So, this is a book project I've been covering, and waiting for, over the past 7 years. That was my first year at Comic Con walking around and seeing all the cool art, books, posters, and animation among the many aisles on the main hall floor of the convention.
It was also Armand's 1st year setting up a booth there, and every year after that I popped by to pester him to hurry up and get the book completed, as the teasing of the steampunk art was astonishing
simply put, the planet ran into a cosmic timewarp thing... ya know - use your imagination for effect - and some time periods of history and present were suddenly mixed and merged. Victorian era British and classical Ceasar era Roman generals, and Anerican fighter pilots battled it out after the event, and a peace was declared after the war, very recent in the story timeline, about 10 years before this book's events.
The result is a present time situation for the characters where only some real basic electricity works, like steam boilers powering generators, but not anything much more complex - like a IC chip, microchips, and computers. I don't think tvs or microwaves work.
So, just buy into the 1880s vibe where even flashlights are uncommon, and you're getting there. Now, some time traveling happened to entire continents, and things ended up flooding a lot of America, and Chicago turned out a lot like Venice with the water channels between buildings. Which is why a lot of the story illustrations involve water.
See what I mean about the steam punk?
and then there are the modern mechanicals reimagined.. like a submarine Isetta for 2
and the big Fordson tractor robot
I don't think I need to do a book review - lets say it's a lot longer a story than I though it was going to be, as Armand cleverly kept the 2nd and 3rd acts a secret! For YEARS! It is great to find you're surprised by the result when you've been talking to an author for 6 years about his book... and then you read it and it's 4 times the size I imagined, and has a fantastic plot twist in the first 1/4, a more difficult challenging journey than I ever thought the main character would go through, and finally it's not conforming to the rampant current trend of mixing in a love story to detract from the heroes quest.
I will spill the beans on one thing that was a total shock to me, this is only book 1! Not the full story of the characters, but a first book! That's a cool surprise too!
For a better book review, read : https://www.fantasymag.cz/timeless-steampunk-i-moderna-ve-svete-plnem-robotu-dinosauru-pary-a-piratu-v-pribehu-pro-male-i-dospele/
Art from
https://www.facebook.com/ArmandBaltazarStudios/
https://www.instagram.com/armand_baltazar/
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