Review: Concrete Park
I have learned that there is one thing that Afrofuturism is NOT short of: bad-ass females. When the future is dark, dystopian and dangerous you won’t last long as a damstel in distress. If you wait for some chisel-jawed himbo to leap to your defence you will probably be toast before he gets to you, so grab that plasma rifle, honey, and start mowing down the monsters/cyborgs/goons yourself.
Just such a protagonist is Luca, one of the central characters of Tony Puryear’s Concrete Park. Big-boned, big-breasted, big everything, she is a large-and-in-charge warrior woman evocative of the fantasies of Robert Crumb. There is also more than a touch of Gaugin’s earthy Polynesian beauties about her, especially in her naked opening scene…
It’s one of those dark futures; Earth is dealing with its overwhelming population pressure by exiling the dispossessed (consisting disproportionately of the young and dark-skinned) to the distant prison planet Oasis (Epsilon Eridani). Apologies in advance to any Australian readers but this is the classic Botany Bay scenario: establishing a new colony by dumping your undesirables there and letting them fight for survival.
New arrivals go straight to work as slave miners. Escape that and you are out of the fire into the frying pan; the lawless metropolis Scare City is a diverse Wild West in which different factions rule over their territories with fear and violence. The language of the city is full of loan words from the many cultures that make up its population (and a glossary is supplied). It is a Tarantino-esque landscape of rival gangs and brutal street justice. In addition to human freaks and monsters are the alien shapeshifters such as “Monkfish” and Luca’s lover, the beautiful but mysterious Lena.
Into this world comes crashing the newly exiled Isaac, whose young daughter was killed in a Los Angeles drive-by shooting … and whose killer is on the same transport. Surviving the explosion of his shuttle he falls into the lap of Luca and her all-girl band of mercenaries, on the run from an enemy boss with vengeance in his eyes.
Written by Puryear and Erika Alexander, the story is a blend of violent action and high-tech intrigue. Puryear’s art is bombastic and hard-hitting but also sharp and sensual. Colours are mainly down in the earthy/fleshy end of the spectrum: brown, red, ochre, emphasising the pragmatic themes and also the multi-ethnic (largely black, Hispanic, Arabic and Asian) cast of characters. It all creates a hot, humid atmosphere to the book, fitting the blunt, unvarnished but passionate delivery.
If you like your sci-fi polished and gleaming, this is not it. More like the end of Reservoir Dogs in space, but with enough complexity and geeky elements to lift it above simplistic brutality. If you like punchy, gritty and yet engaging, look no further.
Zak Webber
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