Soulless

Soulless: Book One of The Parasol Protectorate

Author: Gail Carriger,

Rating: 4.75/5 Stars

Reviewer: Todd

For this review I’ve decided to take a look at the original novel that the previous graphic novel I talked about was adapted from. The easiest analogy between the two versions would be to compare them as plays. The graphic novel is minimalistic, cutting down on details of the story and “set” to allow the narrative to flow as smoothly as possible. The original novel version on the other hand is a production given a larger stage and works to fill it with a well detailed furnished set, the costumes elaborate to flesh out the details of the characters. It’s in this version of the story that I received an answer for every question I asked, and some I didn’t, about the world that Alexia lives in.

Besides letting us get to know the characters and their motivations better, such as learning a character who only appears twice, we learn how the supernatural coming out into the open affected the world, and that’s one of the biggest differences between the two versions right there. For the sake of space and efficiency of the medium the graphic novel had to drop letting us know that since the Age of Enlightenment, the 1600-1700’s, beings like vampire, werewolves, and even ghosts have been common knowledge.

In this version the characters beyond Alexia and the few main characters are more than mere shadows that appear for a moment before fading out of the scene. In this version their interactions carry emotional depth, and even learn more about who they are and their relationship to the Alexia. Which is a bit of a relief as otherwise in the adaptation they’re picked up and dropped without so much as letting us know their names, which is bad when one of those “shadow of a character” is supposed to be Alexia’s best friend.

Though a bit of fair warning must be given, what is merely alluded to in the adaptation is of course given a more through exploration. And since that includes scenes containing risqué material those parts may not be suited to the tastes of all. Overall I must give the original novel a higher level of approval for not only telling the same tale but giving it more