Time travel books. I like the concept of them and even have enjoyed some time traveling TV shows and movies, and I have even enjoyed some books with the theme. However, they also can confuse the bejimminies out of me.
The Earthdivers series had all the good stuff I like about books and time traveling books but also all the pieces that confuse me. And while things are fairly straight forward, when people start to backtrack on themselves, it gets confusing. Part of this is that many characters look similar. Therefore, I was not sure which person was which. Also some people are introduced seemingly out of the blue and that made me stop and say, Wait … .what?? Who is that!?!? Then there is the history and culture of the different tribes which I enjoyed, but did
The talking goat in volume one, Earthdivers V01: Kill Columbus did not help either.
Stephen Graham Jones (author), Davide Gianfelice (Illustrator), Joana LaFuente (Colorist), Steve Wands (Letterer), and Rafael Albuquerque (Cover Art), I am sure you are probably wonderful people. You really seem to love your work and put a lot of yourself into this interesting look into an alternative history and What If? “This new thing” happens to the story. Sure, killing Columbus could be a great thing. There would be so much new and good that could have happened. But what if Columbus originally came to the Americas and gave a cold to one of the characters of the story ancestors so that person died, and another person married their partner so therefore the “now” character is no longer alive, so he never goes back and kills you? Then what? Or what if that goat didn’t start talking and the boy wasn’t killed and HOW the heck did he (the kid) get to the future anyway?
And don’t get me started on Earthdivers V02: Ice Age! So, yes, if the woman who goes back to her (conveniently favorite hobby era) goes back, would she change things so they never had to go back and kill Columbus, but then if they didn’t what is happening with those characters. And really lady, you just magically learn to understand everyone back then? You never got sick or ran into something you couldn’t handle? You just have a wonderful (ish) life/
Again Jones, Riccardo Burchielli (Illustrator), Patricio Delpeche (Illustrator), Emily Schnall (Illustrator), Joana LaFuente (Colorist), and Steve Wands (Letterer), you’re probably nice people and I would love to sit down and talk to you about your work, but why does volume two move faster and volume one? I felt like it was over before I practically started. Of course, it is still confusing dealing with multiple timelines, places, characters and themes. And maybe I would like to know more about Emily and who they are? Um… are they two spirits? Or did I look at the image wrong? Again, this is an interesting look at alternative history and of course, if one tries to change history, how will history fight back?
In both books there are triggers galore, which include (but not limited to) violence, death, racism, slurs, paranormal, nudity and more. The illustrations are physically and emotionally dark that sometimes were too crowded and did not always give me the overall picture. A lot of what I was not liking about this series is personal preferences. The right reader(s) will be knocking on your door for what happens in volume three so keep up the good work! And yes, I am curious what is going to happen next.