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51 reviews for:
A Once Crowded Sky
Tom Fowler, Tom King, Ruth Lee-Mui, David Ter-Avanesyan, Steve Bryant
3.12 AVERAGE
51 reviews for:
A Once Crowded Sky
Tom Fowler, Tom King, Ruth Lee-Mui, David Ter-Avanesyan, Steve Bryant
3.12 AVERAGE
Woah
I think the easy comparison here is Watchmen, in that it is a story of superheroes engulfed by a feeling of powerlessness. But King uses the iconography of superhero comics to create a story of existential longing that sets itself apart by not being nihilistic and being as spirited as the old comic books, before many felt a need to be "dark" to feign adulthood. This was a really great read that I enjoyed thoroughly.
I think the easy comparison here is Watchmen, in that it is a story of superheroes engulfed by a feeling of powerlessness. But King uses the iconography of superhero comics to create a story of existential longing that sets itself apart by not being nihilistic and being as spirited as the old comic books, before many felt a need to be "dark" to feign adulthood. This was a really great read that I enjoyed thoroughly.
The rating should probably be a little higher but I can’t help comparing it to what it could have been. The cover and title are beautiful. I want a poster of this cover. The title A Once Crowded Sky will live in my head for a long time. And the story itself had the potential to be incredible. But two things prevented me from getting there. One was the writing style. I struggle with the sparse style that almost reads more as a script than a book. It was choppy and stoic and made it hard to fall into the story. The bigger problem I had with it was the cynicism which is admittedly an even bigger personal preference thing than the writing style critique. The impulse to make a superhero story more “mature” or “real” by framing it through a cynical lens is missing the mark for me on what makes these stories worth telling. The idea of a better tomorrow and that goodness can make a difference has been the calling card of superhero stories for 85 years and gritty reimaginings of the genre feel incredibly hollow to me.
It had the makings to be an all-time favorite for me and more than anything else I’m just bummed at the route it took away from that promise.
It had the makings to be an all-time favorite for me and more than anything else I’m just bummed at the route it took away from that promise.
Interesting superhero plot involving a cataclysmic event that took all the superheroes and villains out of a comic-book world, but the execution is maddeningly oblique and repetitive. The author attempts to preserve an air of mystery throughout the first half of the book by deliberately obfuscating identities and events, omitting names and specifics, which is more often confusing than exciting. And the characters are mostly caught in traumatized states where their mental monologues just repeat the same catchphrases or thoughts or desires over and over and over, as if the goal is just to fill pages. The self-aware excursions into metatext and superhero deconstruction don't much help. I stuck with this to the end hoping the pieces would eventually fall together and the mysteries would be explained — which they were — but it was a frustrating slog getting there.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
The superhero novel is something that’s relatively new or, at the very least, a rather specific sub-genre of the greater speculative fiction world. Tom King’s A Once Crowded Sky is a meta-fictional superhero novel. It’s an original tale but one that plays within and with the conventions and tropes of the comic book world. As a result King’s novel will likely be a bit obtuse for readers who aren’t well versed in the tropes and in-jokes of the comic book world. Indeed, one of the novel the novel’s primary themes and oft-repeated phrases that heroes “always come back” is one of the biggest and most well-known tropes of the comic book world. There have been numerous real-life comic books that have addressed, avoided, lamp-shaded, acknowledged this trope. A Once Crowded Sky tackles the effects from the death of heroes and massive change enacted by the many large crossovers that occur in the comic book world and examines them in greater detail.
While King’s novel is enhanced by illustrations from Tom Fowler (Venom, Quantum and Woody) it is a story primarily told through text rather than image. There is a part of me that wonders why A Once Crowded Sky wasn’t written as an original graphic novel. However, while there are many scenes that could be beautifully conveyed through art (and Fowler would certainly have chops to convey it) the novel’s heavy focus on the interior lives of its heroes, and the need to quickly construct a familiar yet unique comic book world, is well served via prose rather than sequential art. The novel opens in the fictional city of Arcadia where all the superheroes have given up their powers to the world’s greatest superhero Ultimate so that he could defeat the mysterious threat known only as the Blue. The only hero that refused the call to action was Ultimate’s former sidekick PenUltimate who has retired from the superhero life. Now, as Arcadia’s only hero Pen finds the call back to action growing ever louder.
Part of A Once Crowded Sky deals with the ramifications of a hero losing their power. The question at hand during parts of the novel seems to be whether it is the powers or man (or woman) that defines the hero. King examines this through a variety of character’s whose responses cover all the ground between denial and acceptance. For several of the characters in the novel the notion that heroes “always come back” becomes almost a religious mantra and for others a curse. Watching the interplay between these contrary reactions is part of the novel’s fun. There is a surprising amount of depth to the examination of the notion of sacrifice and identity that belies the four-color Ben-Day dotted feel of the world of Arcadia. The primary means through which the reader experiences the inner-conflict is the character Soldier of Freedom. As perhaps the world’s oldest hero (in the story he has typically been frozen and unfrozen during times of conflict) he is perhaps the most knowledgeable as to how that notion on the cyclical nature of violence and conflict and it is through his thoughts and actions that the reader really gets to grips with the toll that cycle can inflict upon a hero.
King’s obvious major influence for A Once Crowded Sky is Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. Whereas Watchmen lightly employed the metafiction through The Tales of the Black Freighter, A Once Crowded Sky instead ties the elements of metafiction more directly into the story itself. I don’t want to get too deeply into those elements here, lest I spoil things, but King’s use of metafiction more directly examines the role of reader within the text and how expectation shapes the comic book form. This last bit is slightly problematic as I think it might only be more apparent to readers familiar with comics. It’s the sort of examination that might be tiresome if done with a heavy hand but King’s adept characterization and deft hand at world-building smooth the edges between the various deeper elements of story to create a seamless whole.
A Once Crowded Sky is a book that seems expressly designed for comic book readers. While readers of fiction might enjoy the overall story thanks to King’s skills they will likely miss out a thought provoking examination on a form and its consumers. This is a particularly impressive debut novel from Tom King and I can’t wait to see what else he will cook up.
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While King’s novel is enhanced by illustrations from Tom Fowler (Venom, Quantum and Woody) it is a story primarily told through text rather than image. There is a part of me that wonders why A Once Crowded Sky wasn’t written as an original graphic novel. However, while there are many scenes that could be beautifully conveyed through art (and Fowler would certainly have chops to convey it) the novel’s heavy focus on the interior lives of its heroes, and the need to quickly construct a familiar yet unique comic book world, is well served via prose rather than sequential art. The novel opens in the fictional city of Arcadia where all the superheroes have given up their powers to the world’s greatest superhero Ultimate so that he could defeat the mysterious threat known only as the Blue. The only hero that refused the call to action was Ultimate’s former sidekick PenUltimate who has retired from the superhero life. Now, as Arcadia’s only hero Pen finds the call back to action growing ever louder.
Part of A Once Crowded Sky deals with the ramifications of a hero losing their power. The question at hand during parts of the novel seems to be whether it is the powers or man (or woman) that defines the hero. King examines this through a variety of character’s whose responses cover all the ground between denial and acceptance. For several of the characters in the novel the notion that heroes “always come back” becomes almost a religious mantra and for others a curse. Watching the interplay between these contrary reactions is part of the novel’s fun. There is a surprising amount of depth to the examination of the notion of sacrifice and identity that belies the four-color Ben-Day dotted feel of the world of Arcadia. The primary means through which the reader experiences the inner-conflict is the character Soldier of Freedom. As perhaps the world’s oldest hero (in the story he has typically been frozen and unfrozen during times of conflict) he is perhaps the most knowledgeable as to how that notion on the cyclical nature of violence and conflict and it is through his thoughts and actions that the reader really gets to grips with the toll that cycle can inflict upon a hero.
King’s obvious major influence for A Once Crowded Sky is Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. Whereas Watchmen lightly employed the metafiction through The Tales of the Black Freighter, A Once Crowded Sky instead ties the elements of metafiction more directly into the story itself. I don’t want to get too deeply into those elements here, lest I spoil things, but King’s use of metafiction more directly examines the role of reader within the text and how expectation shapes the comic book form. This last bit is slightly problematic as I think it might only be more apparent to readers familiar with comics. It’s the sort of examination that might be tiresome if done with a heavy hand but King’s adept characterization and deft hand at world-building smooth the edges between the various deeper elements of story to create a seamless whole.
A Once Crowded Sky is a book that seems expressly designed for comic book readers. While readers of fiction might enjoy the overall story thanks to King’s skills they will likely miss out a thought provoking examination on a form and its consumers. This is a particularly impressive debut novel from Tom King and I can’t wait to see what else he will cook up.
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I liked this quite a bit, but it definitely aimed for a more literary feel with the prose than most such novels. Which is all well and good, but the stylings got in the way a bit. May just be me. Still excellent, however.
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
The story had a lot of possibility, but it’s bogged down with King’s attempt to novelize a graphic novel. It’s too wordy and too descriptive. There’s a reason why novels and graphic novels have distinct styles. Not terrible but probably not worth the time involved.
3.5/5
So I do just have to say initially that I love Tom King. I loved the first issues of Vision and Sheriff of Babylon and Grayson and The Omega Men (unfortunately I still have to read the rest of what's come so far, as I've been waiting for trades to continue the series), and the current Batman series he's been putting out has been great. I'm a huge fan and I'll probably buy any comic he does.
As such, I picked this up expecting to love it. And for the last third-ish, I kinda did. Unfortunately, though, for about the first two thirds it just never really grabbed me and it was hard to get into for a long time, as I wasn't the biggest fan of the writing style.
Maybe when I go back and re-read it I'll like it better as I'll be used to it (and I'll know that I'll really enjoy parts of it), but as of right now it was just a good read--but unfortunately not a great one as his comics have been.
So I do just have to say initially that I love Tom King. I loved the first issues of Vision and Sheriff of Babylon and Grayson and The Omega Men (unfortunately I still have to read the rest of what's come so far, as I've been waiting for trades to continue the series), and the current Batman series he's been putting out has been great. I'm a huge fan and I'll probably buy any comic he does.
As such, I picked this up expecting to love it. And for the last third-ish, I kinda did. Unfortunately, though, for about the first two thirds it just never really grabbed me and it was hard to get into for a long time, as I wasn't the biggest fan of the writing style.
Maybe when I go back and re-read it I'll like it better as I'll be used to it (and I'll know that I'll really enjoy parts of it), but as of right now it was just a good read--but unfortunately not a great one as his comics have been.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
"A Once Crowded Sky" is not much of a superhero novel. While the premise is interesting, it leaves only one character with powers, while all of the other characters are mostly just angsty. The author also really likes to kill his characters.