20 Years of Tomb Raider Hardcover – 25 Oct. 2016

For a first time author Meagan Marie has produced an incredible book that offers readers the definitive history of the beloved Lara Croft. It's amazing that this tome of over 350 pages has been written by a first time author because, for me, this work is up there with the likes of Brian Sibley, Jeff Kurtti, Jude Fisher and Mark Cotta Vaz.You can tell Ms Marie is an uber fan. It shows on every page. This is a book that not only oozes knowledge from every page but also bleeds passion. It covers everything from the games to the films. The fans, the cosplayers, the collectors, fan fiction, the music, the fan sites.....did I miss anything ? Probably. Did Meagan? No.She has the lot covered, with fascinating interviews with every major person involved in Lara's history and plenty of minor, although no less interesting, ones too.It has some beautiful artwork from artists such as Andy Park and tons of full colour photographs.This clearly is a labour of love. As a Lara fan I thought I knew everything.....clearly I didn't. I think Meagan Marie probably does and if you read this book you will too.At this price (£16.99 at the time of writing this review) it's a steal. Buy it now, you won't be sorry.....but you might want to brace your back first. It's a heavy one.Bravo Ms Marie. I have a lot of making of books and art books in my collection. Is this one of the best ??????Probably!

I am very pleased to have purchased this book, it’s a great account of the tomb raider series. However, I must say, I have been left feeling a little hungry for more. I doesn’t really fulfil your desires to reminisce about the series – I was hoping for a collection of vintage packaging, artwork, a thorough account of levels, maps of each level, textures, models, maybe unseen Concept art - perhaps I wanted a more visual account of Tomb Raider? As there is so much! The authors accounts of each game, simply summarises a single level, an interesting fact or a brief mention of an unreleased (gold edition) level. However, why not elaborate on this? A full page synopsis of Lara’s story through each games would have been exciting to read, as you could recall each level of the game from memory. A character biography of notable figures throughout the series. A timeline of events? Design the chapters of the book into stylised era’s of gaming. All these simple ideas that can be visually exciting. We get none of these really.The design of the book leaves a lot to be desired, it doesn’t aesthetically engage the reader and the cover art an afterthought. Imagery through a collage of tomb raiders history peering through the silhouette or create an iconic image to commemorate the anniversary would have jumped this book off the shelf.In some respects, this is an impressive, well researched tome of Tomb raider with perhaps too much personal focus on the authors interest in the series background.

This book is really comprehensive and contains everything you might ever need to know about the history of Tomb Raider and the Lara Croft characters. It's filled with information about the video games, the movies, comics, collectibles and all kinds of memorabilia including a section on the models and voices that are behind the franchise. It all goes as far as featuring fan fiction and those who like to dress up as Lara (and it's not just women doing the cosplay here!). All in all a fascinating read and reference guide to all things Tomb Raider related.

Along with The Sims and Assassin's Creed, the Tomb Raider series has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and of the three game series I just mentioned, Tomb Raider has to be my favourite. While I haven't been around for the whole twenty years (but to be fair, I have the disadvantage of not yet turning 20 years old), I've played every game in the series (though I'm still waiting to play Rise Of The Tomb Raider) and Tomb Raider: Legend was the game of my childhood and got me hooked into the other series titles. When the series' 20th Anniversary came along, I was so glad to see that such a wonderful franchise was being celebrated with a tribute like this.When you first got hold of the book, you'll see it's huge and fairly heavy too. At over 350 fact-filled pages long, it's also a lengthy read and took me a good few weeks to read it in its entirety in my spare time. Something I really loved about it was its presentation - the glossiness and minimalistic colours made it feel very clean and modern, and the lack of colour is made up for by some great bright artwork and behind-the-scenes photos used throughout the book. There's a good balance between the amount of text used and the amount of images. Author Meagan Marie further looks at a lot of areas of the Tomb Raider franchise, devoting sections to the games (including unmade titles and spin-offs), the comics, the films, the music, the voice artists, the fans and more. Marie clearly loves the series just as much as the fans and I seriously admire the amount of effort and hard work that's so obviously been put into every page. It's worth mentioning that this book isn't just a solo effort and includes interviews with many key people and even a greater amount of fan contributions.After reading a couple of less positive reviews on here, I've got to say that as much as I love this book, they sometimes have a point. My main criticism with it is that, as you should expect, there's a lot of space dedicated to the main games (just over 150 pages to be precise). All the information in this section is brilliantly researched and compiled, but it focuses heavily on the development of each game. Now I still found this to be an interesting and engaging read, but it felt like discussion about the actual gameplay was missing. With each game, there's a small section giving the author's "Top Tomb" or "Top Trap" but that's about it. When discussing critical reception to each game, as well as the films, it also seems a tiny bit glossed over. This becomes noticeable when talking about the less positively-received entries to the series, such as Angel Of Darkness. For comparison, there's about a hundred pages dedicated to the fans of the series, featuring cosplayers, collectors, fan art, fanfiction and even a couple of pages on Tomb Raider tattoos. It was nice to see Stella's Walkthroughs site getting some recognition as well (I literally couldn't have made it through the series without Stella's help!). None of this was bad, and I in fact really enjoyed reading about some of the series' most dedicated fans. I wouldn't want to see this section edited down, but if the book can talk this much about the fans, then surely there could have been a bit more time talking about gameplay.I know I sound like I'm complaining, despite giving the book five stars, but once again - I did really love this book and I'm glad to have bought it. Yes, it could do with a little more focus on the games, but Meagan Marie has put so much time and love into this tribute that it's worthy of five stars anyway. If Tomb Raider has been a part of your lives as much as it has mine, then don't hesitate here - read the book and relive everything we love so much about the series. Here's to the next 20+ years of tomb raiding!