Cover Image: A Radical Shift of Gravity

A Radical Shift of Gravity

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Member Reviews

A beautiful book, and quite different from what I normally read, making it refreshing. Great story and lovely illustrations, recommended.

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Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. I do not get to look at many graphic novels. I am just not comfortable with the genre. It seems to me that combining visual art with wordsmithing is very difficult tyo do properly. This novel is very much a good concept but, as with other graphic novels, too much is done in too little space. The result is that I found the story hard to follow. What the author and artist were trying to express did not make it to my eyes.

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Interesting premise. Earth's gravity is shifting. Almost like an earthquake it will lessen with people eventually floating to their doom if unanchored.

Unfortunately, it suffers from poor execution. The story shifts back and forth through about 8 different times. The only indication of time shifts is how the main characters hair is cut. That's a problem with the often rudimentary art. It looks like the artist is learning on the job. The first half of this book looks like sketches and thumbnails. Eventually the coloring gets better to hide some of the shortcomings of the penned artwork. The book could have also used an editor. The first half of this book is soliloquy after soliloquy without furthering the story. The story stagnated enough that I considered setting the book aside several times.

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This is a quiet family tale told in a future in peril.
I thought that the characters were really well established and the father/daughter dynamic was really well done and realistic as well.
I felt like I immediately cared about this family and could understand both sides in the argument, which is difficult to do.
The story was very grounded and small considering the scope of the setting, which set it apart from other similar premises I've seen.
The art was lovely and so unique in it's watercolor nature.

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A change in gravity seems to make a lot of changes, especially in how people look at the world. I have always been a little skeptical of nonlinear storytelling especially if it's directly brought up like it's trying to cover up mistakes. But maybe that's what made this so good. Released in a time with Flat Earth Theories still a subject in discussion, this series goes into how sudden changes can change people's world view. Following a reporter (Noah) whose greatest memories are what he holds onto so closely, the reader sees the dynamic shifts between parts of his life. Nobody fully understands what the effects of gravity have on a person, especially when the rules about it seem to change when applied to people. But it's this lack of full understanding of things and the faults that come from it that drive wedges between people. When things seem untrustworthy, people want to reject every part of it. While no one side can be perfect, it's a lack of trust and confirmation bias that leads to people trying desperately to hold onto whatever semblance of a normal life they can. But how much of this is control and how much is just delusions? Furthermore, how long can people hold onto their delusions?

Which brings up an important question: What's the difference between biased truth and subjective facts? If you don't know what goes onto a subject, what happens when all you have left are your projections? Sometimes it's better to just take it easy and roll with the punches.

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'A Radical Shift of Gravity' by Nick Tapalansky with art by Kate Glasheen is about a planet changing even and how one man reacts.

Gravity starts to disappear and people try to adapt. Noah is in love and raising a daughter, but he's also reporting on the strange events. New sports crop up or adapt to less gravity as people react with a kind of delight. Gravity continues to change though and that has Noah and others concerned. Noah and his now older daughter find themselves at odds about the future.

I really liked this SF tale that oddly mirrors the times I find myself living in. I liked how the story jumped through time, and even though the story affected everyone, the scope stays personal. I found it moving and I'm glad I was able to read it.

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

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This book has gorgeous art, a really interesting premise, a fun non-linear plot, but I just have no clue what the point of it was. It's opaque whether this is a story about how we come to terms with loss or how humanity strives to defeat every challenge or how the earth will reject and forget us.

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It took some effort to figure out the structure of the story, but I soon realized the color shifts indicated a time shift, each focusing on one era of the main character’s life. The story raised interesting questions about trust and hope when people are faced with a catastrophe. The themes resonate especially with the state of the world today. When everything looks bleak, who do you trust, how do you maintain hope, and how hard do you fight to adjust to the new normal?

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This wasn't for me. I felt that a lot of thought went into the story telling but some of this was lost in the way the story was told. I think the flipping back and forth between the past and the present could have been made clearer and easier to follow. I lost the story threads far too easily and then I had to guess why a main character had disappeared.

Of course the story could have been presented this way so that we would appreciate the loss of gravity which is central to the story. I think it was simply not for me but if you like sci-fi you may find this intriguing.

Copy provided via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

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The first time I reviewed a comic where the Earth's gravity had been greatly reduced, allowing us to float around our neighbourhoods – or also endlessly out to the edge of the atmosphere – seems to have floated off into the ether. But luckily here's a second one, albeit more cerebral, literary and convoluted than the first. Hand-inked and then watercoloured for the, er, colours, this comes to us with a distinctive style, or should that be two, for the different threads we're continuously, annoyingly, jumping between.

We're concentrating on two time zones for the same small family group, which we first see consisting of a young wannabe journalist, his wife and their young daughter. He's trying to establish himself as a writer about the whole gravity-lite existence we have these days; but when he's older, and somewhat crotchety, and his daughter is a crabby teenager, he's checking out a base where everyone is lumpenly sticking to terra firma, and making every effort to not float anywhere. The first has one colour scheme for the visuals and the voice-over, the other another, the first is city-based, the second much more post-Apocalyptic, and we can handle all that, but when it comes to them interrupting each other – midword on at least one occasion – that's when it gets a bit too annoying.

However the book, certainly as one to be read in 2020, is well worth continuing with. It actually rings really topical, as it asks how we as a species are adapted for change. When a big gravity shift/virus hits our way of life and thinking, and it's one that could be interpreting as Earth rejecting us and Gaea going for a bit of cleansing self-help, can we adapt and find a new normal, or will we splinter off madly? And what's the right way of response as a species, living with it, trying to change it back, or accepting the wackamamie agendas disguised as business plans of the Elon Musks of the world?

Ultimately I don't think this is a complete success, but it's certainly worth a look. It actually took me quite some time to twig the connection between the two narratives, so I couldn't say if I did it early or way too late, and if the delay in that is intended or not. And a lot of the final third is an issue-based monologue, with little attempt at trying to match the drama of the whole scenario. That issue is, as I say, prescient, for the script actually calls "the new normal" exactly that, and the book does show how one person – not just one species – can be forced to face change, just by meeting a partner for instance. That human side of things is probably going to be the draw, matching the high concept that isn't perfectly run with. Three and a half stars.

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Beautifully drawn, thoughtful, emotional and relevant, Very well done, and authentic. With so many books being digitally drawn was nice to see a well done hand worked one.

Thanks to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

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