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2001 Nights, written and illustrated by Yukinobu Hoshino, is a
collection of seven illustrated tales about Man's experiences in outer space.
The shortest tale, "Earthglow," is 16 pages; the longest,
"Lucifer Rising," is 110. Hoshino has published two other 2001
Nights collections, subtitled Children of Earth, and
Journey Beyond Tomorrow respectively. Both engage and entertain to
the degree of the original.
The book is done in a black-and-white graphic novel style, each panel
skillfully and artfully rendered. Hoshino combines Japanese manga techniques
with classic western illustration styles for a unique and enjoyable art
style. He has a photographer's eye, a sense for exactly where a reader's gaze
will be drawn. Many panels are entirely absent dialogue or action, and
serve to either create a mood for a following scene, or reveal a clouded
message in a previous one. Refreshingly, Hoshino uses neither the cheesy
"speed lines" nor simplistic, one-dimensional faces so often found
in manga comics.
Each story tries to say something about human nature, as a well as
speculate about our future in the cosmos. Common literary themes fill each
tale: discovery, the path from greed to destruction, the questionable
morality of science. Whatever the message, Hoshino uses his medium well; I
felt like I gained something from each story. Often in science fiction I
forget that the characters portrayed are human, but this book constantly
reminds us of that. "Earthglow," for example, sets itself up as a
story of war and subterfuge, as two astronauts realize their mission, the
delivery of a mysterious package, terminates at the Soviet space station (The
cold war is still in full force at this point). Their paranoid dialogue with
each other and ground control, wary of delivering a weapon into a heavily
protected sector of space, makes the reader suspicious as well. However, the
'mysterious payload' turns out to be the American president, rendezvousing
with the Russian premier for a secret peace talk. Hoshino buys off our
natural tendency to read the worst into a situation, to assume malice rather
than have faith.
The longest, most complex, and in my opinion best story of the bunch is
"Lucifer Rising." A mysterious tenth body is found circling our sun
far outside the orbit of Pluto. Not only is it incredibly massive, it also
orbits the sun in retrograde, counter to the other nine planets. Its secrets
beckon to humanity, begging it to come learn them. The earth plans a
mission to investigate. However, it seems, something there is that doesn't
love the human exploration of space. Successive disasters plague the
expeditionary force, none of them believably coincidental.
Parallel to this runs the story of one Father Chavez, dispatched by the
Vatican to join the expeditionary team. Drawing parallels between the current
state of the solar system and Milton's Paradise Lost (Quotes are
sprinkled liberally about the story), the pope believes this tenth planet,
Lucifer, to literally be the Antichrist, the source of the ultimate evil in
the universe. Chavez, a scientist as well as a devout catholic, must weigh
faith against reason, as Lucifer's secrets have the potential to greatly
benefit humanity. The plot is fast-paced and tight, the premise fun, and,
thought-provoking, with a suspension of disbelief way below that needed for a
Dan Brown novel.
Other stories deal with such situations as exploration of celestial
bodies, long-term space travel, and asteroid mining. The book is less science
fiction than people fiction, and is accessible to anyone with a semblance of
a soul. Dig it.
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