I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This book was more one dimensional that I thought that it would be. It was a great concept but in the end only about sex.

This book had too much nudity and sex for my taste. 
I get that they have only their mind and they can do whatever they want, so they want to test their fantasies. 

I believe it could have been done differently. It gets repetitive after a while seeing these scenes. Particularly when I think the topic of this book has so much potential. If you are only your mind and you can imagine anything, there is a lot you can do/create/explore, you just have to imagine it...

The book changes somewhere along the line and focuses on what the characters, particularly Rene, are feeling. I did enjoy that part and line of thought and think it could have been more explored.

A man and a woman are given the chance to live in a virtual reality where they can do or be anything they want. And what do they choose to do? Have sex, because of course that is something one can never have in real life, right? Boring and attempting to be cool.

What would <i>The Matrix</i> <b>really</b> be like? 

This comic pursues that question and answers it in a riveting narrative. 

This was quite an adventure. 

But I’m surprised that it didn’t seem to tackle moral questions.  

I did like the way it tackled the question of how we might respond to such a world. 

<i>Thanks to NetGalley and Europe Comics for a copy in return for an honest review.</i>

This graphic novel blew me away.

Upon opening the graphic novel theres a few patterns or simplistic illustrations that I just loved so much I had to share bits of them. I’m not even sure if anyone else will appreciate them as much as I did but they left me feeling inspired.

If I had to describe it simply to you I’d say “its like the Matrix but if we chose it to happen”.

The Earth is dying and Josiane and René are the first two people to enter our new world  – a virtual world.

They’re stripped and entered into these “eggs” where at the touch of their fingertips, their thoughts, or their words they can create anything.

Anything?

Yes! ANYTHING.

Whilst the two are in sepeate eggs they are in the new world together, just them. So of course the first thing they do is generate more people so it feels like empty and lonely. These are not real people, they’re just part of the program, but the more Josiane and René interact the more the program learns so its more natural at generating responses and actions. But still not quite human.

You might have a bit of an idea where this is going.

Consent!

Josiane jumps in with two feet and after talking to one of the divers she then touches his junk. Without permission. And this graphic novel handles this so well that I’m just going to share an image from it:
[image]

and its that easy folks.

Other authors take note.

Consent is important. Consent has to happen.

It could’ve so easily not had this involved given its a virtual world, virtual people, but they chose to have it and I LOVED IT.

I also really liked that its the female character who tried this and thenwho also experiments most with her sexual fantasies. She ends up completely overwhemled by how wild and extravagant they are later on and seeks Rene out for comfort and normality as he’s mostly rejected the idea of sexual acts because they didn’t feel real enough / he was too aware it was made up.

I think seeing these polarising experiences with sex were such a great exploration of sexuality and super important. Especially for those who are on the ace-sepctrum, even if this wasn’t totally ace rep René didn’t have the drive he once had and found other ways to pass the time.

I think I’ve spoken enough about the sexual aspect of this book because there is more to it.

As they can create anything René does just this and explores how far he can take creating his own world! Its really interesting to see just how far his experiment goes as it really pushes the boundaries on what you could create in a reality that allows you to create anything.

Later on in the story the rest of the real world who signed up to live here are allowed access – once they’re sure its all a-okay the system works – and it was very interesting watching how other people adapted. Or didn’t. Or struggled.

It also provided new possibilities and exploration of their ideas for Josiane and René and causes them and the reader to think about the outside world a little more.

It gets us asking questions!
Overall I really recommend this graphic novel, its very different to everything else I’ve read but its got such a great social commentary on our lives and the possibilities of the future that I couldn’t not love it. Plus the whole matrix vibes!!

My only complaint was the font wasn’t super easy to read… if I wasn’t squinting so much maybe it’d have 5 star.

Ever wonder what the future holds for people in an augmented reality? If you read this book, you might have a better idea. Following Rene and Josiane, they are some of the first people to venture into the new world that has been created to escape reality. Anything is possible, you just have to think about it. 

After climbing into a sort of bag that connects into them, they're pushed into a completely simulated word. Though there aren't other people in there yet, they're happy to test everything out and escape from reality completely. It seems like an abandoned island, but like I said, anything is possible, and in a second after wanting more people there, they show up. You can have anything you want, you just have to accept that it isn't reality, or you might run into some problems. 

The reason I couldn't give this book a full five stars, is because I had a really hard time reading the writing. Though it did get easier as it went on, I just couldn't get every word, and that was kind of frustrating. I liked the story, but the reviews that other people have left, painted a very different picture than the actual story did. What I'm trying to say is, don't judge a book purely from reviews. If it seems like something you'd like, definitely check it out. The art was very interesting and a lot different than other books I've read lately, but if you're not into nudity you might not like this book, because it's full of it. 

Overall I enjoyed reading this and getting to know the characters. Check it out if you like futuristic worlds with insane technology, but also people dealing with their very real feelings in a very fake world.

Thanks for reading!
(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

A gorgeous, trippy and very French graphic novel about the first two people patched into the virtual world for which humanity is abandoning a dying Earth. At first, she just takes advantage of the possibility of endless configurations of gang-bang, but he can't quite handle the lack of authenticity and mainly ends up reading. And, granted that Percival Everett's Erasure was a fabulously niche choice for him to read, and that at least they didn't have the gender split the other, more obvious but I think less true way, I was still wondering 'is this it?' Turns out, that's entirely deliberate, because so are they, and from there things get far stranger. There's an enormous amount packed into this, and I mean that only partially in the innuendo sense, but it doesn't hold your hand, something which other readers seem to have taken for formlessness. Also, the handwritten lettering, while making for an effective contrast with the system's printed responses, can be slow going.

(Netgalley ARC)

This was a very strange little graphic novel that got me thinking about bigger themes of virtual reality and the way that people are moving further and further away from human contact. Definitely thought provoking, to say the least.

I was unable to download this one for some reason, I tried several times.  However, I was able to get a copy elsewhere.  I loved the art style, it put me in the mind of Moebius.  I can't wait to order for our library!

‘Alt-Life’ is a spectacular exploration of the ‘experience machine’ thought experiment. What happens when humans are exposed to a world where anything and everything is possible, all your desires can be instantly met and suffering and hardship is removed from the human experience. The book follows it’s characters through their exploration of this new world, seeing one explore her deepest sexual fantasies, and the other become an angry god. It really is an excellent illustration of the concept and very well thought through. There is a great deal of sexual content, which I wasn’t keen on but given the subject matter it was at least justified. My only major complaint is that the font used throughout the book is damn near impossible to read. It is genuinely the single worst choice of font I have ever seen in any form of literature and it infuriated me - I almost had to stop reading at the beginning as I struggled so much with the font.

Alt-Life by Thomas Cadene is a free NetGalley e-comicbook that I read in late October.

Two people living out their quite simple, occasionally perverse preferences in a simulative, reactionary sac within a mildly distant future where its inhabitants seem in tune to their experiences. And, even if they’re able to experience anything they can think of, they’re encumbered by what they’re not allowed to or prefer not to do, like peeing freely or feelings of existential loneliness and inadequacy. It’s fun, quirky, and very colorful, but their thought and speech bubbles are written in a tight cursive, so it’s somewhat hard to read compared to the all-caps Arial font that the rule-making saclife moderator speaks in.

I was torn on how should I rate this graphic novel because I like the concept of the story of this graphic novel. However, a lot of parts especially in the beginning that concentrates in the sexual fantasies of one of the characters. The latter part of the story is better but I think the ending should have been improved more. As a whole, it could have a great potential because of its concept, but the flow of the story is not executed well.

Human beings have always wanted to believe in a re-set. In more traditional terms this has taken the form of an afterlife, but as technology has progressed, some form of virtual reality alternative to the physical universe has become desired. Well, apparently. I don’t think I know anyone who thinks seriously about packing it all up and hooking themselves up to a computer that would create a perception fo a new reality for them, but damn if futurists and science fiction writers aren’t convinced that’s what we all want.

Maybe it is, and maybe that’s because while we don’t dream of full-blown virtuality, we dip our toes on a daily basis in the form of online communities via social networking, or perhaps in multi-player games. Some people were obviously ready to go when Second Life was released on the world, but that didn’t add up to too many people. We’re still evolving to the point where most of us want to do that with our consciousnesses.

In Alt-Life, circumstances have dictated that humans depend more and more on various levels of unreality in order to just get by in the world, but the next big leap is about to arrive and Josiane and Rene are the test subjects in the vast new virtual universe that the human race is about to give itself to.

During their year of exploration, Josiane is living out her wildest fantasies, but only able to enjoy doing so by acknowledging that they are not with real people, rather than letting herself perceive the virtual as the real. Rene, by contrast, wants to do the same but can’t, and multiple attempts to embrace his situation as a sex fantasy wonderland has proven fruitless for him. The perceived fake-ness is a turn-off for him.

In a lot of ways, the preoccupation with sex makes sense as a meeting point of various aspects of the human experience. In a virtual world where people crave touch, sex and violence are the two ways that touch is experienced with the most intensity. Sex also gives understandable parameters to limitless possibilities. In the end, it’s a formula that leads to defined success, a form of exploration that always brings you to the same basic discovery.



The experiment heralds in what is presented as an inevitable truth, not only the passing of biological life, but the desire of sentient biological life to pass. The idea is that participants will enter into the new virtual reality technology and remain there for the rest of their lives, disembodied personalities moving onto a new stage of existence where no one has to go to the bathroom or anything else gross unless the fantasy in the experience prefers something like that.

Unfortunately, copyrights do dictate your freedom. You can’t just have sex with celebrity likenesses. You can’t just wear costumes that are the intellectual property of some other entity. And though the possibilities are limitless, they are still controlled by your wealth, in the form of memory points. The more memory you have, the more extravagant your virtual world can be, but you need memory points for all that. Meager memory points mean meager lives.



The parallels with the Internet are obvious here, but Thomas Cadene’s script explores these ideas in a fresh way, mixing philosophy and satire with a literary intelligence, and in Josiane and Rene offering two characters that become very relatable in their different experiences. Artist Joseph Falzon has a definite Moebius vibe going on, balancing the psychedelic and fantastic with the more intimate sexual moments using the same energy regardless of scope. The talents of both make this one of the strongest of Europe Comics‘ ebook releases.

There is a lot of fairly graphic sex, but I found what sets it apart from so many comics presenting the same is the way these scenes are integral to the themes of the story. The expressive panels of people touching tenderly and intensely, juxtaposed with the more over the top sexual fantasy scenes, reveal a lot about the experience of the characters and also their personalities, adding dimensions to the story that wouldn’t be there without the scenes.

This was an odd graphic novel to say the least. I didn't even try to finish it after about half way through it.

This book was crazy in a good way! It was certainly well drawn, had an interesting and amazing concept and story. The entirety of the plot kept me riveted and thinking about what will happen to the human race in the future, and how we will evolve. Well done.

Alt-Life is the story of what happens when two horny French people volunteer as beta testers for an all-encompassing VR experience that lets them escape from the polluted, dying Earth. Once you’re inside the VR devices, which look like giant red eggs full of undulating cilia, the system integrates with your body and you live out the rest of your life on the inside.

For the first year they’re inside the devices, Josiane and René are alone in an infinite world, testing out the system so that the rest of humanity can join them when it’s ready. They explore its limits and discover that there aren’t any as long as your device has enough memory. They also explore every possible sexual fantasy. Josiane sinks into endless hedonism, but René quickly becomes disillusioned with the lack of substance in his imagined encounters and loses his sex drive.

This, then, is where more existential questions come into play. If you can have anything you imagine with the snap of your fingers, does any of it have meaning or value? What does it mean to be rich or powerful in a virtual world? The arrival of other humans in the virtual world brings even more complications because, by that time, Josiane and René have changed in immeasurable ways.

While René and Josiane are inside their virtual world, we also get glimpses of the world outside. It’s obvious that the Earth has become inhabitable, presumably due to some kind of environmental catastrophe (sound familiar?) and humanity has created these bizarre organic VR devices as a way to preserve themselves in some form, even if that means living out the rest of their lives in an imaginary world.

From reading some of the other reviews of this book, it seems like the wall-to-wall sex was a bit much for some readers, but Alt-Life is about more than just sex. Instead, the author explores the nature of humanity and what it could mean to give up on “real life” and retreat into a virtual refuge. It just happens to be a particularly horny refuge.

I especially enjoyed the art style. At first, everything is minimalist, all solid colors and simple lines, but once Josiane and René start letting loose and playing with their abilities, there are huge panels full of bright colors and meticulous detail. It’s a beautiful book. My only criticism is that the dialog is lettered in a tight cursive, which makes it difficult to read.

'Alt-Life' by Thomas Cadene with art by Joseph Falzon is a dystopian graphic novel about two explorers who will save humanity by trying to live in a weird kind of bubble reality.

Rene and Josiane get chosen to participate in a new program that will hopefully save the human race.  They don odd suits and wake up in a place where they can make anything happen with the power of their mind.  The world is lonely, so they populate it with simulated humans.  Then they start having sex with them. Or not having sex as the case may be.  Josiane has no problem, but Rene feels weird about it all.  Rene also feels weird about not hurting when he falls, or having smelly armpits.   It's a strange new world, and these are kind of strange people.

Besides all the sex, and there seems to be an awful lot, I liked the premise of this.  I really liked the art.  What seemed odd to me about this is they have a program and they manage to pick these two?  Rene seems to have trouble coping and Josiane just wants to have sex all day.  It seems like a weird basis for an experiment.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Thank you very much for making this volume available for my review. The appeal of this particular book was not evident to me, and if I cannot file a generally positive review I prefer simply to advise the publisher to that effect and file no review at all.

This was an imaginative story with excellent artwork and gorgeous colouring. Earth is dying and so people are entering a new virtual world where anything is possible.

Josiane and Rene are the first to test out this new world. It is a world that has so many possibilities and much potential, but no turning back. Josiane embraces this new world and all it has to offer, especially with regards to sex, but Rene struggles with this abundance of new life and experiences. For him the new world is a lonely place.

I thought this story was interesting, particularly in the way it shows how Josiane and Rene explore their new world. I thought there was a lot of emphasis on sex in the new world and the story could have broadened out a bit to include other aspects of life. At some point other people enter the new world and I wanted to know more about who was left behind sustaining people as they enter their pods. Was this world limitless in what could be imagined or did people place limitations on themselves?

As other people enter the new world it becomes clear that people have to pay for levels of comfort in the new world so inequality was actually built into a world that was supposed to bring hope for people and I though that was another interesting aspect. To enter the new shiny, limitless world is freedom and excitement but also death.

It is a fascinating story which raises lots of questions which the reader can ask as they reflect on the gorgeous art work.

Copy provided by Europe Comics in exchange for an unbiased review.

*Got this book courtesy of NetGalley*
It's surely something else. On the one hand, it's pretty messed up, but on the other - very interesting to read and look at. Truth is the story is pretty simple - two young people entering a virtual reality world, to see how it's going to work for the rest of humanity, which will follow suit. They explore this new world of possibilities, which are endless, as it turns out. The only boundary is your imagination. Or so it seems. Perfect world is not so perfect after all... The drawings are pretty nice, I liked the colours, too. 
It is full of sex and sensuality, but the scenes aren't vulgar. I liked that. 
An intense story for sci-fi and thinking fans.