I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Marvel Untold book Sisters of Sorcery by Marsheila Rockwell and published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.
So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.
I am going to try my best to not let these things cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.
Also, I won’t lie, I have looked at other reviews to see what others think, so there may be some influences from them in this book review. If I am going to quote them, I will attribute them. But if I forget to, or something is highly influenced by them, and you think I ought to attribute someone, let me know so that I can.
What is Marvel
Look at this point I would bore you with a bit of background to the game/universe, but lets not, you all know the Marvel Universe, if you don’t have you been living under a rock.
This particular book focus on the character Clea, a character who was introduced to the Marvel universe in 1964, and is the Sorceress Supreme of the Dark Dimension, and the wife of Doctor Strange.
She was introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the post credits scenes of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and played by Charlize Theron.
The Story
The book does a lot to explain the background of the characters, so I would say that you don’t need to know that much about the characters in advance, especially as they are mostly, side characters in many ways.
In this story, the Dark Dimension is currently ruled by the vile tyrant, Umar the Unrelenting, who just happens to be the mother of Clea, and she has kidnapped the cosmic being, Ardina, who as the female analog of the Silver Surfer is able to access the Power Cosmic.
Planning to use Ardina as a source of energy, Umar has made plans to conquer all of the splinter realms, but Clea becomes aware of her plans and gathers a team of powerful sorceresses, to travel to the Dark Dimension, join with Cleas rebels and stop Umar in her tracks.
Working with a ghostly Agatha Harkness, Clea recruits Elizabeth Twoyoungmen, the Talisman, Margali Szardos, the Sorcererses Supreme of The Winding Way and Agatha’s student and ward Holly LaDonna, but the quartet find themselves unable to travel directly to the Dark Dimension due to Umars use of the Power Cosmic to cast a spell to prevent teleportation to her realm.
So the team is forced to travel across various dimensions, facing family and rivals as they attempt to save all dimensions from the tyrant.
Conclusion
This book was fairly fast, it started fast and did not slow down or allow you any time to recover, which was good.
I am struggling to read at the minute due to headaches from my brain injury stopping me concentrating on text, but when I was able to read, I couldn’t put this book down.
We have four major characters here, although Clea is the clear focus, but they all got a good look in and were given a chance to shine, I wasn’t that familiar with some of them, the magical side of Marvel has never been my favourite, but I have come away and gone to Marvel Unlimited and downloaded a few issues featuring Margali and Talisman in particular to read a bit more of their stories.
I really enjoyed this book, I am not sure what else to say, but I really want to see more of Holly, she was very much my favourite character in the book, and she hasn’t featured much in the comics, but this version of her, was really cool.
This book gets a solid 4 out of 5 stars from me, and I strongly recommend you go buy it!
Sisters of Sorcery is out now as an eBook and paperback!
