfortunate thing is I have to criticize the use of the parallel stories. Normally, when two stories are presented in parallel, there's aspects to both stories that reflect or comment on each other. I couldn't really tell you why I read two stories at the same time, other than feeling frustrated that the narrative would jump back and forth by hundreds of years. Honestly, the story would have been stronger if it had been two short stories told separately, in my opinion.

But get past the friction points and you're treated to a story of adventure in an exotic place. There's gross stuff like someone gets offed on the crapper, eyes and tongues getting cut out. There's a real metal scene where a guy finds a well made of human skeletons (do Persians practice sky burial?) I even liked the smart talking bird once I figured out it has a speech affect and wasn't saying someone's name.

And at the end, there's an interview with Jordan Mechner, a man that I really admire. He talks about the Prince of Persia series over the years and it's just great to hear what he thinks about everything since I think he's a smart man. (It seems like he smartly washes his hands of the PoP movie and bad Sand of Time sequels which he didn't work on, haha).

Doesn't really have much to do with the games besides the settings, but that's fine. Mechner acknowledges that the Prince is an amorphous thing that changes depending on the setting and creator, and so I have no problem with the tenuous connection. I just wish the experience wasn't marred by the problem points I mentioned above.

In different centuries of historic Persia, two princes despair over the corruption in their worlds, and as everything they believe in begins to fade, the princes find that only they can stand against the twilight of their eras. Reprint. Media tie-in.