Exo v2: “Moon Strike”

We get to the heart of the conflict in this book. It’s part military sci-fi, part crime scene investigation — just with more nanobots and robots and stuff.

Can the human race survive? Will I stay awake long enough to find out?

Credits on the Dark Side of the Moon

We Get Answers. But Do We Care?

This book lacks heart.

With the second volume, you can see Frissen moving all the pieces into place. A lot of the questions about the plot from the first book are answered here. By the end of the book, everything is lined up for a big finish in the third tome. You have the answers you needed from the beginning of the series, but that spins off a whole new set of complications and actions to take. The book ends on a strong note of tension from three different directions, all on a course to collide in spectacular fashion.

That’s pretty good storytelling. I like the plot mechanics and structure of it all.

But — there’s little to grab onto here. There’s no characterization to make me care. Yes, the human race is at stake. And there’s all the cool sci-fi stuff of modern times you expect — EMPs and Nanobots, specifically.

But the core of the story is a big wig at NASA whose daughter has been kidnapped by alien-controlled people, and he’s rather blasé about it. Instead, he focuses on a rather laid back bit of work with the military. He gets his answers really easily. Everyone else surrounding him walked into that room and told him what he needed to know. Thanks to that, he can then do the dramatic thing of going to the next person, asking a question, and learning everything else he needs to know.

This series is all about the plot. The characters are in service to that. Don’t expect a change in the characters here, not even anything so simple as a spurned father learning to love his daughter again.

This book is filled with the most passive good guys I’ve ever seen. Everything is laid out in a straight line to keep things moving, but everything comes fairly easily.

Back on the moon, however, there’s a chance for characterization. There’s even action and a few tense, thrilling moments. There’s a commando unit up there, freshly landed, looking for the enemy. They’re on their trail. There’s some cool bits of fighting and moon exploration to be had there, and a couple of Big Question type things going on. By the end of the book, the soldiers on the moon are left to question their orders — are they right? Or do they act on their own based on what they can see in front of them?

It might be up to one guy in the end, and — I have no idea how he might act, nor do I care. He’s another blank slate with a gun. Yes, he’s the guy whose wife wants him to settle down and raise a family that we saw in the first book. That scene didn’t tell us much about him. It just gave the writer a way to try to make us feel sad if he fails or happy for him if he succeeds and gets back in one piece. It’s a forced “tug at the heartstrings” thing. That’s not characterization.

Oh, and the NASA guy’s still having weird visions, even though he’s no longer under the influence of bad tea. I’m assuming this is a plot point of some sort that will be explained in the third (and final) book? I hope so….

Right now, it feels like that kind of pretentious crap filmmakers like to pull to pretend that they’re smart by creating visual allusions that are somehow deep or meaningful, but that ultimately don’t add anything to the plot.

I’m hoping this is the aliens reaching out to him from their base hidden in the Atlantic Ocean, trying to get a message to him. At the same time, that seems weird, too.

On The Plus Side….

The book’s not a total waste. The parallel of the missions between earth and moon are interesting. They might be occasionally slightly forced, but Frissen lines them up well enough so that they play off of each other in the reader’s mind as you read the book. The explanation for the alien invasion is solid and the twist offered up by the end of the book helps add a layer to the plot that pushes things in new directions at the last minute.

There’s also some good ticking time bomb moments, where (mostly) military folks have to make decisions for the greater good in light of the imminent threat. It almost reminds me of “24” in a couple of spots — as I recall, that television series even did its own EMP storyline once upon a time.

Just like with the first book, it’s Scoffoni’s art that keeps me reading on. I’ll be blunt here: If the art wasn’t so good, I likely wouldn’t have made it through this book. This is the classic case of a book that’s elevated by the art. Without this eye candy, I’d have moved on already.

His style reminds me of pieces from Ralph Meyer and Chris Sprouse. (Really, look at some of those faces!) Everything feels well constructed, and his style is attractive. There’s some sense that characters are based on real life people, but he abstracts enough of that away with his style that it isn’t at all distracting. It’s photoreferencing, not phototracing. (The covers come a little closer to the later. Perhaps his painting skills are just a tad too good…)

Scoffoni is great at drawing believable ordinary humans. He has great anatomy skills, which let him draw characters from all sorts of angles while still making them look good. They’re three dimensional, with some good old fashioned ink work to handle the shadows, rather than just relying on the coloring.

He tells the story well, even when it’s just two or three people in a room talking. There’s plenty of that in this issue. When he gets to the open fighting on the moon, though, his work steals the show. You can see it in the example at the top of this review, but you can also see his eye for landscapes in the example below. This is the kind of work that reminds me so much of Ralph Meyer’s “Undertaker” establishing shots.

His coloring is great, too. He has a very strong eye for cinematic styles of coloring. Whether it’s the cold blues and grays of the moon’s landscape or the hot yellows of the desert or the hot city streets, he knows how to color code his scenes to convey their atmosphere to the reader, above and beyond what his art, itself, is able to do.

Most impressively, the colors and the art don’t fight each other. The colors aren’t needed to complete the art. Everything is there on the page. The colors enhance it all, and add a new layer to it. When an artist is also a strong colorist, you get the best of both worlds combined into a single vision. It works.

Recommended?

Again, for the art, sure. Scoffoni is a talent worth taking a look at, even if the material he’s given to work with leaves something to be desired. Maybe if you look at this series as a summer movie blockbuster, you’d be setting your expectations to the right level to enjoy it.

I’m too far in to give up now. I’ll be reading volume 3 next. I hope any one character has a story arc at the end of things, but right now I’m not too optimistic.