Review: Shades of Magic: The Steel Prince Volume #1

I remember opening this volume and seeing the cover art as I skimmed all my other issues for review and thinking to myself, “I’m definitely going to love this title.” I think it was mostly the beautiful cover art that really drew my eye to it and I tucked it away from the rest for later reading; not just because of the sheer size of the volume itself, but because I really wanted to be able to read this at my own pace and understand all the inner workings of V. E. Schwab’s writing.

That being said, I’m glad I took this approach. The world of Shades of Magic is immersive and quite large, with multiple types of magic that really deserve to be studied closely, especially considering some of the darker bits of it are what initially threatened and broke off the four worlds, causing all to become estranged, if not locked off, to one another either for self-preservation or otherwise. At the center of this lays London, ruled by Nokil Maresh and his son, Maxim Maresh, who has been sent out into the other world at his father’s request.

Alot of the writing for Maxim reminds me of a coming of age story, like magical Catcher in the Rye, as Maxim tries to find his footing outside of London. He often times naively acts and ends up at the center of confrontation, all of which is brought to life through brilliant art by Andrea Olimperi, with beautifully muted colors by Enrica Eren Angiolini assisted by Viviana SpinelliÂ (Flats for Chapter 4 of this 4 volume title by Cassandra Peirano) and letters by Rob Steen. The color palette here really needs to be mentioned, as a lot of these worlds seem to be very antiquated in style and the colorists have done a brilliant job of using the flat reds and yellows that are typically thought of with “old school” tattoo art here.

During his time in Verose, Maxim meets Isra, the head of the guard centralized there, who teaches him a lot of lessons about himself as well as his fighting. Though the two butt heads sometimes, they seem to complement one another quite nicely and eventually – when danger finally looms over Verose’s port – they end up banding together when to work towards bringing resolve to the conflict that threatens the world after the appearance of someone from Isra’s past.

Shades of Magic: The Steel Prince is an impressive, engrossing read with beautiful art that captures your attention from its first pages and draws you in further and further with every page turned. I can happily say that I highly suggest this unique little 4 out of 5 star read to anyone who enjoys magical titles as much as me who might be looking for a unique blend of story and action.

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(W) V.E Schwab (A) Andrea Olimpieri, Enrica Eren Angiolini (CA) Claudia SG Iannicello