Bill Willingham – Fables, Vol. 7: Arabian Nights (and Days)
137. Fables, Vol. 7: Arabian Nights (and Days) by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, Jim Fern, Jimmy Palmiotti, Andrew Pepoy (2006)
Fables, Volume 7
Read my Review of:
– Vol. 1: Legends in Exile
– Vol. 2: Animal Farm
– Vol. 3: Storybook Love
– Vol. 4: March of the Wooden Soldiers
– Vol. 5: The Mean Seasons
– Vol. 6: Homelands
Length: 144 pages
Genre: Graphic Novel; Fantasy
Started: 01 November 2008
Finished: 01 November 2008
Fables from the East
show up in (West) Fabletown.
Watch the cultures clash!
Summary: This book has two main arcs – the first, “Arabian Nights (and Days)”, concerns a new refugee influx into Fabletown. The Adversary has started incursions into the Homelands of the Arabian Fables, and when Sinbad, complete with an entourage including a harem of slave girls, shows up at the Woodland, there’s an inevitable culture clash… which isn’t helped by the fact that the Eastern Fables have brought a djinn with them – a clear act of aggression. 
The second story, “The Ballad of Rodney and June”, concerns two wooden soldiers in the Adversary’s army who fall in love, but discover that being made of wood is less than… erm… conducive to certain aspects of being in love.
Review: I was underwhelmed by this one, although I can’t exactly put my finger on what was wrong with it. I enjoyed the introduction of new characters, the new developments with old characters (I loved that King Cole got something to do), and thought that the plot with the djinn was interesting and resolved creatively. The artwork was also excellent as usual, breaking out of the traditional panel format more frequently than I remember in past volumes. Still, there just wasn’t anything that grabbed me in this volume, nothing that made me sit up and go “wow!” Maybe it’s because Bigby’s still missing, and the bits with my other favorite characters, while fun, were too short to really get me involved. 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: Although it’s probably my least favorite of the series so far, it’s still a good read, and it does set up some plot points that are obviously going to be important later.
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Other Reviews: Rough Notes
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Fyrefly's Book Blog 
Hmm… this was the first I’ve read from the series. So I was totally blown away!
Ivan – Fair enough! I think this volume mostly suffered from an absence of Bigby Wolf, who’s my favorite character, which is why I wasn’t as involved as in previous volumes. If you get the chance, though, I’d definitely recommend starting from the beginning – the series as a whole is pretty fantastic.
This one doesn’t even sound as interesting as the others you’ve been blogging about recently. :( Sorry you didn’t enjoy it as much though!
I’m sad to hear that Bigby’s not in this one! That’s too bad it didn’t quite live up to the others, but hopefully the next one will be better.
Ladytink – Well, there are obviously people out there who really did like it; I’m sure they would have made it sound more interesting! It was still good, just not quite as *grabbingly* good, if that makes sense.
Nymeth – I’ve had vol. 8 on my nightstand for about a week, forcing myself to hold off from reading it just to space things out a bit, because Bigby is back (it’s called “Wolves”, after all), and from a brief flip-through, it looks *awesome*.