Echoes of humanity
A good sci-fi novel has to have certain elements in the plot's structure that I consider vital, such as creativity, coherence and diversity in the theme being told. In this enterprise, Fabien Vehlmann succeeded in delivering a fantastic futuristic story about a multi-cultural extraterrestrial society, guided or arranged in it's differences by a Terran Government. It's not only the diversity in the aliens that amused me very much, but the search that the writer set as a goal for the humans to rediscover the meaning of humanity. In a time that humans can duplicate their personas by creating the so called Echoes (like clones of pure energy that, once materialized become individuals but, when demanded to return to their original body, gives them all their memories, but with a cost: the original host lose part of his memories too, the old memories), humans live forever, but the price is that they lose humanity with it. That's what the main character Elijah, a philosopher police, will try to discover, as he solves different mystery puzzles and works in multiple cases around the universe. This character is surrounded by perfection, intelligence and respect, but, at the same time, as he attempts to mantain certain traits of what makes him individual, unique, fights to mantain his memories. This is definitely the best thing about this book, this conundrum, this paradox, that you can live forever, but in the process you forget (or lose) what makes you whole, your soul, you become someone totally different and this too is what makes us human, this constantly and perpetual change. This book is also incredible in delivering a very amusing, clever and terrific detective story, with excellent dialogues, good pace and great interactions between the characters. The art is not phenomenal, it could be better, not only because it's black and white, but mostly because Gwen de Bonneval style is too cartoonish and unreallistic, raw material, reminding me of a child art at times, like sticks, but that doesn't taint the final result, since the writing is so good! This is recommended for mature readers, since there are themes as sexuality, death and war concepts.