So. New Elysium.

Take a journey with me into a far distant future, a future so distant that not only has the human race escaped the boundaries of Earth's solar system, but they have abandoned it entirely. It's a world in which humanity has tread upon dozens of worlds beyond Earth and beyond even the nearby Centauri cluster. The entire galaxy has become mankind's playground, and hyperdrive the source of his reach.

It's a world controlled by the Elites, the ultra-wealthy Neo-Tokyans, who not only command the vast majority of industry, but the military. Neo-Tokyo is the Galactic Empire of the New Elysium universe, but with a catch; there is no rebel alliance. And you know what, it's not so bad living under Neo-Tokyo; unless you become a criminal or rebel group, you're mostly left alone. Mostly. Until the great purge.

In the future, humans learn not just how to shuffle off the limits of their home on planet Earth; they shuffle off the limits of the human body. Cybernetics and prosthetics combined together have amazing potential. You want a weapon system mounted in your arm that shoots electric shocks out of your hands? You can have it. You want dance around in cyberspace for a while? There's an implant for that. You want to scan every imaginable EM spectra? Go for it. There's only one problem; if you decide to do such a thing, that makes you an augment. And being an augment is painting a big target on your back. Well, Neo-Tokyo has all the guns.

Red is an augment. He's one of the lucky ones though; he's neither been killed nor stripped of his cybernetic enhancements. Instead, he's been dumped on the prison planet Helion 7 for the past seven years with most of his military augmentations intact. The poor guy used to be a captain in Neo-Tokyo's navy, but when Neo-Tokyo realized that augments could potentially be reprogrammed and forced to do things against their will, they outlawed all of them, and threw many in jail, even if they posed minor risk. You see, they also decided to be a bit fanatical about the project; suddenly augments were sub-human (or even more sub-human than the non-elite masses) and allowed no quarter. Only jail and eventually death.

Red and his friend Dag are among those poor unfortunates. They wake and live every day in their prison, trying their very best to remain sane. Waiting for death. But that all changes when a new prisoner comes. It's a girl; her name is Ember, and she's a Vesper. That means she's highly advanced and powerful, even beyond Red's own military grade augments. She's the ultimate pilot, and equipped with advanced transmitters. And she might just be their ticket out of this hell-hole.

New Elysium is a well-constructed, well  written space opera in the vein of Star Wars itself. It's an adventure with a latent epic quality that the author seems to have noticed, though more on that later. I enjoyed it a whole lot and before I say anything else, I'd recommend that you go check it out, especially if space opera/adventure is your thing. It's well written, it's well paced, and overall, it's well thought out.

The characters were probably the best part in my opinion. I was immediately swept away by Red and Dag and Ember, not just because they're vibrant characters, but for another reason; they had a starting point. Let me put it this way. I've mentioned Tony Stark before in this thing, but I think that he's one of the better characters that the rapidly expanding Marvel Empire has created, not in terms of sheer charisma, but in depth and weight. When we first see Stark, he doesn't have much going for him. He's arrogant, egotistical, amoral, and definitely not to be trusted. But that's not why I like him; I like him as a character because he's immediately given a reason to change, to put his selfishness aside for another person. He's given a trajectory and he follows it. Compare Tony Stark in Iron Man to Tony Stark in Infinity Wars. It's an amazing shift. And Red is the same. At the start, he's lost hope. He's lost his will to uphold his own humanity and the humanity of others. Seven years of being treated as filth has made him consider himself filth. Then, when Ember walks into the prison on Helion 7, he's given a reason to change, to act, to take his life into his hands. And he takes that chance. Red is a hero that drives the story. If you've been reading these little things, you'll know that that is something that I consider to be very important to a story. The world he inhabits is one he has the power to change, and he does so.

The prison itself is probably the most impressive item in this story. It's a cyberpunk atmosphere for the most part; Red sports a Mohawk and glowy red lights under his skin. But the prison is a break from all that techno stuff. It's a mechanical nightmare; dirt under foot, a hot sun in the sky, giant gates with no computers anywhere (or else some augment might hack it) and no guards to quell the brawls and the gangs that inevitably spring up. It adds a level of grit and realism that I thought was really refreshing, an odd thing for me of all people to admit since I usually prefer style over grit. It reminded me of The Shawshank Redemption in some ways, and that's good, because I love that movie.

New Elysium is an imperfect work though. I have three fundamental issues with it. First, I think that Red's arc, though my favorite part of the book, is too short. A little over halfway through (spoilers if you need them), Red and Ember have sex (nothing is shown, otherwise I wouldn't be talking about it here). That is the point at which the book decides his arch has reached its completion. It makes sense, and I might have done the same, placing the end of Red's arc at the point at which he has become open enough to others that he is able to give himself over in love to one other person. But at that point, there was still a lot of book to go. And I didn't see where Red's character was going for the rest of it. I would have liked to see this same progress expressed for the civilians that he (unwillingly) rescued from destruction on another planet, but by the time such a thing might have been called for, they reach New Elysium, the safe haven for all augments, and their safety is no longer in his hands.

The plot faces similar difficulties when it reaches New Elysium. The promise of New Elysium, the safe haven, is the driving force of this book. That's literally where the crew is going the whole time, the goal of this book's characters. Well, they reach New Elysium. And...then what? Obviously, they have to deal with the giant Neo-Tokyo fleet that's been dogging them for the course of the book. Okay, great, more Star Wars similarities. But then the book adds an extra level of complication; Ember gets captured and now Red has to leave New Elysium to rescue her. You see my problem? In the third act, the book forgets why it took the time to make it to it's conclusion.

To explain my third problem, though, I'm going to have to do something I was hoping I wouldn't have to do; talk about Against the Tide. I reviewed taivaan_sininen's companion to New Elysium a couple of months or so ago, and at that time I hadn't yet read the original. That book took a side character (or a pair of side characters, depending on how you look at it) and developed her back story. Red_Leasia encouraged and supported this side work, and both authors are working jointly in Weapons of War, a sequel to New Elysium. But I had hoped that I would be able to judge the one without comparing it to the other. Unfortunately, I haven't been given that option. You see, Amy Larsson, the character from Against the Tide, appears and plays a role in New Elysium. That much I expected. What I didn't expect is the magnitude of that role, and the amount of...otherness thrown into it.

To explain what I mean, allow me to again use Marvel as a comparison. In Infinity Wars, there were a number of moments along the way that wouldn't have worked if it had been a standalone movie. Spiderman trading classic movie references with Starlord, Rocket threatening to steal the Winter Soldier's arm, and, probably my favorite part in the movie, Groot chopping off his own arm to join the halves of Thor's new ax. None of those scenes would have worked if not for the stories told before it. And that's okay, as long as you know the other stories. But if you don't, it meant nothing to you.

And much to my surprise, New Elysium does this. Near the close of the third act, after both of my previous complaints are realized, we start getting pieces of the story told by taivaan_sininen from inside Amy Larsson's head. And I have no problem with that. But this isn't Larsson's story; it never was. It's Red's story. The entire story has been bouncing back and forth between Red and Ember; skipping into Lars and Null, even for a moment, is weird and jarring. It's not what this story is about. And spending the time to do it detracts in a big way from Red's story; suddenly, it seems as though Red, the driver of all this action, isn't really as much a driver as we think he is, because look at this other parallel story line happening without his interference. You need to know Lars and Null before it even makes remote sense to you.

And that's the reason I brought up Marvel. Although I have problems with their execution, Red_Leasia and taivaan_sininen have started something really ambitious and awesome with this. They're creating a New Elysium extended universe! It's not just a series, because that tells a single arc. It's not even like a TV show, because that develops characters over time. It's a full blown extended universe, because it develops characters in side adventures and then throws them together for one amazing romp.

And that, I think, is awesome. It has the potential to be something really fun and stories that work together can build each other up. Amy Larsson's entrance made me really happy, because I knew her from another part of the universe. But it also has the potential to muddy things up, and we see that later in the story.

So what are we left with in the end? A fun, space opera romp. A story of love and pain in a dark and dangerous world. A desperate race against time. And an ambitious future for the universe; to date, I know of both a sequel (Weapons of War) and a second spinoff from taivaan_sininen (Dreams in Monochrome, which by the way is a fantastic title). And it all adds up to something that, for what it's worth, is enjoyable and interesting, not for what it is, but for what it wants to be.

Final score for New Elysium is 3.85 out of 5 cybernetic enhancements. I have to take off .15 points for the third act; I'm sorry, but the rules are clear (yeah, that's a lie, sue me). If it makes you feel any better, we'll score it alongside Against the Tide, since it seems to want to be connected. That leaves the New Elysium saga to date with a total of 7.85 out of 10 space opera sagas; it can share that point reduction with its companion.

Do you agree or disagree? Let me know what you think in the comments below, and don't forget to vote! I think this might be my eighth review, so if you have anything you'd like to suggest about my format or style, I guess I'm saying now is the time. Thanks again for reading! Sincerely, the real jonbrain.