Prince of Persia (the graphic novel) by Jordan Mechner, A.B.Sina, LeUyen Pham, Alex Puvilland and Hilary Sycamore
How I discovered the book
When I first learnt how to use computers and how to program them, the personal computer was a much more humble device than it is now. The computer I started with had an Intel 8088 processor and two 5.25 inch floppy disk drives and no hard disk. To boot the computer, one had to insert the bootable floppy disk into one of the drives and wait for sometime. The floppy disk drive had a capacity of 360 KB. The compiler that we used for compiling COBOL programs came in two floppy disks and so they had to be loaded one after the other. I think the PC had a 640 KB memory. The monitor of the computer was in black and green (black background with green letters) and if I remember right it had no graphics card and so we couldn’t view pictures on the monitor. When an XT (the next version of the PC) made its appearance, we were all thrilled, because it had a hard disk where lots of stuff could be stored. It was around this time that I got to know about the ‘Prince of Persia’ game. It was a game where a prince (or rather a young man) went through a series of adventures and overcame magical obstacles to save a princess who was imprisoned deep in the magician’s lair. This game could be played only on the XT, and so when one person played, the rest of us watched. Then later when hard disks became more prominent, the game became quite popular and was played by anyone who had access to a computer. Later, when I grew out of computer games, I forgot all about ‘Prince of Persia’. Sometime back when I went to the bookshop, I saw a graphic novel called ‘Prince of Persia’ there, and when I read the blurb which said ‘Millions have played the games. Few have ventured to the heart of the legend’, the book grabbed my attention. I was quite excited by it as it brought back fond memories of old times, and so I got the book. I finished reading it recently and here is the review.
Summary of the story
I am giving below the summary of the book as given in the book’s flap.
A thousand years ago in Persia…Before a young adventurer escaped a dungeon to rescue a princess…Before a scheming vizier tricked a prince into unleashing the sands of time…a prophecy was made. A palace must fall. A prince must rise from the waters where none has known him, save for a sad girl under a fig tree…
The world of the groundbreaking Prince of Persia games is brought to life in print for the first time by game creator Jordan Mechner, with writer A.B.Sina, who draws from the myths and legends of the Persia of his childhood. Artists LeUyen Pham and Alex Puvilland illuminate a spellbinding epic where past and future interweave like the strands of a Persian carpet.
What I think
As the creator of the Prince of Persia game, Jordan Mechner, says in the afterword to the book, the story of the graphic novel is similar in spirit to the original game, but is different in the details. Mechner says in his afterword “We didn’t want an adaptation of any of the games or of the movie, but a new story that would tap into the deep wellspring of Persian myth, legend and history from whence the prince had arisen”. So one way of looking at the book, if one is cynical, is that it is an attempt to milk the ‘Prince of Persia’ brand. But if one is or was a lover of the ‘Prince of Persia’ games, then one would look at it with affection, and would dive deep into the book. That is what I did.
There are two strands in the story set three centuries apart. In one strand there are three children who are reared by the king (two of them – a son and a daughter – his own and the third the son of his former enemy, adopted by him). When the king passes away, the king’s son is made the king. But the king’s son says that all three of them would like to rule the kingdom. Then different events conspire and make the king’s son leave the fort and live in the mountains, while his friend and his sister get married and rule the kingdom. One of the generals outwits the new king and kills him and tries to marry the queen and become the next king. But the queen kills herself. The prince who has gone to live in the mountains gets to know of this and comes back to save the kingdom. In another strand of the story, the action shifts to three centuries later, when the kingdom is ruled by a council and people who protest against it are publicly executed. There is a boy who lives alone in the ruins of the old palace. There is a girl who is the daughter of the head of the ruling council. It turns out that according to an old prophecy the boy will lead the people and would become the new king. It also turns out that there might be a connection between this boy and girl and the princes and princess who lived three centuries earlier. What is the connection? Does the prophecy come true? How do the two strands of the story weave together in the end? For answers to these questions, you should read the book 
The book is quite interesting and the story is fast paced. All the elements of an Arabian Nights story are there – a handsome prince, a beautiful princess, a colourful peacock, a scheming villain, prophecies, swords, lions, underground tunnels, love and magic. Even Genghis Khan makes a brief appearance towards the end of the book. The artwork is quite beautiful. In some places it is terrifying too – for example when there is a graphic depiction of a protestor’s tongue getting cut and the blood flows (so the book is definitely not recommended for young children). So if I have to put it in another way, I would say that the story has all the magic, mystery and brutality of an Arabian Nights story.
Further Reading
For more information on the graphic novel and the game, please check the following links.
Prince of Persia graphic novel site – http://princeofpersiathegraphicnovel.com/
Trailer of graphic novel in YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V62Mq87eF8
About Prince of Persia series of games – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Persia
About Prince of Persia game (1989 version) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Persia_(1989_video_game)
Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner’s blog – http://jordanmechner.com/prince-of-persia/
Final Thoughts
The book is an interesting standalone graphic novel. It has nothing to do with the original ‘Prince of Persia’ computer game (other than the name), but the story is interesting in its own right. If you are looking for the story version of the original game, you won’t find it here. But if what you want is an Arabian Nights story told for mature adults, this is your book. I enjoyed reading it.
