By Owen D. Pomery (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-70-7 (HB)
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Worlds Enough but Never the Time… 9/10
It’s a dog-eat-dog universe and commerce is the only weapon with real power. Everything knows that. However, in what appears to be a barely-fictionalised acknowledgment of the tone of our times, Owen D. Pomery (after wowing discriminating comics fans with books Victory Point & British Ice, or shorter pieces Between the Billboards, The Megatherium Club Vl. 1: The Great Ape) has again picked imagination as his instrument for low-key speculative pessimism and wrought one of the most sinister sagas in utterly ages.
After studying architecture, mastering printmaking and succeeding in commercial illustration venues as varied as Tribune, Monocle and The New Yorker, subtle visualizer Pomery turns his Ligne Claire-influenced eye (like Hergé jamming with Moebius) and seditious tendencies upon a declining tomorrow too much like the one we’re all enduring…
A glorious paean to traditional “hard sci fi”, The Hard Switch follows hard-working independent traders at the end of civilisation. Interplanetary, interstellar, and intergalactic travel/trade depend on a substance called Alcanite. The mineral facilitates all converse between worlds and it’s almost all gone. When there’s no more, the universe faces an abrupt and total reversion to complete isolation-by-distance and everyone gets stuck wherever they are when the lights go out and the other shoe drops…
In advance of imminent inescapable disaster, many seek to monopolise what resources remain, whilst others – like cargo freighter crew Ada, pilot Haika and octopoid engineer Mallic – graft even harder. They are exploring every wreck and rumour: stockpiling exotic artefacts or simple offworld nuts-&-bolts in anticipation of the worst panic buying spree in history…
On desolate desert world Dakhos, a chance encounter with other salvage-scavengers leads to a staggering theory when a truly ancient artefact hints at another method of star-travel predating – and utterly exclusive of – Alcanite. Humanoid Ada is descended from Mateaic nomads and the relic holds clues arguably confirming the legends that her kind roamed the stars before the over-exploited mineral was ever discovered…
Sadly, proving it won’t pay bills, so they continue hauling cargo while quietly looking for more data. Their search sparks clashes with organised crime, murderous “hunters”, and even people-smugglers, before their misplaced – and unaffordable – ethics lead to another mouth to feed after cargo-turned-sole-survivor Hodge joins the crew. The 12-year-old also has plenty of close calls before the crew fetch up the world of a super-rich scientist who might have the information they need to offer civilisation a second chance, if not actual salvation…
Naturally, he’s not at all what he seems, or what they need.
Tense and action-oriented, subtle and potently affable, this yarn is packed with tension and intrigue as our unlikely stars seek a whole new/old manner of interstellar transit and just staying alive for a sequel. Seductive and restrained in the Continental manner, The Hard Switch is a potent confection delivered in a beautiful, evocative and utterly compelling way no one could possibly resist. Therefore just don’t… possibly all the vacation you’ll need this year…
© Owen D. Pomery 2023.
The Hard Switch is scheduled for release on October 24th 2023 and is available for pre-order now.