Graphic Novel Review: Across a Field of Starlight by Blue Delliquanti
The Details
Media Type: Graphic Novel
Title: Across the Field of Starlight
Author(s): Blue Delliquanti
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Pages/Length: Hardcover; 352
Release Date: February 8, 2022
Source: Publisher / TBR and Beyond Tours
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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An epic sci-fi graphic novel romance between two non-binary characters as they find one another through time, distance, and war. An amazing story that explores the complexity of human nature and what brings us together.
When they were kids, Fassen’s fighter spaceship crash-landed on a planet that Lu’s survey force was exploring. It was a forbidden meeting between a kid from a war-focused resistance movement and a kid whose community and planet are dedicated to peace and secrecy.
Lu and Fassen are from different worlds and separate solar systems. But their friendship keeps them in each other’s orbit as they grow up. They stay in contact in secret as their communities are increasingly threatened by the omnipresent, ever-expanding empire.
As the empire begins a new attack against Fassen’s people–and discovers Lu’s in the process–the two of them have the chance to reunite at last. They finally are able to be together…but at what cost?
This beautifully illustrated graphic novel is an epic science fiction romance between two non-binary characters as they find one another through time, distance, and war.
The Review
I have so many thoughts after finishing Across a Field of Starlight that it’s going to be difficult for me to get them all down coherently. So please pardon the mess of words that is about to follow. As an avid reader of graphic novels, I’ve come to love the special way that they can share a story. The amount of emotion and nuance that can be put into a beautifully illustrated panel is honestly still staggering to me every time I dive into one. Across a Field of Starlight uses this super power to full effect. Fassen and Lu’s story is something gorgeous, and it still hasn’t quite processed fully through my mind.
Before anything else, I want to praise how beautiful the non-binary rep is in this story. Instead of being Lu and Fassen’s whole identity, or dictating what they decide to do at all times, them being non-binary is just a single factor of who they are. These two are so perfectly faceted, which makes the fact that their life experience is so different from one another all the more fascinating. See, Lu was raised in on a commune that takes in war refugees. They research tech, and use their resources to take care of their people. Fassen’s life couldn’t be more different. On their world, war is the norm and fighting for the “cause” is the only thing that puts food on the table. If you want resources, you have to be useful. Watching these two meet, and slowly learn to understand one another, was a wonderful thing.
I could gush on and on about all the topics tackled in this book. About the appropriation of native lands to “help” them escape from the war. About the concept of AI and whether it can be used for good instead of nefarious purposes. About the the way that this story depicts how the ease in “being yourself” is highly dictated by the society that you grow up in. There are so many pieces of this story that just make you stop and think. As I said above, the illustrations are honestly just the icing on the cake of this already gorgeous story. There is so much raw emotion in every panel, and I just ate this story up. Lu and Fassen’s relationship was a breath of fresh air for me and I was so happy to have discovered it.
If you’re looking for Sci Fi graphic novel that will delight you, while simultaneously making you seriously reconsider your feelings about all sorts of topics, Across a Field of Starlight is what you’re looking for.
Blue Delliquanti (they/them) is a comic artist and writer based in Minneapolis, MN.
From 2012 to 2020 Blue drew and serialized the Prism Award-winning science fiction comic O Human Star at ohumanstar.com. Blue is also the co-creator of the graphic novel Meal (with Soleil Ho), published through Iron Circus Comics, and The ‘Stan (with David Axe and Kevin Knodell), published through Dead Reckoning. They teach comics courses at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Blue is represented by Jen Linnan of Linnan Literary Management LLC.
