The Golden Lion, the 4th Cleopatra In Space book hooks in readers 8 and up

I’ve wanted to jump into the Cleopatra In Space book series for a while. From the title alone I was intrigued. I’m fascinated by Egypt, its history and love the concept of putting established or known characters into realms where they do not belong. Prior to reading The Golden Lion, the fourth book in the Cleopatra In Space series my major concern was not knowing enough about the characters.

After reading The Golden Lion that issue shouldn’t be a concern to anyone unfamiliar with the series. The first eight pages or so are wordless and features an unknown object hurtling through space until it crashes on an icy planet. From there we meet Gozi, a main baddie, who is speaking with a mysterious being who he refers to as My Lord.    The fact that Octavian Gozi failed to kill Cleopatra in an earlier battle is touched on, but not fully explained. Again, that is OK, because The Golden Lion moves at a quick pace and keeps readers engaged in what is happening at the moment.

Gozi is given a new general named Ophois, who looks a lot like Anubis. It’s his job to take care of Cleopatra and retrieve The Golden Lion, which has been located on a distant planet. Did you catch the Anubis reference? If so (or if you’re a fan of The Great Movie Ride) then you’ll really dig aspects of The Golden Lion as there are more than a couple clever-and very funny Egyptian puns.

Cleopatra is on the outs with the P.Y.R.I.M.I.D (Pharaoh Yasiro’s Research and Military Initiative of Defense) and is called in to explain her previous actions. She’s grounded, but has her curiosity piqued when the tablets that she read in the last book are referenced by the elders.

From here Cleopatra sneaks off to an ice planet, battles a giant spider, kisses a boy, meets a cute animal and fights dozens of aliens including Ophois.

Cleopatra In Space, The Golden Lion is an example of a graphic novel that respects its audience, even those that did not read the previous books. If anything, the fact that one did not read any of the previous three books and is still this vested in the fourth book is testament to how well the story is told.  The grey areas or those things that are referenced in The Golden Lion do not make you resent coming to the party late. Rather, they make you want to read those previous three books to see exactly what happened.

Mike Maihack is the creator of Cleopatra In Space and really has something fun happening here. The story in The Golden Lion is not juvenile, but does skew young enough to interest ages 8 and older. It’s also remarkable that the lead character is a girl, but that fact doesn’t dissuade boys from wanting to read it. Our 7 year old did read it, but the vocabulary was just a bit out of his range. He loved the action and wide scope of the story, but needed help with some of the acronyms and bigger words.

The Golden Lion is a fun original graphic novel from Graphix. It’s a graphic novel, so that means there are lots of big, powerful illustrations that help move the story forward, but it doesn’t rely on them. Some parents that I know don’t let their kids read too many graphic novels because they don’t see them as ‘real books’. This is a graphic novel for those parents. You’ve got to read the story in order to fully appreciate where the action is taking you. When the action sequences happen they’re big, colorful and kids 8 and up will love following along with them. Moreover, readers who are just jumping in with this, the fourth book, will want to seek out the others to discover the story that set this up.