Otzi
Registered by 
GoryDetails
of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 3/31/2021
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
GoryDetails of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 3/31/2021 This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
I enjoyed Veitch's Tombstone Hand and wanted to try more from his "Panel Vision" series. Got this softcover from an online seller. This one's a science fiction take on the real-world discovery of Otzi the Iceman, the naturally-preserved freeze-dried mummy of a man who lived in roughly 3300 BC. The story opens with the author's single-page panels showing the landscape from Otzi's perspective, and with the author's cinematic style: one panel has a closeup of Otzi's face as he gnaws some meat while the campfire light flickers in his eyes. But when he resumes his climb up the Alps, a landslide catches him - and as he falls unconscious he dreams of images of his own frozen mummy being found and examined by scientists. The shock wakes him - but now he's in a strange environment of floating rocks, where an ethereal being approaches...
Cue a transition to an alternate near-future Earth, where a wealthy woman is pregnant with an alternate time-stream Otzi's DNA! This... is NOT where I was expecting this story to go! The world in which celebrity cloning from alternate-reality sources gets weirder and weirder, with the illustrations showing more and more recognizable faces in the backgrounds. (Some make sense; cloning Einstein or the Beatles or the Kennedy brothers, perhaps... Heck, I was happy to spot David Bowie tending bar, with H. P. Lovecraft in the background. But Don Knotts?)
The story doesn't end there, though I did enjoy the "time passes" sequence showing our hero - the child born of Otzi's DNA - growing up as a celebrity, visiting self-themed conventions as the decades roll on. But his life isn't what he wants, and when the science behind the alternate-reality travel goes wonky, he has to take steps to survive...
Considering that the entire story unfolds with one panel per page and no dialogue at all, just a few screenshots or book titles or signs along the way, it amazes me how complex and effective it is. I really love this!
Cue a transition to an alternate near-future Earth, where a wealthy woman is pregnant with an alternate time-stream Otzi's DNA! This... is NOT where I was expecting this story to go! The world in which celebrity cloning from alternate-reality sources gets weirder and weirder, with the illustrations showing more and more recognizable faces in the backgrounds. (Some make sense; cloning Einstein or the Beatles or the Kennedy brothers, perhaps... Heck, I was happy to spot David Bowie tending bar, with H. P. Lovecraft in the background. But Don Knotts?)
The story doesn't end there, though I did enjoy the "time passes" sequence showing our hero - the child born of Otzi's DNA - growing up as a celebrity, visiting self-themed conventions as the decades roll on. But his life isn't what he wants, and when the science behind the alternate-reality travel goes wonky, he has to take steps to survive...
Considering that the entire story unfolds with one panel per page and no dialogue at all, just a few screenshots or book titles or signs along the way, it amazes me how complex and effective it is. I really love this!
Journal Entry 2 by GoryDetails at LFL [OBCZ] - New Searles Rd, #46 in Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Saturday, April 17, 2021
GoryDetails at LFL [OBCZ] - New Searles Rd, #46 in Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Saturday, April 17, 2021
Released 3 yrs ago (4/17/2021 UTC) at LFL [OBCZ] - New Searles Rd, #46 in Nashua, New Hampshire USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Guidelines for safely visiting and stocking Little Free Libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the LFL site here.I left this book in my Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!
[See other recent releases in NH here.]
*** Released for the 2021 Science Fiction challenge. ***
This book is no longer in the Little Free Library; hope it checks in from wherever it's gone!
