 What if I told you that humanity did not go into space in 1969, but instead, 1869? Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel. Gio here, and today we're going to be talking about Castle in the Stars, the space race of 1869. This is written by Alex Elise, and was published a very long time ago by First Second. Here is the first hardcover. You can see right there, Book 1. Here's the back, and here is the spine right there. It was a pretty small book, but it is part of a larger series. Castle in the Stars came out a long time ago, actually. This was published back in 2014 in France, and it got its first American edition in 2017. But it's not until 2020 where yours truly picked this up. Actually, I've had it for a while, but you know how it is. You have an endless backlog of books. And it's not until 2020 when I actually gave it a read, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a fun little romp of these characters, and I'd love alternate take on history and characters and all that stuff. I'd love it with my superheroes, and I'd love it with history and fiction, nonfiction, all that stuff. I'd love that you can take a concept that we know of, like space travel, and let's flip it on the side of its head, you know? Let's do something new with it, and why not have a plot where we as a species go into space 100 years before the time that we're supposed to go to space, you know, in the 60s? But in this story, we follow the character of Seraphine. Seraphine is a young boy, which you can see right there with ambitious dreams of traveling to space, and of course by finding the ether, which is sort of this mysterious element component in the stratosphere surrounding Earth, which has unlimited potential and power and all that stuff. And the basis is that if they can find the ether and apply it to the machines and all that stuff and their steam powered balloons and whatnot, the hot air balloons and their mechanisms and stuff, they can achieve greater things. And of course, one of those is traveling the stars and all that stuff. So yeah, a great space race ensues in the year 1869, which is really cool. I love that you're able to take an established timeline. This is set in Europe, and you see the characters going into a Bavarian castle. This is a time period of political disarray in Germany and all that stuff. The Prussian factors heavily into this and how they're unrest, and they do not like the Bavarian king that has commissioned sort of this idea to go to the stars and whatnot. But we don't learn about that until midway into the book. However, the starting point of the story is the character of Claire and her lost log book. Claire is Seraphine's mother and she is a pilot and goes into the stars, because it's her dream to venture and risk it all for that glorious desire for adventurers to reach the unknown and find that which has eluded them for so long and has been the subject of legends and myths and all that stuff. He gets into trouble up there, and her log book disappears, and several years later our main protagonist with his father Archibald, I think that was his name, receiving a mysterious letter claiming that they had found her lost log book. So they set out on this adventure, like I said earlier to this Bavarian castle, and you see the people involved there and the space race and all that stuff. That's sort of the basis of the book. It's a very short read. Of course, this is book one. There's more books out there, which I have to get, and I immediately regretted this decision of starting this series without having the others, because at the end you are stuck on a pretty epic huge cliffhanger, and I was extremely sad that I did not have book two with me so I could continue the adventure, because yeah, it's an engrossing read. It starts off very interesting with the concept of aeronauts basically trying to reach the stars and all that stuff, which has always haunted humanity since we've looked up at the night sky, wondering what's out there and how or when we will be able to go. And it still does for astronauts. It's a long dream of humanity to venture into space, into the far reaches of space. So it's very cool to see that in this timeframe. I really appreciated that. The characters are really well done. They are somewhat fleshed out. Of course, it can get a little bit tropey with several characters, especially with the antagonists and the villains and all that stuff. But for the most part, the character of Seraphine, he is pretty cool. I like that he's so ambitious and will not, you know, he won't take no for an answer. For example, Archibald will tell him, stay in the inn, let me deal with this mysterious letter. He's like, no, I'm going to go, because this concerns to both of us. You know, my mother, she's a part of our lives and I want to know what happened and I want to solve this mystery of her disappearance and all that stuff. So I thought he is very courageous and brave. He doesn't have all the answers, but he's still going to go forward and be very enthusiastic about it. One of the best things about this book, from a lot of people that I know and a lot of reviewers and just all my friends that read graphic novels and stuff, is how gorgeous the artwork is. It's very pretty and expressive. It's done with watercolors and it just looks pretty freaking fantastic. You know, just a very beautiful and gorgeous art, very beautiful and gorgeous artwork, extremely detailed with a wonderful coloring that I really enjoyed. You know, the panels are very vivid and fluid. When there's an action scene, it flows pretty well from panel to panel and you don't get lost and in turn you are engrossed and you want to keep reading what these characters are doing. And yeah, it really does feel like a period piece. You feel like you've immersed yourself in a forgotten era of the late 1800s. Just looking pretty freaking fantastic, if you ask me. Here's more of that wonderful art. The dialogue is pretty swift. It's not too wordy, you know, because it can be of that time era. You know, they want to recreate the patterns of speech and dialogue and all that stuff, but it doesn't feel that way. It feels somewhat modern in its vocabulary, I guess. Looking pretty awesome, if you ask me. That's some of the artwork. That's actually one of my favorite drawings right there. There we go. I love that one. There's no extras in the book, unfortunately. I would have liked to have seen more, especially when you have. See if I can find that page. Especially when you have things like this. Mechanical designs and blueprints, conquerors of the ether. You know, when you have stuff like this, I kind of want to see more. Not just on this double page spread, you know? So yeah, not a whole lot to say other than this is a very cool book. A very fun story that I think you're going to enjoy. Look at that scenery and background. A lot of people like to make the comparison like, hey, it's very jibbly-esque. I don't quite know about that, but it certainly has that animated movie feel. It behaves like you're watching an animated movie from the, you know, hand-drawn 90s animated movie. It also is very storyboard-driven, where scene by scene you're, you know, you're watching the action and it flows pretty frickin' well because it's well constructed. It's not too convoluted in the scenes that it's setting up. So I think that's why a lot of people like to make the comparison. The drawings obviously do help because it's very dreamy and watercolor-esque, which I think has a huge fan base and a lot of people will gravitate towards something like this. So yeah, pretty interesting comparison. I just think it looks fantastic. There's not a whole lot to say. It's a very short read, fantastic setting, premise, interesting characters. Some are a little bit one-dimensional and stereotypical when you talk about the bad guys and all that stuff. But I'm very interested in Seraphine's journey because I think he's a wonderful little boy, protagonist, and I want him to succeed and to find out the mystery of his mom and all that stuff. So I will be picking up the rest of the series as soon as possible to continue the story and maybe do a full series review when I finish the plot because it ends on a pretty huge cliffhanger and I can't very well tell you this is a solid book that lands or sticks to landing as people like to say. I can't really do that because I've only read the first act if you will. If you've read Castle and the Stars and the other ones, let me know in the comment section down below. I'm very interested in finding out. Thank you everybody for liking, commenting, subscribing, and being a part of a week in Geekdom here on YouTube. Follow me on social media if you can. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Also, before I leave, hit the little notification icon, bell, thingamajig so you know when new videos pop up. And yeah, that's about it. Castle and the Stars, the Space Race of 1869. A really cool addition. First-second books are always fantastic. I love them. Thank you everybody for tuning in. I've got to go. I will catch all of you on our next episode.