Every single character is identifiable. Just because everyone in Marko’s race has horns, it doesn’t mean they have the same horns.

The design is beautiful and there are no short cuts. Fiona Staples’ artwork is a thing of absolute beauty and genius and the characters are phenomenally well-realised. The characters and story are immediately compelling and while the whole “two from different factions fall in love” shtick has been going since Romeo & Juliet if not before, this is one of the freshest takes I’ve ever seen. So what we have here is that someone has taken Game of Thrones, Star Wars and your worst nightmares, loaded them into a blender on full speed and poured out the remains onto the paper. With the help of a half-bodied teenage ghost called Izabel, Alana and Marko are determined to get as far away from the war as possible, but with everyone in the galaxy seemingly looking for them, that’s going to be a lot harder than it seems. These include Prince Robot IV, a robotic royal with a screen for a face, and two freelance bounty hunters, The Will (a slightly washed-up figure who travels everywhere with his companion, Lying Cat) and The Stalk (a creature from your worst nightmares). However, there is a bounty on their heads and several people are now after them. Somehow, they have sired a daughter and are now on the run from both of their peoples, not wanting to be part of the neverending war. There is nowhere to hide from the war.Īmid the mess, two have fallen in love: Marko, a Wreather who has vowed to never use his sword again, and Alana, a Landfallian with a sharp tongue and little fear. While the war has now ended on this planet and moon (under the logic that the destruction of either will too destroy its companion) the battles have been outsourced, and now the entire galaxy has to choose whether to side with the planet or the moon. The background of the world is that there are two warring races of aliens, those of the planet Landfall who all have wings, and those of Landfall’s moon, Wreath, who are all adorned with horns. The one I’ve read is the first six chapters of the story, collated together, although I’m told there is much more to come.

Fortunately for me, having a wide circle of friends with varying circles of interest means that every genre and style finds its way to me eventually, and it’s thanks to two of these friends that Saga found its way onto my shelf. It’s not that I don’t like them – actually, far from it – or don’t consider them “proper books”, it’s simply that I don’t know where to begin with them. The only ones to have graced my blog so far have been manga versions of Shakespeare plays, so it’s about time I took a look at something else. Graphic novels have so far featured poorly on this blog and on my reading lists in general.

Saga volume 1 brian k vaughan