 Hi everybody, welcome back to another installment of A Week in Geekdom here on YouTube. My name is Giovanna Menendez and today we're going to be talking about Sentient from Jeff Lemire and Gabrielle Walter. This is pretty interesting. First of all, I want to give a massive shout out to the guys over at TKOB for sending this my way so that I could review it on the Omnibus Collectors Network, but hey, I have my own channel, so I'm gonna go ahead and talk about it on my channel, right? So yeah, Sentient is the latest endeavor from the fan favorite Jeff Lemire and of course Gabrielle Walter. So yeah, here we have a space opera suspense thriller, if you will. It's action-packed, it has a deep level of intrigue. You really don't know where the story's headed and the premise is sick as hell. There is a separatist attack that kills all the adults in this ship, the USS Montgomery. It is up to the ship's sentient AI, Valerie, to take care of things and all the children on board. I gotta tell you, this book, you know, it threw me for a loop. I had no idea what I was getting into. All I know going in was, hey, it's Jeff Lemire, it's a space adventure comic. Let's go. And I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, Jeff is renowned and people love his stuff. His books are just tightly written, fantastic characterizations. Everybody just, it feels real. When Jeff Lemire writes a book, you feel the realness of these characters and even though it may be underwater or in outer space or a superhero, you still feel that rawness of these characters and that is present in the sentient. Like I said, the adults are killed in the ship and you're just left with kids, their kids as protagonists because in the story of sentient, the earth is dying off so people are boarding spaceships and going to a colony on a planet they discovered or something. And, you know, we're past the, whenever you're doing that, you need to establish a base, right? And then eventually you start populating the colony with adults and children and all that stuff. Now, the action really sits in right away. It's only six issues. It's tightly constructed and from the moment that the story begins, there's this eerie presence to the book and I think it's because of its subject matter because it is set in space and that's why I love space stories. It's confined to one area even though it's a technological marvel, you know, to have this huge ship in space transporting, I don't know, 30 something people or something like that. I think 30 or close to 60 people. I can't remember the exact number but somewhere along those numbers. Just, you know, if the story were set on earth, even if the kids were left alone, you know, they can go out, they can do stuff on land or on the ocean or whatever. But in space, your options are extremely limited. You can only be on that ship. How the heck do you even survive? What do you do? And it's thanks to the AI called Valerie that the kids can push through and the story can progress and there are politics thrown in sprinkled throughout. If you're not paying attention at first, it comes as a sudden shock but from the beginning, you're given these not so subtle clues as to what's about to happen with talks about violence on earth and people wanting to separate from the world governments and all that stuff. So that leads into the attack. And I'm not spoiling anything because that is the premise of the book right here in the back just in case anybody was wondering. And as soon as that happens, the intrigue and the fun aspect for the reader in this story is, you know, how are these kids going to survive? How are they gonna eat? How are they gonna live? Because they're at a point in the journey where it's like this radiation belt where the signal cuts off so nobody can help them right away. They can try and send signals but, you know, with interference and all that stuff with the space radiation and whatnot. Yeah, it's going to be extremely difficult to get help either from the colony or from earth. With a book like this, you know, the protagonist being children, you would think the story would be bogged down. But no, I found it extremely interesting that kids are really fantastically well-written characters. Isaac and Lil come to mind, you know, the two main leads, if you will. They are fantastic kids and the strength and the resilience and just the amount of tragedy that falls on them and how they react and how they lead this group of small children to, you know, to continue moving onward or success or failure is the heart and soul of this book and the unity that forms because of it and how, you know, the human condition, you know, when we're faced with something as tragic as loss, how do we keep moving forward regardless of the setting? It might have been in the past, it might be thousands of years in the future. Those themes are always going to be there and they're always going to be pretty freaking universal if you ask me. So on that aspect, I thought the book was a hit. There's six issues. Once you start reading it, you will not want to stop. It's a very quick read, even though the page count is heavy because it's six issues. I thought it was pretty exciting and riveting. If you like sci-fi with a dash of suspense and horror elements, you're going to be right at home with sentient. I thought it was fantastic. Now what are the aspects that I think a lot of people are going to be intrigued about is the art. A lot of sci-fi depend heavily on the construction of its setting. Since it's in space, you really have to create an environment that people are intrigued by because, you know, everybody can draw a ship but how do you make it interesting? The ship has to be a part of the story. It's almost a silent character in the whole narrative, especially with Valerie being an AI. You don't see her but you hear her word bubbles and stuff and you see the computer screen in blue so you know it's her talking with a female voice as described in the book. So it really has to make an impact and what better way to get an impact with Walta's designs and art. I just think they look freaking fantastic if you ask me. Really awesome stuff. I love the muted colors and the contrast between the techy stuff and just the isolation and the coldness of the ship and space and all that stuff just plays beautifully and I think Walta does a really good job on that. Also I try not to show anything that might spoil some things because there are a couple surprises and you're wondering how these kids are going to survive so there are a couple mysteries. Here's another shot I like Lil, Isaac, all the kids. Usually like Val, Valerie or Val as the kids call her she'll take possession of vehicles and mechanical stuff in the ship so you do sort of see an aspect of that character like there's a physicality to it even though it's a robot or whatever. As for a back matter in the book there isn't much. Original cover art from Walta. So you just get covers. I would have liked maybe some sketches stuff like that. Here's a cool cover that might pique your interest. Yeah I wish we could have maybe some sketches behind the scenes or a few lines of the script and all that stuff. I always like looking at that but the overall build of this trade is really awesome. It's super tall by the way. Pages are really smooth to the touch which I appreciated and it just makes everything pop a little bit more. Here's some more artwork. Stuff like this highlights what I mentioned about the coldness of space. So yeah overall I think it is a fantastic read. Really interesting premise just you know we constantly read and enjoy stories about space sci-fi stories and survival stories but grouping all of these tropes together with the innocence of kids and how they survive in a drastic situation. I think Jeff LeMere handled it perfectly and did a really good job. It's self-contained. Six issues. You can read them and be done with it but there is enough intrigue at the end where I'm like I could very well see a volume two spinning out of this somehow but yeah check it out if you can. I think you will like it. The art is fantastic and like I said the writing and the characters all that stuff is really interesting and I think it is going to be worth your time. Once again thank you to TKO Studios for sending this my way. I am so happy about that. I am thrilled and whenever I get the chance to read something new and refreshing that's awesome. Have you read Sentient? If not let me know what are some of your favorite survival stories and comic books. I'm pretty interested in finding out. Guys as always you can follow me on your favorite social media platform Facebook Twitter Instagram all that fun stuff. Of course you can like comment and subscribe here on this channel. Hit the little bell icon so you know when new videos pop up and that's it. We'll be back pretty soon with more TKO reviews. I will catch all of you on our next episode.