Review: Ossuary
It sounds pretty straightforward. In order to seal a business deal with the Dlivinians, they require a favour. The two humans on the station have little choice in the matter; nobody else will buy what they are selling. Dlivinians are a very odd race, however, and are willing to trade, but the "ritual formality" must be completed.
Ossuary by writer Derrick Freeland and artist Savannah Ervin takes us to a distant world that is alien not only in terms of its landscape and biology but also its culture. The Dlivinians are a curious species; bipedal non-humanoids resembling upright squids dressed in robes. They maintain space stations in orbit of their planet but they also hold onto arcane, ancient traditions.
Into this novel, exotic world comes something with which the reader is much more familiar: a pair of con artists down on their luck. Investment gone wrong? Gamble failed to pay off? Need to shift something that has become worthless? No problem, just put those inconvenient standards of honesty and morality to one side and go find yourself a bunch of naive foreigners to peddle your trinkets to.
Little do they know that the aliens may also not be totally forthcoming about what their "cultural handshake" actually entails...
This is a neat sci-fi drama with some very satisfying content. The Dlivinians and their world are imaginatively atypical and there is a retro/classic yet at the same time fresh feel to the story and visuals. Ervin's aliens are far from the ubiquitous all-too-humanoid model, yet are also easily relatable in their postures and actions. Freeland's human grifters are a sharp juxtaposition of the extraordinary with the squalid; a contrast that throws both into sharp relief.
It's no spoiler to say that our duo come unstuck, but exactly how is not something the reader will anticipate. They have made an agreement and started out on the journey to fulfil it. There is no escape from the pact they have made... They are in it to the bone.
OSSUARY from Bottlecrow Publications
Zak Webber
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