My Cultural Diet

Hudson Tremaine may possess seemingly supernatural luck at the casino tables in Vegas, but she’s never played a game like the Arcanos Mysterinos. There, sorcerers and demons gamble to literally reshape the world and challenge the whims of Fate itself — until Fate pushes back, that is. Hudson will need every single ounce of guile and pluck she can muster to win, or even just survive at this table. Arcana Royale has a really intriguing premise, but its hundred pages or so just barely scratch the surface of the story’s potential for magickal weirdness, especially as Hudson enters the game’s final round. Thus, the book as a whole feels rather anticlimactic. Bunn and Zamudio’s work isn’t bad, but one can’t help wondering what might’ve been had Arcana Royale been written by the likes of, say, Grant Morrison.

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