


There's one director or delegate striding through a crowd bellowing about her right to exploit resources in spite of the Gnishes' complaints. It all seems pretty idyllic and I can quite clearly see how culture could thrive even if not everyone is relaxed. This is the cultural and technological hub of the nine Core Planets where resides its United Galactic Council. The opening shot looking out and over one of the nine Embassy Cities of the planet Niyrata with its fume-free traffic criss-crossing on multiple tiers is an almost electrical thrill, while the cars themselves are the sleekest and juiciest that Matchbox never made. The watercolours here are equally lush and loose, and in half a dozen paragraphs it will become clear that Dustin Nguyen's command of scale is vital. There's such beautiful, bright light and a vast sense of space that I'm immediately reminded of Jon J. Perfectly paced, action-spliced science fiction in the vein not of the Moebius-inspired PROPHET but of SAGA or OCEAN or TREES.
