A review by welther47
Dead Space: Salvage by Antony Johnston
2.0
The story is as simple as they come. It's all about: how can we get a group of people onboard a space ship to be slaughtered by Necromorphs. I guess that is fine; it's certainly what you would expect from a Dead Space media.
The themes are cosmic horror, mainly body horror, and religious fanaticism. It is based on a horror game after all, and what easier excuse is there for horror than fanaticism?
The dialog, like the story is simple and what you would expect. It's the common Hollywood action movie dialog. There seems to be a running "fuck you, Schneider" joke going on. And that is about as deep as it gets. There is a lot of meaningless banter and it makes the beginning drag a bit. Witty, dirty banter is not endearing when you don't know nor care about the characters. And they don't get any deeper than that. That is my problem; the characters feel like real people, but are like "characters"; they don't have feelings, only care about a paycheck.
The graphics: the real reason to read this. Unfortunately, this is also where I have the biggest problem with the novel. The characters and especially the uniforms, are in stark contrast to the lower detailed and less defined backgrounds. E.g. page 49.
The graphic style is a matter of opinion, but I have mixed feeling about them. The are clearly rushed. It's not just a "style". The are messy and look sloppy.
Too often it's hard to tell what is going on. The pictures don't always tell a good and clear story by themselves, and when the dialog fails to do so too, it creates unnecessary confusion. At one point I was unsure if the pages were placed out of order!
They certainly fit the universe. The color scheme is very fitting, but they look like digitized photos of current military uniforms, just with heavy filtering. The worst is when I recognize things. A phone, limbs of a squid, a WWII submarine...
I think, I would liked a deeper story better. And for once it would be nice with a group of heroes who actually like each other. The universe is interesting, but it isn't very deep or complicated.
The themes are cosmic horror, mainly body horror, and religious fanaticism. It is based on a horror game after all, and what easier excuse is there for horror than fanaticism?
The dialog, like the story is simple and what you would expect. It's the common Hollywood action movie dialog. There seems to be a running "fuck you, Schneider" joke going on. And that is about as deep as it gets. There is a lot of meaningless banter and it makes the beginning drag a bit. Witty, dirty banter is not endearing when you don't know nor care about the characters. And they don't get any deeper than that. That is my problem; the characters feel like real people, but are like "characters"; they don't have feelings, only care about a paycheck.
The graphics: the real reason to read this. Unfortunately, this is also where I have the biggest problem with the novel. The characters and especially the uniforms, are in stark contrast to the lower detailed and less defined backgrounds. E.g. page 49.
The graphic style is a matter of opinion, but I have mixed feeling about them. The are clearly rushed. It's not just a "style". The are messy and look sloppy.
Too often it's hard to tell what is going on. The pictures don't always tell a good and clear story by themselves, and when the dialog fails to do so too, it creates unnecessary confusion. At one point I was unsure if the pages were placed out of order!
They certainly fit the universe. The color scheme is very fitting, but they look like digitized photos of current military uniforms, just with heavy filtering. The worst is when I recognize things. A phone, limbs of a squid, a WWII submarine...
I think, I would liked a deeper story better. And for once it would be nice with a group of heroes who actually like each other. The universe is interesting, but it isn't very deep or complicated.