 Hey everybody, welcome back to another installment of A Week in Geekdom Geo here and today we are taking a peek at these savage shores from Vault Comics. This is written by Ram V and illustrated by Sumit Kumar and coloring by Vittorio Astone and lettered by Aditya Vidikar, which I'm pretty sure I butchered completely. So apologies on that. So what the heck is these savage shores? First off, actually two things. First, this is my third attempt of making this video, so yay. And two, this book was extremely hyped in 2019 and it made people's top list of books to read that year. So I was really interested when I first learned about that book. But again, I get books extremely late on purpose and I read them even later. So 2020, here we are and I've finally read these savage shores. So I made the video three times. So I've tried talking about this book and it was gnawing at me because I couldn't get it right. I couldn't get what I wanted to say about this book. I want to be as candid, real and truthful as possible. These savage shores is a fascinating read, but it did confuse me when I first started reading it. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I do know that there is mythology and folklore and like vampires and stuff. So that was one of the main appeals. Obviously the art was the second one because the art is freaking amazing and we'll go over that in a second. The story was really fascinating, but I wasn't aware that if you're not one of those history junkies or history buffs, some of the things that get discussed in this book just flew past my head. I needed to do some research and read up on the time period, 1766 and the East Indian company. I do know what everything is, but I don't live and breathe by these things. So I completely forgot some terminology and a lot of the characters, but that's the beauty of books like this, where Rambe is able to take history and create a historical fiction type book. I'm seeing online a lot of people saying this is sort of an urban adult fantasy and I get what they're going for, but I see it more as historic fiction mixed with like Gothic-esque horror, even though the timelines don't match, but you know what I mean by that. There are a lot of moody scenes and the dialogue is freaking rich as hell, I love it. There is a lot of exposition dialogue in this series for the characters speaking through letters, which is a fun way to do it because you're informing the audience or your readers, I should say, of what's happening, but it doesn't seem too on the nose. Like it's not him or her telling the reader like, oh, this is what I'm thinking. Now it's usually a character writing a letter to another important character and you learn about the situation that India finds itself at the start of this book and the horrible East India company, which I guess you could say is one of the world's first big corporations and it wasn't all sunshines and rainbows, they really did some messed up stuff and the book goes into explaining, not necessarily explaining, but giving you an insight about the effects of colonialism and oppression of one country to another and all that stuff and of course seeing the people in India fighting for control and fighting to appease the British Empire, but at the same time rebel against all that stuff. It was really fascinating and I don't think I can do the book justice because my videos tend to be spoiler free. So if any of that intrigues you, do pick up this book. These Savage Shores is a fantastic read, but in the backdrop of all this historical hijinks that are ensuing, there is a fantasy aspect to it. There is this vampiric story, if you will. When the story first begins, there is this character that turns out to be a vampire. He's running from the law in England and his vampire buddies, which run the scene or I should say run everything behind the scenes, they send him away with the company, East Indian Company, to hide away and lay low for a bit. Over there he finds out, you know what, he's not top dog. Turns out there are bigger teeth out there and we get to meet one of our protagonists, the character of Bishan. And I'm sorry if I'm saying these names incorrectly. Bishan is an immortal, a rakshas, which is basically a humanoid vampiric humanoid demon that eats people. An Asian version of a vampire. So you meet this character and his relationship to a prince and his relationship to this girl called Corey and several other characters. And what soon follows in The Five Issues is a beautiful romance between these two characters, Bishan and Corey, where you know setting the scene in India gives it such a lush, beautiful backdrop and the scenes just look gorgeous, especially when they're next to the big ass trees. I love those scenes and the writing on that stuff and the interactions between Bishan and Corey are really spectacular and really lovely. And Corey is sort of the unsung hero of the whole thing because the things that happen to that character, you could say they are a massive take on the country itself, if you know what I am referring to. So it's a really interesting big metaphor for the state of things. And yeah, that's in a nutshell what the story is about. This vampire comes in and Bishan encounters this vampire and we soon learn that vampires are running things behind the scenes and there's a lot of political play. Bishan is protecting this prince who his dad died and there is this political struggle with the Sultan, the current Sultan who's trying to eat up the remainder of the princess lands, if I remember correctly. And again, this is where I lack the knowledge, unfortunately, but I encourage everyone to do research on this time period because it is fascinating and you see sort of like the warring states, if you will, and them, you know, going for that political grab and war between different, I want to say cities or gosh, I'm probably butchering this, between the different areas. Let's just say that much. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be corrected on that. Still, the first impressions I got from the book are just fantastic. This is a really well written book, a fascinating story and for five issues, it really seems like it's jam packed. It's a lengthy trade. It's not one of those skinny Marvel books, if you will, trade paperbacks. The artwork on this thing is freaking badass and one of my favorite things I've read in a while. The art on this from Kumar is just breathtaking. There is this scratchy grungy look to the artwork that reminded me of Manifest Destiny over at Image Comics or Mateo Scolera's artwork where you see a lot of influences from American comics, Euro comics and even manga all mixed in and it creates such a treat to the eyes. The character designs are really well done. The color palette and the color sensibilities are fantastic. Stuff like the London scene where it's all moody and bluish tones and dark and even some greenish hues thrown in there and then you switch it up to the scenes in India and it's all yellows and bright colors and the lush backgrounds. It just lends itself to an epic experience when you're reading it. Aside from what I said at the beginning where you have this vampire arriving in India after something eventful happens on the first issue, all the things that bump in the night take note of what has happened and you start to see a shift towards the supernatural being involved with the political and how the two without knowing how the two influence each other and the wars and battles that are happening at that time period mixed in with the vampiric society I guess from England and how they are influencing things behind the scenes and how they want to get revenge and all that stuff so it's a real cool way to do historical fiction but the plots are interwoven is what I'm trying to get at. Also the plot has a really fantastic way of examining one character and then flowing into another pretty seamlessly. There's a smooth transition between issues it just looks and reads fantastic in my opinion. The mask design for Bishan is simply badass that's one of my favorite things about the book actually from a visual standpoint I should say and yeah the character of Kory is gorgeous I love her character and her personality and her looks and all that stuff just a fantastic designed book everything about it is a plus in my honest opinion honestly the only thing that I would say that I kind of wish would have been tweaked around maybe it was the backstory on some of the stuff in India because as because I don't know it but then again that shouldn't be an excuse because you're gonna tell me oh then you should do your research yes but comics can be a gateway for a lot of people and if you can present that stuff and introduce these concepts to new readers that's even better so even though the story is fascinating fantastic political play and the romance between Bishan and Kory and the whole vampire stuff and the mythology and really the love for the land you see the love and attention that Ramvi has put into his script and how it takes it takes something that you know or you might have already known and elevates it and it's this massive love letter to a wonderful area a wonderful country and its people and it's really cool I I don't think I'm doing this book any justice at all with my review but gosh darn it I sure try I think it's a fascinating read maybe some of the exposition for a few characters could have been tweaked a little bit better but the dialogue is rich it is of that era to me it reads fantastic and on further rereads you are going to pick up more things so I do suggest that you keep going with the book just in case you maybe not put on by what the story is trying to tell just keep going there are a couple fight scenes in this book which are fantastic and the dynamic artwork mixed with excellent scene panels and all the scene paneling and all that stuff just blew my mind especially the nine panel grid and how you see the action flow through the page so it's more like an interactive experience that was awesome I loved it these avatars is pretty spectacular and I could see why a lot of people loved it when it came out if you get a chance do ahead do go ahead and pick it up it's only like 13 bucks or something 1699 but you can probably find it cheaper on sites like amazon and stock trades stuff like that so yeah coincidentally this is my first vault comics trade so I'm really excited to check out more of their stuff um what about you guys have you read these savage shores let me know down below in the comment section I hope I did this book any justice as always guys thank you for following me here on a week and keep them thank you for liking commenting subscribing and being a part of the channel it really does mean a whole ton thank you so much you can follow me on social media Facebook Twitter Instagram all that fun stuff I've got to go I have more stuff to read play watch and review for the channel so I will catch all of you on our next video