Books: Andromeda Stories Graphic Novel 2

The first volume of Andromeda Stories dreamed big, took big risks, and got away with all of them. Here we had a far-future saga of man vs. machine that bristled with more creativity and wonder in its first book than many other manga do through the whole of their run. Now comesVolume 2, and I have the distinct feeling that if anything I might have under-rated this series. The second volume is even more adventurous and daring than the first — which means that if my math is right, the third volume will most likely cause my eyeballs to melt. There are worse ways to go, if you ask me.

Andromeda Stories (originally published from 1980 through 1982) was the brainchild of Keiko Takemiya — she of another outstanding space-fantasy epic, To Terra… — and noted Japanese SF author Ryu Mitsuse. It probably sounds like an unlikely collaboration from the outside; what would a shojo manga creator and an SF author be doing pooling their talents? But if you’ve read Terra, the parallels ought to be obvious: throughout Terra, you could sense Takemiya’s native fascination with the way SF can be used to make larger statements about identity and the place of the individual in the universe. I picked up strong parallels with another female SF luminary, Ursula K. Le Guin — in fact, for those familiar with Le Guin, Andromeda bears some vague thematic resemblances to her Hainish Cycle stories, although Takemiya and Mitsuse are unmistakably doing their own things with this work.

Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.