talyseon's Full Review: Kevin J. Anderson - The Last Days of Krypton
In The Last Days of Krypton (ISBN 9780061340741) Kevin J. Anderson breaths new life into a dead planet.
Mr. Anderson is perhaps best known for his Co-authoring of the Dune Prequels with Brian Herbert, son of the late great Frank Herbert. He has also written several Star Wars novels and has his own epic cycle in the Saga of the Seven Suns series.
Now he turns his sights on Krypton.
Krypton is the home world of Kal-el, better known as Superman. First conceived by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, it is a world drawn and delineated in scraps and flashbacks by a hundred writers over the course of seventy years.
What Mr. Anderson has done is taken that huge body of mythology, and carefully sifted it, taken the straws of story lines and concepts thrown down like chinese pick-up-sticks, and spun them into gold.
The story focuses around Jor-el, preeminent scientist of Krypton. Jor-el is a bit of an oddity on his world, because he is a visionary. Krypton is an old culture, rich in tradition, stagnant in complacency. They are xenophobic, and due to a rogue dictator who blew up one of Krypton's three moons, technophobic. All innovation has to be evaluated by the Council, and if it is found to have destructive potential, it is banned.
The Council itself is mired in tradition; they have eleven members, and can only move forward by unanimous vote. As one can imagine, the Council manages to make very few changes.
Unfortunantly, while Kryptonian society may be extremely stable, the planet itself is not. It orbits a red giant entering the last stages of its life cycle, and is geologically unstable as well. There is even the threat of a cometary collision.
In all of this, young Jor-el, the Leonardo Da Vinci of his race, sees the warning signs. He does all he can to warn the populace, but they lack the vision to see the big picture like he does.
All except a few. Lara, a noted artist, sees the man behind the scientist, and falls in love. Dru-Zod, Commissioner of Scientific Advancement, sees the potential in Jor-el's work, and while he bans and confiscates invention after invention, he does not destroy them, he keeps them for himself.
When Jor-el manages to be heard, Zod uses his influence to help Jor-el; after all, Jor-el is talking about scary things, and it is scared populice that will hand over power.
Then enters the outside force, the tipping balance; the android Brainiac. Brainiac sees that Krypton is doomed, and swoops in to save a specimen, shrinking the entire capital city of Kandor to tiny size, and spiriting it away.
The seat of their government and culture a giant crater in the ground, Krypton panics. And it is in this climate that Dru-Zod, Commissioner of Science, seizes power, and becomes General Zod, ruler of Krypton.
And the people love him for it.
Zod supports Jor-el, and the two work together to save Krypton. But Jor-el never looses sight of the big picture, and the disasters that loom overhead, and beneath their feet. Zod just wants the trains to run on time so that people will see him as an effective leader, and hand him more power.
Soon enough, people begin to get their feet under them, and ask when are the next elections. That's when Zod starts to use the big sticks in his private arsenal to crush resistance, even finding several of the missles that Jax-Ur used to destroy Wegnor, the inhabited Kryptonian moon.
Everyone knows the out come; that's the nature of histories, even fictional ones. Its the journey that is entertaining.
And this book is very entertaining. Mr. Anderson has a fine understanding of human nature and sociology, and has created believable breathing characters. Zod's quest for absolute authority dooms his race. And if there is any part of this story has a fishy ring to it, most people would say its this; how does a petty bureaucrat end up seizing absolute power?
In answer, I have two words; Adolf Hitler.
Anderson's pacing and action sweep the reader along. Its a very easy read. His descriptive skills artfully build an alien world, born of comics, and here taking on life and breath here.
It is perhaps easier to take a book and turn it into a comic; the task of taking such a collection of comics, and creating a novel out of them seems overwhelming, but Kevin J. Anderson manages the task like a true master.
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