Review by Booklist Review
Robot sentience and its tropes are littered throughout sci-fi mythos. Luna and Vaughn are well aware of this fact, and they use it as a springboard to eliminate bloated exposition and clunky introductions, instead offering a crisp, if at times sterile, streamlined plot. Alex is a lonely twentysomething in a futuristic setting who uses mental implants to set his alarm, make coffee, and interact with the world. He is clearly depressed, and on his birthday, his grandmother buys him a lifelike, state-of-the-art female robot companion, whom he names Ada. When Alex looks for ways to give Ada sentience, recognizing that she will seem incomplete until she has it, he discovers an entire underworld faction attempting to free robots to bring about a revolution. Luna and Vaughn sprinkle in vast world building at an organic pace. Luna's art is a marked departure from most contemporary comic-book art spacious, spare, and minimalist, purposely mimicking the ordered, digital, and robotic nature of this imagined future. Fans of sci-fi comics should definitely add this to their to-read piles.--Spanner, Ben Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Luna (Ultra; Girls) has teamed up with newbie Vaughn (webcomic Sparkshooter) for this humanistic examination of relationships between artificially intelligent (AI) androids and humans. In the throes of a past relationship (seven months past), Alex stumbles through his day, his misery drawing the attention of his coworkers, family, and friends. In an attempt to break this cycle, Alex's grandmother surprises him for his birthday with a Tanaka X5 android, whom Alex will name Ada. As the story unfolds, Ada by most appearances looks like an attractive woman but with one important difference-Ada is prohibited from having freedom of choice. This limitation begins to torment Alex, so much so that he starts lurking in a clandestine android underworld found in online forums. His question: is Ada's lack of freedom a technological or legal limitation? All of this shady activity occurs within an environment in which many humans fear Ai turning violent against its own creators. Luna and Vaughn both share the writing; Luna's artwork possesses a beautiful simplicity that reinforces the importance of the characters to the narrative. Verdict Vaughn and Luna explore mature topics of what it means to be intelligent and human. There's also the promise in this series for more investigation into the importance of freedom of choice within meaningful relationships. Highly recommended to readers interested in adult themes and sf.-Scott Vieira, Sam Houston State Univ. Lib., Huntsville, TX (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
