Book Review: Neil Gaiman's The Last Temptation 20th Annivesary Edition

Book: Neil Gaiman's The Last Temptation 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition by Neil Gaiman based on a story by Neil Gaiman and Alice Cooper with illustration by Michael Zulli

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Description:

Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Coraline, American Gods) brings shock rocker Alice Cooper's concept album to life in a surreal sideshow of the soul! Join a young boy named Steven on a surreal journey of the soul, as an enigmatic and potentially dangerous Showman seduces him into joining his carnival. Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of this seminal Gaiman work, returned to print for the first time in over a decade. Fully remastered in color, this Deluxe Edition incorporates complete scripts to all three chapters, black-and-white thumbnail art of pre-colored pages, an original outline of the project by Neil Gaiman, and a collection of letters between shock rocker Alice Cooper and the author!


Rating: 3 1/2 stars

Review:

I thought this was good.

As Halloween approaches, main character Steven found himself being targeted by a mysterious evil theatre owner who is trying to get Steven to join his ghostly show. Nowhere is safe for Steven who is constantly bombarded by the ghostly owner projecting his likeness onto Steven's family, friends and anyone he interacts with all to torment Steven into joining the show. Everywhere he goes he feels fear and terror not knowing when or where the owner will be.

The owner says he is trying to keep Steven from a lifetime of pain and suffering and unfulfilled achievements. If Steven chooses to join the show he will never age but from looking at the other performers he will also turn into a monstrous shell of his former self.

Not willing to let his life being bargained away Steven does a little research to see if he can find out anything about the theatre. What little research he was able to gain he hoped it would be enough. Every few years around Halloween, the theatre shows up trying to entice children to join the show.

In this story Steven started out rather fearful but he changed as the story went along. He wasn't going to just accept what the owner was trying to show him he was going to figure out a way to stop this ghostly show and keep other kids from being tormented into joining the show.

This was a nice solid story.