This story was well-told and engaging throughout. I think it will definitely find its right audience and continue to inspire.

Ludovic Rio’s Aion is a simple but competent sci-fi story. There really isn’t very much to it, but that minimalism isn’t necessary a mark against it; instead, the book takes a few basic elements and delivers a solid genre piece that explores the ethical boundaries of technological advancement.

Lexi Neel is a starship captain on a long-haul trip for a major Earth corporation, the only human passenger on her ship. She left her home, her daughter, and everything she knew out of necessity. The book opens when an AI construct wakes her from hypersleep early because the ship’s computer intercepted a distress signal on the planet Aion.

When Lexi explores the planet, she discovers a complex that houses another AI construct, Maxine, and the remains of a dead man, Dr. Elliot Lorentz. Lorentz died months ago, leaving behind nothing but an encrypted notebook. When Lexi picks up the notebook, Maxine warns her that some kind of process is underway and there is no time to explain. Within a few seconds, Lexi disappears into thin air and the real story begins.

It turns out that there is a lot more to the story of Elliot Lorentz, who was a physicist studying anomalies on the planet Aion. The rest of the book follows Lexi as she uncovers the truth behind his experiments.

I read Aion in one sitting, in under an hour. It feels like an old-fashioned story of ideas, reminiscent of classic sci-fi without feeling retrograde. Aion delivers on what it promises, even if the end result is more competent than mind-blowing.

I also enjoyed the art, which mostly exists to serve the story. There aren’t any show-stopper panels, but it also doesn’t distract from the plot or feel like a mismatch for the characters. It’s both minimal and competent, which pairs well with the simplicity of the book.

Aion is worth picking up from the library if you’re looking for something to pass the time for a little while. That said, it doesn’t really bring anything new or exciting to the genre.

*Received via NetGalley for review*

A pretty standard "time loop used for villain's purposes" plot, with good art and pacing. I wish the end had been explained a little more - why did he hallucinate the lizard people (or did he)? Did everyone just live on the surface, or did they appear at once? - but it wrapped up satisfactorily enough.

'Aion' with story and art by Ludovic Rio is an atmospheric story set on a strange planet with characters with interesting agendas.

Captain Lexi Neel is woken from hypersleep by a distress call from a moon named Aion. On landing, she finds the long dead body of a scientist and an expressionless android who seems to have other plans for her. She learns of the scientists research left in cryptic notes, and his ultimate plan.

I really liked this story. It's a bit on the simple side, but I loved the mood. I really liked the art as well.

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.

A great GN; I loved the style of the illustrations and the colors. Story pacing was good. (This review is a little bare; I was down with a fever from the flu the day I read this, but fever-me really liked it.) Recommended for all library collections where Sci-Fi GNs circulate.

The year is 2312, a future in which we live together with Androids. We follow the story of a woman that gets woken up from Hypersleep on the way back to Earth. due to a distress call that was received and needs to be investigated. We explores the possibilities of space and time travel in this great adventure that was the perfect mix of scifi and basic human relationships.


I can recomment this title for any scifi fans out there that enjoy a good story and beautiful illustrations.

Good premise but I just didn't understand it. Didn't give me enough time to come to terms with what happened before it ended.
Needs a bit more plot and bit more character backstories but other than that it was alright. Beautiful illustrations!

Aion seemed quite interesting as it has a female heroine and it's a scifi comic. Captain Lexi Neel has been in hypersleep for a long time until she's woken up to investigate a distress signal from a mysterious moon named Aion. There she meets a scientist and through weird occurrences ends up as his test subject for time related studies. The whole thing is constructed quite well actually, but I wish there had been more pages, since the topic is interesting as is the loop. I would've liked to know more about the physics of the time travel and how and why the scientist ended up with his plans. Now it was more about Neel wanting to get back to her daughter and not caring about anything else. Also, we didn't get enough info on Aion either.

The art is OK, though nothing spectacular, but it works. I love the color world of blue and violet hues. Aion looks interesting! I also enjoyed the panels without text, since the rhythm was great in those and there was something philosophical in them too. The line art is a bit crude and thick for my taste. The font isn't the best either, since a graver one would've looked better. Still, Aion is quite good and you cannot really so no to time travel, so this is worth the read.

Amazing artwork. Loved the storyline and all the twist that happened was surprisingly good. Can't wait to read similar graphic novels or more things from this author.

Thanks NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC, in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed this sci-fi short, time loops are always fun, when done well. The end left me questioning a few things, however, I’m almost positive that’s the point. The art was beautiful, excellent coloring!

Aion
By Ludovic Rio
Europe Comics

This to-the-point science fiction story reads a little like a comics version of Duncan Jones’ Moon, with some temporal issues added. In the debut graphic novel by French creator Ludovic Rio, we are introduced to Captain Lexi Neel as she wakes up from her cryogenic slumber on a long journey back to Earth in order to attend to a distress signal that her ship has received.

You take in enough space stories and pretty quickly learn that when people are woken up during a journey, nothing good is about to happen, but as Lexi goes down to the moon Aion, she finds a mystery that rapidly evolves into something else entirely, shifting from sinister to something with a perfectly logical explanation. Maybe.

Aion, it seems, has “peculiarities” that make it the perfect place for certain research, and Lexi’s investigations take her through the abandoned research post there to try and figure out why her ship received a distress signal and who that skeleton in the chair belongs to.

To give anything away is to give too much away, so suffice it to say that Lexi encounters one of the moon’s “peculiarities” and finds a temporal shift may give her the opportunity to return to Earth at the exact moment she left, and make up for the regret-filled years she’s spent on her space mission instead of being with her daughter.

Aion creeps along in its suspense with an old style pacing that is alway welcome with science fiction. It gives time for some of the issues it explores to actually be ironed out —among them the idea that knowledge is worth any cost, notions of what constitutes real consciousness in artificial intelligence. Rio’s art crafts an atmosphere of foreboding, in which Lexi wanders through remote, sometimes hostile backdrops, but also empty ones that succeed in bringing a chill to the experience by offering little more than their depiction and placing her in them.

I was provided a free copy of this eBook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Aion is the perfect sci-fi graphic novel. It has space travel, androids, alien life forms and science combined in a great story blend that follows Captain Lexi Neel, who sacrificed years of life with her daughter when she left Earth on a decades-long mission through the depths of space. But her hypersleep journey back home is interrupted when a distress signal takes her on the mysterious moon Aion, home to exotic wildlife and a research station dedicated to study of the moon's "particularities." She might get a second chance at the life she wanted with her daughter, a chance to start over as if she never left, but not everything is what it seems.

It`s an easy read, fast-paced and compact story. While I`ve seen some things coming ( it kind of seems to be the classic story off good robot turns bad and kills humanity, in this case android overriding the program to maybe protect humanity maybe not, you`ll have to read it and find out :D ) it comes with some very unexpected plot twists, which is great and keeps you intrigued in finding out what`s going to happen next. The art in the graphic novel is beautiful and it adds to the experience.

Overall I can`t say I was blown away by it, but I liked the story, I`d definitely pick up the sequel to find out more about it. :)

Three stars for this, for it proved to be an interesting and visually very attractive story from the twilight zone, about a scientist pioneering time travel. It manages to get a power play in, and references many sci-fi stories (oh, and The Prestige too), but I just felt it needed a final oomph to kick it into really memorable. I have no idea why he killed himself, for one thing, and I would have thought the repetition involved in the plot would have lead to something a bit more meaningful. Instead we're left with something that, like about 90% of time travel stories, falls apart with too much thought being applied to it. But it does still look good at the same time.

Thank you to Europe Comics for making available a digital edition of ‘Aion’ in exchange for an honest review. Its script and art was by Ludovic RioI. It was published in English on 17 July and translated from the French by M.B. Valente.

Captain Lexi Neel is on a decades-long commercial mission into deep space. She is woken from hyper sleep by her ship’s android. It advises her that she was woken early due to a distress signal received from Aion, a forest moon that was once home to a research station dedicated to studying the moon’s ‘peculiarities’.

I won’t say more about the plot in order to avoid spoilers but I found ‘Aion’ an interesting standalone science fiction graphic novel with beautiful artwork. The breathtaking vistas of outer space deserve special mention.

I had to download the reader to get this, but I just bought a new laptop and was struggling with Windows Home S Mode. I tried to download the book today after I figured out my laptop, but the download link expired today. Very sad I can't offer feedback since I didn't get to read Aion. I have to give a star rating, so I'll stick right in the middle. I apologize if this messes up your stats!

This graphic comic story spins a tale of mystery and time travel. Who is good and who is the greedy one who wants to control an underhanded experiment? Great job and excellent artwork. Highly recommended.

An entertaining graphic novel that I would recommend to sci-fi fans.
The art was beautiful and the concept was interesting but I didn't like the execution that much.

A very interesting concept and I love the execution. The twists in it and that ending was really good. The artstyle was fine but the backgrounds were stunning.

The story is about Lexi who wakes up from a hyper sleep because of a distress signal. When she goes to investigate, she finds that the lab is in a dire state and the engineer there is dead. Just as she picks up the engineer's notebook, the Android taking care of the place sents her back in time and the story gets more interesting as it goes on.

The only thing I didn't enjoy in this book is the repeated panels in some pages.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with the digital copy for an honest review.

What a twisty read! I love standalone graphic novels and this fit the bill. The idea behind this story felt like it would fit right into an episode of Star Trek. I enjoyed the story and all the twists to it, but there were a few pages that felt repetitive due to the time travel nature of the story. And while the story plays on popular ideas in science fiction, it was still worth reading. Overall this is a quick read with artwork that fit the story.

Aion was such a fun sci-fi comic! The plot was interesting and dare I say, quite unexpected. I love the twist and I'm longing for more when I hit the last page. The art style matches the whole vibes of this story and it was even a bit creepy at some point. I'm especially loving the atmospheric background!

Thank you Europe Comics and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Final Rating — 3.5/5