Hannah’s rebel wizard dad gets into trouble at Mage University so Hannah and her fellow Rat Queens take off to help him. Nothing much happens next!
The third Rat Queens book, Demons, is unfortunately a bit crap because I've enjoyed the series up til now. The story for this arc is veeery flimsy and only gives Hannah stuff to do leaving Betty, Violet and Dee basically treading water for the entire book - even though the Hannah stuff is pretty blah anyway. Betty and Violet go sledding and meet a friendly Ice Dragon - cute but pointless - while Dee (still my least favourite in the group - she’s basically a less prickly Hannah) goes to read books at the library. It’s not exactly a gripping read. It doesn’t help that the ending is very anti-climactic too.
The art is also my least favourite in the series so far. Tess Fowler, who drew the Braga one-shot last year, takes over from Stjepan Sejic (who still draws the covers which look amazing), and her style is much less impressive that Sejic’s and the original artist’s. It’s not bad and I didn’t dislike it but it does suffer from comparisons to previous volumes.
I get what Kurtis Wiebe is doing in this one though; it’s not meant to be plot-driven but character focused instead, and we do learn a lot more about Hannah, and we catch glimpses into Betty and Dee’s pasts too. I just wasn’t that interested really - I got from the last book that Hannah was a troubled kid, etc., all the extra detail here felt unnecessary and repetitive.
Ho hum. Well, there goes my interest in this title! It was fun while it lasted but I don’t think I need to know what the Rat Queens do next. Demons is a meandering addition to the series that’ll probably only appeal to hardcore Rat Queens fans and leave the less committed yawning and checking to see how many pages are left.
Rat Queens, Volume 3: Demons
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