I took Out of Darkness from the dark depths of my rather too-long TBR. It had been there since a time where I devoured (post)apocalyptic stories, although I have to admit that recently I've become a bit weary of them.

Mora has left the relative safety of her colony to try and safe said colony by bargaining a deal with what clearly is an evil entity, exchanging goods for protection. One of the many things however that she has sadly overlooked, is that she is in no position to the bargaining on behalf of her colony. Also, cars run out of fuel, she didn't think of that. Obviously, she never makes it to her meeting, but is rather taken up by another colony. Here she can see what the 'protection' she is looking for, looks like.

I didn't like Mora. It was a miracle to me that she survived long enough to become the main character, because she does one stupid thing after the other. Besides, she has special abilities and the future of the world lies in her hands. There is - once more - two brothers fighting over Mora's favor.

The worst part however, was the lacking world-building. I realize it is difficult enough nowadays to have a slightly original zombie (eh, greyskin) story, but it was lacking here. The big reveal was hardly a reveal at all, and I was left with a lot of questions. But not in a good way.

No more Starborns for me.

The cover was what initially pulled me towards Nils: The Tree of Life, because recently I had the feeling I was tiring a bit from the dystopian novels, having previously everything I could get my hands on. Especially within the graphic novels, I’ve often felt disappointed with the execution of the concepts.

I did not need to worry though. First of all, the artwork was splendid and even if there had been no story, I would have liked to look at it. The colors worked really well. I’ve read some reviews stating that the story felt rushed and little detailed but I don’t fully agree with them. Of course, there is a limited amount of information one can get across in the span of a 200 pages graphic novel, but still I got a good grasp (I think) of what was going on. A lot is happening at any time, and I do agree that there has not been a lot of character development, but this didn’t bother me too much.

Would recommend.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This third volume was the last one I have in this series and frankly, I don't think I will continue after this. While I'm a bit intrigued whether they will at some point be able to communicate with the Gauna and what they would learn from that, I don't think it is worth it continuing the series.

More battles that are hard to follow, interspersed with some seemingly random scenes which do little however to develop the characters further. There's a couple of flashbacks as well, and one of them did confirm some of my suspicions, while another one left me with more questions and less answers still.

Interesting premise, but it didn't really work for me.

Continuing Knights of Sidonia, volume 2 mainly is more of the previous. There is a lot of battles against different types of Gauna, which is the alien races fighting the humans. There is a lot of inexperienced people who have to do important jobs. The main character goes from hero to zero and back again in the span of chapters.

I find the drawings are a bit full which sometimes make it more difficult to follow the story, especially during all the battles where there's so many tentacles and other things that it sometimes becomes a bit of a blur. I'd rather see a little bit more character development.

I got the first three volumes of Knights of Sidonia (couldn't help but think of Muse's Knights of Cydonia) a while back and have finally come around to reading them. It's a space opera Manga about a self-sustaining colossal ship Sidonia and its mecha fighters that battle against an alien, shape-shifting species dead set on destroying humans.

This first volume is like many first volumes. Some things are promising but a large part of it is dumping characters and information about the world on you as you try to figure out what will become important later. The main character at this point was this typical nobody with a mysterious past that I'm sure will become important at some point.