A review by uosdwisrdewoh
Sea of Dreams: Liu Cixin Graphic Novels #1 by Rodolfo Santullo, Cixin Liu

3.0

In this graphic novel, a huge alien form comes to earth and sucks up all the earth’s seas and rivers to make an ice sculpture in orbit, indifferent to the human suffering it creates to do so. It’s a fascinating concept, but this works better for me in theory than in execution. This is an adaptation of a prose short story, and this is the rare comic work that I think would work better without the visuals. In this book’s climactic moment, the alien’s enormous sculpture is revealed in a gatefold page, and while it’s striking, it’s not as awe inspiring as it’s meant to be. It would have worked better if the reader were forced to imagine it. The reader is also taken out of the scene at that moment by noticing the entire ground is covered with snow, in a world where all the water was supposedly taken to create this sculpture, which brings me my main hangup with this comic—the world-building doesn’t ring true. It at once hints at yet downplays the immense suffering that would result in a world deprived of water. The book’s conclusion is also at once too prosaic and pat for such an ambitious premise.

Liu’s role in this comic's creation seems to have been left purposefully obscure. Rodolfo Santullo is credited as the writer, so at first I wondered if Liu provided an outline that Santullo fleshed out for the artist Jok to illustrate? I had to dig online to discover that this is in fact an adaptation of Liu’s prose story, but that’s not made clear on the actual book. Given that I came away with the impression that this was best served as prose, it’s not a very successful comics adaptation. Still interesting, though.