Eternal Empire vol 1 by Sarah Vaughn

Illustrated by Jonathan Luna

In this fantasy series, there are several races of beings, including creatures that look like dragons, people who look like humans, and a race in between that came from the joining of human-types and dragon-types. This world is ruled over by an Empire, at the helm of which is the Eternal Empress, one of the beings closer to a dragon than a human. Two young human “workers” for the empire both begin to have visions that lead them to break out of their enslavements and find each other.  When they get too close to each other, flames start shooting out of their hands, which has never happened to either before, and they coach each other through controlling this new power They decide they must escape the Empire, so they head towards the last kingdom on the planet that isn’t part of the Empire, just as the Eternal Empress sets her sights on conquering this last corner of the world.

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Bestiality might be a big turn off for some folks, but people might be OK with some of this after Game of Thrones and its assorted FanFic.  The overall storyline is fairly predictable, as in we can already see that it’s going to be these two who fight the Empress and must bring her down. In this volume they’re already building up the Empress’s considerable skills with the sword, so these two are just going to have to keep practicing with controlling their power and fighting with the flame swords they can create to fight with.  It's also not entirely clear if the Empire stretches over the "known" world or if there are other pieces out there left unconquered.  This could make a big difference in how much our two heroes have to dismantle and fight against as they clash with the powerful Empress.

The illustrations are fairly simple, but overall are very clean.  Action sequences are easily navigated, and there aren't major jumps from panel to panel.  

While this story was intriguing, I doubt it would be one students would pick up and continue reading.  The first volume has relatively little to completely bait the interest, other than the hinted bestiality, and that's not entirely enough.

Sara's Rating: 7/10
​Suitability Level: Grades 9-12

​Tags: Rating: 7/10, Suitability: High School, Comicbooks, Fantasy, War, Magic