Customer Reviews

Switchblade Honey

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It's a fast fun read that starts in the thick of action, and just keeps finding more trouble to get into after that. ST:TNG gets royally hoisted on its own petard. This isn't lifeless "perfect people" space adventure, but rather a story that stays true to human nature... including its best. Fans of military SF should enjoy it at face value. For current Trek fans it might be like a shock therapy. :)

My immediate reaction after reading SWITCHBLADE HONEY was: More!

I hope writer Warren Ellis has more space adventure stories to tell, whether sequels to this or more completely new ones. And I hope publisher Larry Young invites other name writers to write the space adventures they're inspired to -- that the mainstream comic publishers seem to fear to try that genre new to them -- for his impressive company.

So, basically, it's good. Real good. Read it. And you'll want more, too. :)

Switchblade Honey (Warren Ellis / Brandon McKinney): Switchblade Honey is one of the most enjoyable, accessible outputs from Avatar Press. This short, black and white, one-off graphic novel tells the straight-forward story of a spaceship filled with outcasts.

The Switchblade Honey is humanity's last hope, due to its unusual technology and more unusual commanding officers. The human race is in serious trouble - apparently mankind's hubris pissed off an overwhelming alien power, and is now almost entirely wiped out. (Worth noting that people don't say 'frak', and there are no wildly hallucinogenic sequences about the nature of God.)

The normal Ellisinian (?) touches are on display - inventive use of technology, catchy dialogue and inspiring, cinematic monologues, a few explosions and an aggressive distaste of authority. McKinney is a good partner - the art is appropriately reminiscent of the simpler days of space-faring comics, except in this case, the crew are more likely to be kicking someone in the knee or shotgunning a beer.

This is an amusing, slightly over the top satire of Star Trek, and others, at times. Humans fight a war with aliens, and lose, badly. Your usual crew of criminals, misfits, and drunks, gets given one of the last ships left, and gets told to go and fight a guerilla war, or do whatever they can to be annoying. Ultimately the crew has to decide what they really should do.

This slim graphic novel from Warren Ellis is at least a joke and possibly a travesty for all of the natural resources that were wasted on it.

A cliche group of military misfits - the men chisled and rough, the women buxum and bitchy - are offered freedom if they take a suicide mission of maximum destruction to save mankind. Even the story is beyond cliche at this point and ends up a complete insult to The Dirty Dozen.

This book is every twelve-year's science fiction wet dream - assuming they live in a cave and missed every science fiction movie ever made.

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A Guide to my Book Rating System:

1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.
2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.
3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.
5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.