Ryan North/Erica Henderson – Young Adult SF/Fantasy Graphic Novel
Danger and Other Unknown Risks feels like it might has germinated as an idea Ryan North had while writing the Adventure Time comics – one he couldn’t actually do because the story’s revelations would undermine too much about an established world, and yet which had too much potential to give up on. The setup consciously echoes the former work: a teen adventurer and a magic dog travel across a future dystopia created when the return of magic, and its chaotic, ever-shifting rules, shattered modern Earth into a thousand strange and wonderful kingdoms.
Our hero, Marguerite, and her talking dog, Daisy, travel from zone to zone at the behest of Marguerite’s uncle, a man born into the world that was and who’s learned to survive in the new one. The world is still mutating and decaying, and the only way to stop it is for Marguerite to gather the ingredients for a spell which will stop the evil magic once and for all.
The bulk of the book is a solid adventure story, as the pair (and, later, trio) visit bizarre environments in search of spell components, but it’s towards the end that the story really takes off in a flurry of magnificent, brain-melting twists. This one is perfect for Squirrel Girl fans eager for more from the much-loved North/Henderson team-up, Adventure Time fans looking for a good-natured homage that goes places the original could never go, and those who like their dystopias with a dollop of hope.
Find Danger and Other Unknown Risks at your local library or on Bookshop, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon!
Steph Cherrywell 