The Energon Pub

Im not sure if this is the right forum or not but if not can someone fix it for me? Anyway on to my topic. Im buying the book Transformers Vault from barnes and noble. To get free shipping I have to spend 25 dollars or more so I have decided to buy another book also. Ive decided to pick Transformers: Exodus: The Official History of the War for Cybertron. Im just looking to get a couple opinions on it before I decide to get it or not. Thanks for any help.

Exodus was good. It's a good start for that continuity, and the sequel. Exiles is just as good. I do have to say that I was disappointed in Transformers Vault. Furman's The Ultimate Guide is much better.

I've said this before in other threads, and it's my own opinion.

As a book, it's rubbish. The writing is awful, and Exiles gets even worse.
The story is cool, and gives you a good starting point for the Aligned continuity.

Annoyingly, those chapters that were adapted into a mini-comic made a pretty solid comic script. If both books had been comics instead, I think I would have enjoyed them waaaay more.

I think they're the only two books I ever bought in my entire life which I have given away as soon as I finished.

I have to agree. Exodus and Exiles provide a nice set-up for the story to play out in your head. If you've seen the Bay movies and/or played the WFC/FOC games, it's easy to visualize the world and characters as described. Plenty of lesser-knowns get their moment of glory and you really get an understanding of both Optimus and Megatron. I gained a true respect for Aligned Megatron despite his atrocities because of this book.

However, the writing does get tedious throughout, and it's sometimes tough to keep with the happenings, even if you're well-versed in TF. Especially the latter parts of Exiles are riddled with inconsistencies like characters dropping in and out a scout party. Or one legendary sword being referenced with four different names.

Long story short, it's not a good book, but it's decent supplementary material in addition to the other Aligned fiction. It's worth a read, but not something you'll read again.