Owen D. Pomery

I saw this in the new book section at my local library and gave it a try. This is a short science fiction graphic novel that needed a few more pages. The premise sounded very interesting but the execution was just okay.

In a far future, there is a mineral that allows spaceships to travel between systems and it is running out. At some point, people will have to stay where they are and get by. This crew of scavengers is trying to do a few last jobs to get by when they come across something in the last wreck that might uncover another way to travel.

This was a good start but I didn't get a feel for the relationships between the crew members or a lot about the world they are in. The art was great but the font on the dialogue was sometimes tough to read. I wasn't blown away by this but would pick up a second book as the ending leaves a huge opening for more.… (mere)

A melancholy look at the echoes of British imperialism and colonialism, this book is set on an imagined island in the Arctic circle where a single British agent is assigned to sit in a solitary house removed from the indigenous population to maintain token sovereignty over a land that must surely have some value greater to that remote government than the people who actually live there.

The newest agent is Harrison Fleet, and he must deal with the dark legacy of his country as he copes with the equally dark legacy of his own father.

There are hints of supernatural elements, but mostly as a coping mechanisms to rationalize the nasty truth of what occurred on this little cold rock a century before.

I like the clever cover and interesting set-up, but the execution is marred with too many stumbles. There is a lot of atmospheric mood, and I was initially intrigued by where the story might be going, but the actual plot unfolds first too slowly and then too abruptly. Overall, more things were left intimated than actually shown to be really satisfying.… (mere)