Review | Rat Queens, Vol.1: Sass and Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch

Rat Queens, Vol.1: Sass and Sorcery

by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch

My Rating: 

Who are the Rat Queens? 

A pack of booze-guzzling, death-dealing battle maidens-for-hire, and they're in the business of killing all god's creatures for profit. 

It's also a darkly comedic sass-and-sorcery series starring Hannah the Rockabilly Elven Mage, Violet the Hipster Dwarven Fighter, Dee the Atheist Human Cleric and Betty the Hippy Smidgen Thief. This modern spin on an old school genre is a violent monster-killing epic that is like Buffy meets Tank Girl in a Lord of the Rings world on crack! 

If you're into high fantasy, innuendo, swearing and girl power, then you need to get your hands on a copy of this book.

Rat Queens is a graphic novel series which follows friends Hannah, Violet, Dee Dee and Betty on their escapades. The four ladies are essentially bounty hunters; they go on quests to vanquish evil and kill stuff for a living, and they're pretty good at what they do. In the first volume, however, they begin to realise that they might be causing more harm than good, particularly when it becomes clear that someone is out to kill them.

This volume is so much fun. I laughed out loud more than once, and even when I wasn't laughing I was grinning inanely. By the end of this volume we're left with a lot of questions about these girls, about how they met and what their lives were like before they were the Rat Queens, but there was still plenty to suggest a wider story and a wider world, and to tantalise our tastebuds until the next volume.

I loved the friendship between the four girls and how real they are. Sure three of them aren't human, but none of them felt like stereotypical female fantasy characters, or even stereotypical female characters in general; these women aren't the product of a teenage boy's wet dream inducing fantasies, but well thought-out protagonists who piss all over the idea of the traditional fantasy heroine.

In terms of high fantasy this series feels more World of Warcraft than Lord of the Rings, so if you like your high fantasy quite serious it probably isn't for you, but if you're a fan of writers like Mira Grant and Tanya Huff, or if you're a fan of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Saga, then you'll love this series!

I can't recommend it more!