The Art Of Magic: The Gathering - Amonkhet: Volume 4 Hardcover – 4 July 2017

love the book, totally worth it.

Brushworm Speaks!The Art of Magic: The GatheringAmonkhet****Acquired: Amazon.comSeries: Magic the Gathering (Book 4)Hardcover: 240 pagesPublisher: Perfect Square (July 4, 2017)Language: EnglishSubject: Fantasy****The Story: The Second Sun creeps across the sky, growing ever closer to the horns of the God-Pharaoh. These pages, lavishly illustrated with the award-winning art of Magic: The Gathering®, will introduce you to the people of Amonkhet, whose life is a series of trials meant to prepare them for the great God-Pharaoh’s return. Join the heroic Planeswalkers of the Gatewatch as they come here to face the evil dragon Nicol Bolas, whose schemes span the planes of the Multiverse. The glorious hope and desolate despair of Amonkhet await you as the final hours draw near!The Review: Kaladesh was the expansion that caught Brushworm’s attention to Magic: The Gathering but when Amonkhet came along, Brushworm was blown away. For some people, all that really matters is the eponymous card game and the playing of it. Which is fine, but it also enables people to tragically overlook the superb artwork and the rich lore and storytelling that goes into the creation of the cards and their expansion sets. This book, along with the rest of the Art of Magic: The Gathering books, solve this problem and allow those who have never played the game to dive right in to this almost literally, infinite world.This expansion is Brushworm’s favorite.It could be said that this expansion was what solidified the love for Wizard’s of the Coasts gaming franchise.There are plentiful examples of ancient Egyptian culture that have in almost every branch of popular culture, even the hospitality industry. Amonkhet takes it further though and does much more than merely replicate the Giza pyramids and the sphinx.Something that is interesting to consider in spite of the very fantastical setting, Amonkhet actually does have a few points towards historical accuracy. Popular culture as well as modern day geography have cemented the view that ancient Egypt was always the desert wasteland it is today. This actually wasn’t so. The Nile River Vile was once a lush and green land that slowly dried up over the millennia. That is the reason such a wealthy and developed civilization came to be. Amonkhet acknowledges this and Amonkhet is a gorgeous, green, lush city. This is particularly the realm of Rhonas the God of Strength and Willpower, whose temple is a jungle teeming with wildlife that is richly described in the artwork and text of this book.Brushworm acknowledges that a fantasy settings filled with walking mummies and people with crane heads, is what is being discussed here but popular culture is an important front in progressive social movements. As a result, this art book and by extension, this expansion, deserves not a small amount of credit for deftly avoiding whitewashing. The “ancient egyptian” proxies in Amonkhet are correctly depicted as having dark skin. For almost as long as Ancient Egypt has appeared in popular culture, there has also been the tragic tendency to cast caucasian actors as the pharaohs or other figures from mythology or history. Needless to to say that is a very backward view such a rich culture, not to mention racially insensitive. Thankfully, this artwork is a very significant step in the right direction towards more racial and cultural inclusivity in popular media.Another point in favor of Amonkhet is the overall atmosphere of the world itself. The veneration of death is something that was quite a facet of ancient Egyptian culture. The reason ancient cultures made such a big deal out of the afterlife and gods of death was the fact that life back then tended to be a very short life. Death was much more common than life in theses times. Amonkhet takes this theme and manages to skillfully integrate it into weave of this world to quite the affect. The constant use of mummies in the city, called Naktamun, as well as the hope towards a better afterlife is a unique take not always found in works of fiction.Remember, this is Magic: The Gathering. No expansion would be complete without sinister undertones, and this one seems to have the most sinister undertone of them all.Naktamun is part farm, part factory. All solely dedicated to a single purpose: to create corpses. Think about it, all the menial work, the farming, the training, the construction and cleaning, is all done by the mummies. The preserved undead created from the bodies of failed initiates. All the living people need to do is train and sharp eyed readers may notice the one thing missing from this world: the elderly.Brushworm will not give away the ultimate ending to this whole escapade but when the ending comes, the whole picture crystallizes in a terrifying realization. It really is a gut punch. One can’t help but wonder how the next expansion will turn out after such a grand event.There is very little in the way of flaws here. The biggest one honestly is the way the story told by the artwork is conveyed. This is not a novel, the story of the realm as well as that of the Planeswalkers when they arrive, is told in avery flat manner. It is reading a detailed Wikipedia article about a story, rather than the story itself.Brushworm cannot stress enough that any interested reader should further explore this world and in order to do that, they need to consult the Magic: The Gathering website.Final Verdict: The Art of Magic the Gathering - Amonkhet is gorgeous. The art is breathtaking. The setting is one of the most iconic ones Brushworm has encountered in quite some time. This story does not feel like it is quite finished yet. The day we return to Amonkhet will be a glorious one indeed!Ranking: Five Amonkhet Icons out of FiveBuy One Now!!!thecultureworm.blogspot.com

Una excelente mezcla de Artbook y Enciclopedia sobre el plano de Amonkhet.Físicamente, es pesado, con papel de gramaje grueso a todo color, cubiertas duras y una preciosa sobrecubierta que es la que se puede ver en el producto (la portada y contraportada reales son de color ocre y tienen un lomo azul). Pese a su considerable volumen y peso, es sólido y puede abrirse sin problemas (y sin crujidos que asusten creyendo que se va a soltar como me ha ocurrido con otros libros tan grandes) y disfrutarlo sin problemas. Tiene unas 220 páginas.Pasando al contenido, aproximadamente diría que la proporción de ilustraciones y texto está favor de los primeras. encontrando muchas de ellas a doble página, e incluso otras que ocupan casi toda con espacio para las explicaciones. Los dibujos son completos (no hay esbozos ni están sin acabar como puedes encontrar en otros artbooks con sketches que incluso presentan evolución de bocetos hasta el acabado final) y todos, sin excepción, están a color. El arte en sí tiene una gran calidad y está todo cuidado para que el estilo de los distintos ilustradores sea lo suficientemente cohesivo y el usuario no observe una discontinuidad entre unos dibujos y otros. También en cada uno aparece en alguno de los márgenes el autor y el título de su obra.Respecto al texto en sí, está escrito a doble columna con letra grande y legible (eso sí, completamente en inglés, ¡ojo!). Aunque claramente inspirado en el Egipto de la Antigüedad, el escenario no es un simple calco del mismo como ocurre con muchos settings de fantasía similares, sino que sirve como punto de partida para crear su propia mitología y proporcionar al lector un mundo único e interesante. Dentro del mismo, la estructura está formada por diversas secciones o capítulos, en las que se desgrana, tras una breve introducción a Amonkhet, sus dioses y moradores mortales, su geografía, un bestiario con sus criaturas más exóticas, y una historia con los acontecimientos que rodean a los Planewalkers, así como un apéndice sobre cómo se llegó a crear este mundo. La única pega que le pondría es que, aunque te enteras perfectamente de la trama, si no has leído los libros anteriores, puedes encontrarte con algunos spoilers, ya que resumen algunos acontecimientos de otros volúmenes anteriores de la colección "The Art of Magic" (este libro es ya el 4º).En general, un gran libro que gustará a aquellos que disfruten de las buenas ilustraciones y/o la fantasía en general, y creo que si buscas algo distinto a lo habitual dentro de este sector, disfrutarás de su exotismo.

Magic the Gathering is a great game and features some amazing art from some of the best fantasy artists in the world. These collections of the art never disappoint and should entertain both fans of the game and even those who don't play it but love good fantasy art and world building.The Amonkhet volume contains a world that takes design cues from ancient Egypt to create an amazing setting. Any fan of the art from this era will find something to like here. As a player of the game from the original days, these art books helped to rekindle my interest and pick up the current version of the game.

The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Amonkhet Great book with great illustrations, colours and a wide variety of images and contents. I usually used the Art of MTG books as image references and bought this one in order to get references for Rhonas, The Scorpion God and the Eternals. It was great for two out of three but there were barely any pictures of Eternals at all, maybe three in total?I was disappointed by this revelation, and wasn't able to use it as a reference for them (Obviously) As a result of which it has decreased my rating for the book from five as is normal for these art books to four which is still pretty good but it just wasn't really what I needed at the time. The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Amonkhet

I love the art. Much of it is full-page and the paper is nice and thick which keeps any bleeding from the image on the back from coming through. I have really enjoyed all the "Art of Magic" books. Don't know the game, just love the art.