This story has all the elements of a Space Opera and a few more besides. In fact, it gives the impression that the author is not too sure who his audience is.

But first the positives, especially the worldbuilding. This author has spent a great deal of creativity and effort to create a 200-years-in-the-future solar system, with a great deal of its science, a very complete history, and plenty of wonderful technology.

There are enough descriptions of technology and experimental methods to satisfy the geekiest of Hard Sci-Fi fans. I especially enjoyed the complicated process they use to figure out the parameters of an alien device, but the section was far too long and involved for those who would like the action to progress more quickly.

I quite enjoyed the characters. The heroes (male and female) are typical teenagers, except for their brains, muscles, and almost-super-human abilities of all sorts. Which is pretty standard for Sci-Fi graphic novels. They are fun, likeable, and just crazy enough to be the negative role models teenagers love to read about. There is plenty of humour in the story, although the subject matter and level of sophistication of much of it reveals one intended market: the Young Adult crowd.

But periodically we run across the lack of focus. There is a tendency to wander off topic: a two-page scene of conversation with the makeup artist before a TV interview, for example. Also, one main character takes several pages to show off her piloting skills outside her mother’s house while the reader wants to know how they will deal with the solar system being invaded by protein-hungry aliens. A long section near the end when the suspense should be rising is occupied with talking, getting together with old friends and ordering sandwiches and beer.

This is followed by the final action sequence, a constant battle against an overwhelming number of small alien robot ships. This conflict stretches on at the same level, with little variety or suspense.

The other problem is inconsistent reading level. Much of the dialogue is the inane chatter of teenagers, but then there will be long discussions about the relative merits of various universities, a shopping trip, and discussions of gene splicing, quantum nonlocality and the absence of monoamine oxidase A on the X chromosome.

And then we take a long jump into a subplot of standard detective fiction in the Outback of Australia and spend a lot of time with two detectives who add very little to the story and get dragged into the final chapters only to create a reason for them to be there in the first place.

This book is all sorts of fun in a scatterbrained sort of way. Recommended for Young Adult fans of Space Opera and graphic novels. But first, a good editor with a sharp pencil would be very useful.

This is part one of a series. It has a satisfying conclusion, but don’t expect all the strings to be tied up.

(4 / 5)This review was originally posted on Reedsy Discovery.