By Matt Kindt & Brian Hurtt (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-943-4 (PB) eISBN: 978-1-63008-465-3
Remember when adventure was an exclusively male preserve and icky girls weren’t allowed? No? Good, because then you can’t be persuaded to avoid books like this one and miss out on a superb, joyous treat!
Crafted by Matt Kindt (Pistolwhip, Revolver, Suicide Squad, Mind MGMT) & Brian Hurtt (The Damned, Shadow Roads, The Sixth Gun – and why haven’t I reviewed that yet?) this all-ages fantasy shares one of the incredible exploits and proves the prodigious pedigree of young Poppy Pepperton, latest globe-girdling explorer of a valiant dynasty to challenge the unknown and push back the frontiers of knowledge in search of Lost Things…
It all begins as Poppy and her aged sidekick Colt Winchester (inherited from her long-missing grandfather, the incredible explorer Pappy Pepperton and now acting as her legal guardian, if not particularly responsible adult) arrive back in New York City for yet another fractious confrontation with their extremely odd sponsor and employer.
Ramses (AKA Tut) is a millennia-old Egyptian wizard in the body of an 8-year old boy, but his capacity for fun and mischief is curtailed since he is inescapably trapped in his own apartment. The young sage provides resources and even new missions in return for vicariously sharing the adventurers’ wild life – sometimes through the eyes of his cat Krums, if he can convince his employees to include it in the entourage. He also gets to keep most of the loot they bring back…
Tonight, he grants them the latest prophecy of the Sacred Shrunken Mummy Head in his possession, catapulting our dynamic duo into a fresh and terrifying case that might just explain many of the still-unsolved mysteries of Poppy’s eccentric forebear…
Taking ship for Europe, the courageous couple begin their search for the long-lost Love Fish (as cited in Pepperton’s Incomplete Compendium of Lost Things volume 16), stirring up uncomfortable memories for Colt of the last time he visited the twin cities of Old and New Macadamia… and how he was responsible for the tragic separation of the perpetually paired passionate piscids…
Poppy only learns the appalling truth after her elderly guardian is confronted by an old flame at the Aquafica Exotica in Old Macadamia. Apparently way back then, he and Pappy Pepperton’s blundering search for a fabled Gigantipus and treatment of one of the Love Fish caused untold ecological upheaval: forcing a country-sized cephalopod to flee the lagoon and relocate elsewhere. The detrimental effects of that blunder still blighted geologically shattered Macadamia…
In a maritime excursion that took in giant turtles, subsea kingdoms, floating islands and even stranger locales, the gallants strove for ages before eventually admitting defeat. Now Poppy – armed only with her courage, “typographic memory†(unable to forget anything she’s ever read), puzzle-solving abilities and a futuristic super-ship manned by a dedicated crew – swears to set things right…
The only thing that might impact upon her success is an incomprehensibly huge monster and the aquatic civilisation currently living in the city on its head and the sinister robotic figure surreptitiously dogging her every step…
Packed with brilliant innovation and inspired settings, Poppy! blends wild whimsy with sly wit, rollicking action with subversive satire and emotional warmth with potent suspense, combining traditionally familiar quest drama with cunningly incorporated games and tests (the answers kindly included at the end) to produce a decidedly memorable addition to the ranks of Indiana Jones, Von Doogan and Lara Croft.
Poppy! ™ & © 2016 Matt Kindt & Brian Hurtt. All rights reserved.