Indavo – Freelance Explorer, Volume 1 “The Mayhem Begins” by Nathan Bonner – Remnant Press © 2007 – http://indavo.comicgenesis.com

Reviewed by Benita Story, http://johnnysaturn.com, www.basicallybenita.com

I will start this review by admitting that I had not read many manga-styled books, before. But since this book, I have read several others and am becoming a fan of the style and story-telling approach.

This all-ages book starts with main character, Indavo, an Exploration Corps Academy student-wannabe, working at the Degraken Memorial Storage Facility doing inventory, where he runs across an old ship that has never been logged into the system.

Jump four years into the future where Indavo has teamed up with a gunner named Racheal and a “robotic ex-thug” named Guaron T. A run-in with some space pirates, a brush with some of Guaron T.’s former “business associates”, explosions, near escapes, a mystery man who seems to be pulling several ropes to lead our heroes onto the path he desires them to be on and some witty repartee make for a fast-paced and entertaining story. And to top it off, Indavo is noticeably lucky in his ability to escape from harm and to get out of some really bad situations. In fact, it is so noticeable, that is becomes a bit of a running joke through-out the book.

While the gray-scaled art style can be a bit undeveloped in spots, Mr. Bonner’s has a knack of keeping the story interesting and the faces of his characters are very expressive.

If you enjoy science-fiction adventure stories with lots of action, interesting characters, and sound story-telling methods, you will get a kick out of Indavo. I can be hard to please with my reading material, but I couldn’t put this book down once I got started on it.