A review by jnikolova
Nowhere Men, Vol. 1: Fates Worse Than Death by Eric Stephenson
2.0
Also available on the WondrousBooks blog.
I will go with No. This is one of those books where the characters are over-hyping themselves and each other, because otherwise it would be hard for the reader to realize that something supposedly important is happening.
"Oh, these guys are rockstars!", "He is a legend", "Their research changed the world!" Okay then, if the author made his characters call each other brilliant, then we must be reading about truly amazing individuals. Not.
Nowhere Men is a very confusing, messy, and unconvincing attempt at sci-fi. There is no science anywhere in the entire volume, just a bunch of characters that make things happen and you are supposed to buy into the idea that they did it thanks to science. However, considering that the author doesn't bother to give any information about the level of actual technological development in this world, or on where humanity was before the science Beatles came into the picture, this so-called "science" could as well be magic, for all the reader knows.
There is a large jumble of seemingly important individuals, including 4 interchangeable scientist gods, who did... something, and then... something happened, and some substance was created somehow. Sometime in the past someone somehow decided to put it on a spaceship for some reason, which created some kind of a virus, which is not actually a virus. Now you know as much as I do, having read the first volume.
If you stripped the story to its bare bones, you would find a striking resemblance to the Fantastic 4, including the design of the characters on the space ship. The science rockstars remain a mystery, as does their importance, however, the reader must be aware that even though they seem like a bunch of squabbling, greedy old assholes, apparently all of them are geniuses.
It's really hard to find any characters to care about, or to be convinced to believe in any part of the story. The self-explanatory articles and interviews with the characters don't help. On the contrary, they make the story even more dragged out, and they nudge the reader into the land of "Who cares?".
The part that I did like, more or less, was the art. It was solid, well-made, and comforting. I was glad to see that they didn't go for anything more experimental, because that would have added to the overall ridiculousness of the volume.
I will go with No. This is one of those books where the characters are over-hyping themselves and each other, because otherwise it would be hard for the reader to realize that something supposedly important is happening.
"Oh, these guys are rockstars!", "He is a legend", "Their research changed the world!" Okay then, if the author made his characters call each other brilliant, then we must be reading about truly amazing individuals. Not.
Nowhere Men is a very confusing, messy, and unconvincing attempt at sci-fi. There is no science anywhere in the entire volume, just a bunch of characters that make things happen and you are supposed to buy into the idea that they did it thanks to science. However, considering that the author doesn't bother to give any information about the level of actual technological development in this world, or on where humanity was before the science Beatles came into the picture, this so-called "science" could as well be magic, for all the reader knows.
There is a large jumble of seemingly important individuals, including 4 interchangeable scientist gods, who did... something, and then... something happened, and some substance was created somehow. Sometime in the past someone somehow decided to put it on a spaceship for some reason, which created some kind of a virus, which is not actually a virus. Now you know as much as I do, having read the first volume.
If you stripped the story to its bare bones, you would find a striking resemblance to the Fantastic 4, including the design of the characters on the space ship. The science rockstars remain a mystery, as does their importance, however, the reader must be aware that even though they seem like a bunch of squabbling, greedy old assholes, apparently all of them are geniuses.
It's really hard to find any characters to care about, or to be convinced to believe in any part of the story. The self-explanatory articles and interviews with the characters don't help. On the contrary, they make the story even more dragged out, and they nudge the reader into the land of "Who cares?".
The part that I did like, more or less, was the art. It was solid, well-made, and comforting. I was glad to see that they didn't go for anything more experimental, because that would have added to the overall ridiculousness of the volume.
Thanks, Nowhere Men, see you never.