A Distant Soil, Vol. 3: The Aria

A Distant Soil (collected editions) #3

by Colleen Doran

In the upcoming Volume III: The Aria, Jason has been trained by the Resistance for one purpose; to destroy Ovanan's Avatar. But when he arrives at the Avatar's chambers, he finds his long-lost sister Liana.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Aliens

164 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2001

About the author

Colleen Doran is an American writer-artist and cartoonist. She illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines, including the autobiographical graphic novel of Marvel Comics editor and writer Stan Lee entitled Amazing Fantastic Incredible Stan Lee, which became a New York Times bestseller. She adapted and did the art for the short story "Troll Bridge" by Neil Gaiman, which also became a New York Times bestseller. Her books have received Eisner, Harvey, Bram Stoker, and International Horror Guild Awards.

Reviews

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series! It's so good to finally get to finish it. Though of course I got to the end and now volume 4 is hard to find. But at least I should be able to order the last part from Collen's website. I think this was my favourite volume so far. Almost half of it was people sitting around and discussing things, the polar opposite to superhero comics, then everything happened and it was all very disturbing and shocking. Such wonderful characters, and so many shades of grey from the protagonists. The end was very emotional. It's wonderful to have a science fiction story that deals so well with gay characters and homophobia, and how distructive homophobia can be for both people and society. I very highly recommend this series.

[Danie Ware · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous artwork, as always, but honestly a bit of a jumble - a confusion of characters and storylines, everyone shouting at everyone else, panels and panels of petty infighting, and indigestible blocks of info-dump text. Having said that, though, the second half of the story held together much better and central storyline is still completely compelling.

[Tym · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art, though not my style, is meticulous and well rendered with beautiful lines and a grand sense of style, It is quite clear what is happening in each panel. My one complaint is that all of these beautiful people begin to look the same after a while and the characters get jumbled and lost in a story that is trying to do more, I think, than the author is capable of doing at this point in her career. The ideas are large and epic and very operatic.

The characters and all their little in-fighting and schemes make it hard to follow anyone's motives saving a handful of characters (and this is a very large cast). I am going to check out her more recent work and see how she has grown I see so much potential here that sadly gets muddled.

[Printable Tire]

Begins with a lot of splitting of hairs and over-explanation ( A Distant Soil staples) but actually gets pretty action-packed, and ends on a cliff-hanger. Too bad I'll probably never read much more of the story, as this is the last collection the library has and I only own a stray few future issues.

[Jules Wolfers · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately there’s a double print in the middle, repeat from the beginning. They ought review before sending out.

[Elizabeth Reuter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Volume 3 is where A Distant Soil gets REALLY good.

Volume 1 did a great job setting things up. Volume 2, while awesome, got a little too sidetracked in romances between secondary characters. But with The Aria things pick up beautifully.

There's intrigue and drama, as Seren tries to move his pet rebellion forwards. There's beautiful art: Doran gets better with each issue, and here her decorative backgrounds and smooth figure-work took my breath away.

Best of all, there's character development. Side characters grow personalities (fell in love with Corrine here). Main characters get themselves into messes as big as any the villians could stick them in (Seren, I'm looking at you!) And those villians...you think you know them, but trust me, you don't! I liked A Distant Soil from the beginning, but it was The Aria when I began to CARE about it.

If you're into space opera, character-driven sci-fi, or sweeping narratives with beautiful art, A Distant Soil has something to offer you. If you're on the fence from earlier volumes, this one should convince you.

-Elizabeth Reuter
Author, The Demon of Renaissance Drive

[Alexis Hall]

Again, see comments on the first volume.

At this point I have literally no clue what ANY of this is about or who half these characters are or what their motivations.

Breathless glee, however, sustains one.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd LOVE LOVE LOVE to see Colleen color these for a future TPB...

re-read 5/4/2013