Name: Black Star
ISBN: 9781683357780

Eric A. Glover

Stranded on an alien planet, two astronauts must battle deadly elements and each other to recover a reserve shuttle built for one Black Star is a debut graphic novel by Eric Anthony Glover, based on his original unproduced screenplay, and illustrated by Arielle Jovellanos. In the future, interstellar travel is past its prime and sending shuttles beyond our solar system—even for vital scientific research—is a life-threatening gamble. However, in order to retrieve samples of an alien flower that may hold the key to saving countless lives, Harper North and her crew of scientists must journey to Eleos, a dangerous planet in deep space. But as they approach Eleos, their ship is caught in an asteroid storm and as it hurtles towards the surface, its reserve shuttle detaches, landing over 100 kilometers away. When the rest of the crew perishes in the burning wreckage of the ship, North races towards the rescue shuttle built for one, hoping to fulfill their mission and survive. But North isn’t alone: The team’s wilderness expert is still alive and hell-bent on hunting North down and claiming the shuttle for herself. Now, North has no choice but to reach the shuttle first—and fast. The fuel is leaking. Her GPS battery is dying. And the planet’s deadly seasonal change is coming. As she battles the flora and fauna and tries to elude her ruthless former crew mate, North will find the cost of survival is dear . . . Will she be willing to pay that price?

Black Star

Eric Glover

Stranded on an alien planet, two astronauts must battle deadly elements and each other to recover a reserve shuttle built for one Black Star is a debut graphic novel by Eric Anthony Glover, based on his original unproduced screenplay, and illustrated by Arielle Jovellanos. In the future, interstellar travel is past its prime and sending shuttles beyond our solar system--even for vital scientific research--is a life-threatening gamble. However, in order to retrieve samples of an alien flower that may hold the key to saving countless lives, Harper North and her crew of scientists must journey to Eleos, a dangerous planet in deep space. But as they approach Eleos, their ship is caught in an asteroid storm and as it hurtles towards the surface, its reserve shuttle detaches, landing over 100 kilometers away. When the rest of the crew perishes in the burning wreckage of the ship, North races towards the rescue shuttle built for one, hoping to fulfill their mission and survive. But North isn't alone: The team's wilderness expert is still alive and hell-bent on hunting North down and claiming the shuttle for herself. Now, North has no choice but to reach the shuttle first--and fast. The fuel is leaking. Her GPS battery is dying. And the planet's deadly seasonal change is coming. As she battles the flora and fauna and tries to elude her ruthless former crew mate, North will find the cost of survival is dear . . . Will she be willing to pay that price?

Maya Johnson

EDIT- 2 hours later // 

So I give this 5 out of 5 stars because I've been introduced to a new perspective!
This book is about who we identify with, both of these people are trying to survive and they're trying to take this plant back to earth but I needed to be reminded that this book was through the perspective of North. Of course she's going to seem like the hero but as the story progresses you start to question if she even IS the hero or not?

-----

It was a bit difficult to rate this for me because I wasn't sure if I should give it a 4 Stars or a 5 Stars so I decided on a 4.5 Stars! There was only one part in the story that I disliked and that's why I took .5 Stars off! 

This was a beautifully made book, I love the cover art on the book on the dusk jacket and underneath the dust jacket. The art is stunning and the color palette is just gorgeous. I like how the chapters were split up, the panels and images looked really nice with the large roman numerals overlaid on them, it was very dramatic and I enjoyed it. 

I loved the Guardian system (which is the AI assistant) and how it worked, I think it's interface was really interesting and that was something I definitely appreciated! I loved the characters and the world building. 

Overall this is definitely worth a read! Check your local library or your local book store!

Jeff James

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from NetGalley. This review was previously published at Full of Words.

Sticking with a recent theme in my reading, Black Star is minimalist sci-fi, focusing on characters caught in a deadly conflict. In this case, my favorite part of the book was the art. The story was straightforward enough, but the main character spends all her time doing terrible things for the sake of no one but herself.

When the book opens, asteroids strike the research ship crewed by doctor Harper North and her team of scientists and it crash-lands on the planet Eleos. Everyone on the crew dies except for North and Parrish, one of her crew. Complicating matters is the fact that their auxiliary shuttle separated from the ship and deployed miles away across rough terrain. It’s a race for survival between North and Parrish, who also have a history of personal conflict.

I know I shouldn’t focus on the “likability” of a character, but the problem with North is that she isn’t compelling enough to root for even when she’s betraying her crew and doing morally questionable things in the name of survival. The book never makes the stakes of her mission clear – something about researching a local plant that might have medicinal uses – so it’s hard to use that as justification for her actions. The thrust of the story boils down to North trying to survive at the expense of everyone else.

The end result is that this is a book about a terrible person doing terrible things to someone who never did anything wrong as far as we know. The story asks you to care about a character who never feels like anything other than the villain of the piece. If you re-centered the book on Parrish’s perspective, it would be about a crew-member betrayed and abandoned by her ruthless, selfish leader.

It’s possible this book would have worked better for me if the two viewpoints were more equally balanced, but really it feels like North’s show with only momentary glimpses of Parrish’s perspective. I think I might have been willing to go along with North as a main character if Parrish also felt like an anti-hero with questionable motivations, but as it stands, she is absolutely the wronged party here.

I did like the art, which has a unique style and flair of its own, servicing the tone and setting of the story while also being unique enough to stand out. Unfortunately, the story just doesn’t do it justice, and I can’t recommend this book.

This was such an interesting comic. You go in rooting for the protagonist, but as the story progresses you question that innate assumption that you should. Unsure how I feel about the characters after reading this, but I absolutely loved the concept, art, and world of this story.

Sabrina D. 

Lauren Sullivan

Content warnings: (view spoiler)[death, violence (both natural via floods, fire, etc and between people), alcohol (hide spoiler)]

A team of four women are on the way to Eleos to retrieve an alien flower that has near-miraculous medical properties when an accident causes their ship to crash on the planet, with the auxiliary shuttle landing almost 200km away. Alone and with few resources, scientist North has to navigate the unforgiving terrain to make it to the shuttle before the planet’s deadly summer season starts. But there’s a wrinkle: the ship’s wilderness expert, Parrish, has also survived, and she’s also heading for the one-person shuttle. Between floods, fires and alien creatures, will either of them make it out alive?

The story follows Dr. North as she navigates towards the shuttle. There’s flashbacks, courtesy of her visor, that explain some of the dynamics between her, Parrish and Fletch, who North left to die on the ship (there’s also a fourth crew member, but she doesn’t do much besides die on impact). As the book progresses, North and Parrish’s attempts to survive both the planet and each other take on an increasingly desperate tone, and there’s a sinking sensation that at least one of them isn’t telling the whole truth about what happened on the ship. There’s lots of tension, between hailstorms, floods and setting traps for each other, so it’s definitely a page turner.



That’s helped along by the art, which is detailed and dynamic. I especially loved how the flashback visor scenes were done. My main problem is that the ARC was in black and white while it appears that the final version will be in color. I didn’t realize this until reading the notes at the back, where the illustrator talks about using uniform colors to distinguish between North and Parrish. I’m completely stumped as to why the publisher would chose to do the ARC this way as I think it negatively effects the story. There’s definitely scenes where the art is confusing in black and white where I think it would be perfectly clear in color. Based on the gorgeous color cover, I think this would’ve a huge difference for me.

Overall, I enjoyed the story, but find it hard to rate due to the fact that it’s basically incomplete. If time allows, I’ll plan on checking this book out from the library once it’s published and update my review.

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Black Star

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