Customer Reviews

2001 Nights: Journey Beyond Tommorow

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Graphic novels are usually overlooked or thought of as the big brother of comic books, but some of them, stand out as surpassing what can be done in either text or art alone.

The 2001 Nights series is one of them.

Imagine the various yet interconnected Arabian Nights tales mixed with a bittersweet realistic hard sci-fi reality. 2001 Nights uses the anime drawing style to deliver stories of mankind's first steps into space.

Each story is set years apart, at the next logical step in the possible evolution of spacetravel. Some are fairly far-fetched (the Devil Planet, about a world made of anti-matter) while others seem sad and poingant (I am Rocket, where a robot probe is given artificial intellegence and sent out to a neighboring star never to find out that it has become obsolete).

But all of these form a wonderful weaving pattern that should be enjoyed by anyone who likes well written stories.

I LOVE THIS SERIES. It's filled with heart and emotion and coupled with great artwork. The feeling of vastness and numbness in exploring the endless realm of space oozes from these stories. One begins to realize how small we are in the grand scale of the galaxy. The stories in this volume continue the linear storytelling of mankind's advancements into space exploration, so read Volume 1 first! Great great stuff. I'm surprised this doesn't make it on the top 10 essential graphic novels of all time. I mean, I love Alan Moore and all, but he's not the end all, be all to great comic storytelling - sheesh! Try Yukinobu Hoshino's masterpiece, you'll not be disappointed!

This manga is definitely the best sci-fi manga/comic I've ever read...and I have read some serious works (Worlds of Aldebaran, Planetes, Orbiter and some others) but this series is by far the most intelligently written. The themes treated on this manga is an invitation to meditate about our condition and place in the universe as human beings. Without a doubt I must say that, despite the fact that is a manga, Mr. Hoshino, in this particular work, is comparable with some of the most remarkable sci-fi novelist as Clarke, Lem and Anderson. Highly recommended.