I picked this up free at WorldCon. It was shrink-wrapped, so I couldn't preview it, and the $45 price on the back suggests I got a bargain. I'm not sure I did.
"A virus that kills you when you lie" is a terrific engine for satire, and I wanted this to be sharper than it is. The hardcover is beautifully produced, and the art is a real strength, which makes it more disappointing that the writing doesn't match. The idea is more or less the whole book. The plot is thin, the characters are barely sketched, and the rules never settle. Some people die instantly while others linger long enough to save themselves by telling the truth. Is that tied to the size of the lie? The liar? Pure convenience? Without an answer, the story can't build real tension or say anything pointed about who gets punished for lying.
In the cruise ship subplot, the book's only gay couple is clearly identified as gay, and one of them says "I love you," insists it's true, and dies anyway, so the virus rules that he was lying. Meanwhile, a husband and wife who admit they're out of love, but say they want to make it work, are treated as telling the truth. Whatever the intent, the result is that the only gay characters in the book are the ones whose love is declared fake, while a straight couple who admit they're out of love get to live. It also undercuts the premise, since the virus is supposed to punish lies, not sincerity, and it makes the rules feel even more arbitrary.
At the end there are several pages of rants about the problems of cruise ships. The cruise ship material is a fair target, and I have no objection to a screed against the industry. But the small island opening artillery on a cruise ship struck me as violence with no comic or thematic payoff.
The bigger problem is the book's treatment of women. There's a Benny Hill-style gag in which a man falls face first into a woman's chest and greets it with "Good morning, America." Beyond that, the "attractive" women are wasp-waisted with enormous breasts, and nearly everyone else is either old and ugly or old and fat. Satire is supposed to punch at power and hypocrisy. This reproduces the tropes it could have mocked, and it made the book feel dated, misogynist, and mean-spirited. It wasn't the only graphic novel I picked up at WorldCon that leaned on the same stereotypes in place of characters, and it's a shame, because the premise here deserved better.
The "obituary" section, with portraits of billionaires and politicians who die from the virus, is where the book's spite is most on display. Powerful liars are a fair target, and this could have been the payoff of the premise. But there's no context for what any of these people lied about or why they earned it, so it reads like the authors' personal wishlist instead of satire. A rogues gallery isn't a punchline.
The final section, an alternate history in which Robert Kennedy becomes president, is heavy on gags and tropes and light on substance. Good alt-history satire uses the changes to say something about our world, and this mostly piles on jokes.
The book closes with quotes about truth from a run of notable men, then one from a woman named Dailey, who says the truth shouldn't get in the way of a good story. I couldn't verify her, so I can't say whether the choice was a clever wink at the reader or just how the closing page fell together. Either way, it fits a book about the slippery relationship between truth and stories.
A handsome package around an underdeveloped idea. I'd suggest skipping it and waiting for a better use of this premise.
REVIEW: The A.R.C.: A Virus That Kills When You Lie by Tim Disney
RATING: 2.5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment