Well, this has been long in the works, thanks for everyone that gave me the tips on how to over come my writers block. It feels good to finally be able to sit down and update this site again. I’m almost as behind in my reading as I am in my writing but I hope that will turn around soon.
The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear is the second novel I read for the Orbis Terarrum Challenge. I’m still really excited about this challenge and it really is helping me to expand my reading, in that I typically only read novels from Canada or America. It was a lot of fun reading something from Germany and reading a genre that I typically don’t read.
This is the story of your typical bluebear growing up in a not so typical way. Each chapter is dedicated to one of Captain Bluebear’s lives. The art work by Walter Moers adds to the story, this isn’t a graphic novel but author added his drawings to enhance the tale being told. The story is full of fanciful characters and the time could be used to describe them is shorted because of the drawings.
The story was good but became very predictable after the first few chapters. Bluebear would get into difficult situations and when it looked like he wasn’t going to get out of them he did exactly that. And the escapes were not very practical and made to sound like a simple solution. Aside from this little fault the book was quite good. Throughout his travels Bluebear is guided by the Encyclopedia of the Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’ which is being relayed to him in some telepathic way.
That's the Book! 