What do you think?
Rate this book
A Garden of Spheres
A Garden of Spheres
A collection of semi-episodic sorta-experimental comics previously posted on Patreon in '22. In which a new world is created and an immortal & emotionally stunted entity wanders it in a state of bafflement. part 1 of ??
98 pages, ebook
First published March 20, 2023
8 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Linnea Sterte
14 books145 followersLinnea Sterte is a Swedish illustrator and comic book author. She gained international notoriety with her graphic novels Stages of Rot (2017) and A Frog in the Fall (2022). The latter book won the 'Prix Révélation' at the Angoulême Festival in 2023.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 11, 2023
Exquisite artwork, reminiscent of Mœbius at his more ethereal, and an intriguing story in development. Lovely stuff.
December 28, 2025
every Linnea Sterte comic is the best comic I've ever read
November 19, 2025
This is now my favourite comic/ graphic novel that I own. Can’t recommend enough.
December 15, 2025
Stunning. Read this immediately.
December 15, 2025
Deeply transportative and softly magical. A beautiful world rendered with evocative line work and clarity of style. Would recommend.
December 29, 2025
Linnea Sterte's Stages of Rot remains one of my all-time favorite graphic novels, so for the near future I'm bound to read any new work from her pen. The first volume of A Garden of Spheres is her longest work to date, and it's both wonderful and a bit frustrating.
On the wonderful side, her artwork is absolutely nonpareil. In the grand European tradition of the ligne claire, Sterte derives maximum visual impact from the smallest number of marks on the paper, focusing her efforts on shape over detail. Not a few comics artists use this approach, but Sterte is a true master on the level of Jean Giraud (aka Mœbius). It is a joy to flip through this book and get lost in the complete world that Sterte has created, with all of its broad horizons, crumbling ruins, and lush plant life.
On the frustrating side, Sterte has a tendency to render human faces in a repetitive manner, so that even male and female characters can be difficult to distinguish from each other in closeup, and many of the panels in A Garden of Spheres are focused tightly on faces. The problem disappears when characters are depicted with more than their faces showing, but Sterte's frequent use of "head shots" can make following the development of the narrative challenging at times.
That said, Linnea Sterte remains one of the most talented graphic artists working today, and this first volume of A Garden of Spheres is great stuff, even if it's not her best work to date. Despite my minor criticism above, I'm eagerly awaiting future volumes in this series.
On the wonderful side, her artwork is absolutely nonpareil. In the grand European tradition of the ligne claire, Sterte derives maximum visual impact from the smallest number of marks on the paper, focusing her efforts on shape over detail. Not a few comics artists use this approach, but Sterte is a true master on the level of Jean Giraud (aka Mœbius). It is a joy to flip through this book and get lost in the complete world that Sterte has created, with all of its broad horizons, crumbling ruins, and lush plant life.
On the frustrating side, Sterte has a tendency to render human faces in a repetitive manner, so that even male and female characters can be difficult to distinguish from each other in closeup, and many of the panels in A Garden of Spheres are focused tightly on faces. The problem disappears when characters are depicted with more than their faces showing, but Sterte's frequent use of "head shots" can make following the development of the narrative challenging at times.
That said, Linnea Sterte remains one of the most talented graphic artists working today, and this first volume of A Garden of Spheres is great stuff, even if it's not her best work to date. Despite my minor criticism above, I'm eagerly awaiting future volumes in this series.
December 28, 2025
Gorgeous, immersive, and mysterious. It felt right to take my time with this one and let all the details sink in. Already looking forward to the next installment.
February 1, 2025
I bought my copie on the author's itch.io, if anyone wants to read it.
If you read Stages of Rot and loved it and/or if you are a fan of Linnae Sterte or even Sci-fi, please pick this one up as well.
We might need to read it a couple of times to understand all that happens trough the story or even just read it slowly but every drawing is so beautiful to look at, the ones in colours and the ones in b&w, that every seconds is worth their while.
I hope she never gets tired of making comics because I for one, will never get tired of her comics.
If you read Stages of Rot and loved it and/or if you are a fan of Linnae Sterte or even Sci-fi, please pick this one up as well.
We might need to read it a couple of times to understand all that happens trough the story or even just read it slowly but every drawing is so beautiful to look at, the ones in colours and the ones in b&w, that every seconds is worth their while.
I hope she never gets tired of making comics because I for one, will never get tired of her comics.
December 18, 2025
Stunning artwork from a master. Stages of Rot and A Frog in the Fall are both beautiful (I mean, Peow really put a package together!), and World Heist is an amazing piece of art, but rather hard to follow -- so I was really pleased that this book, which I've been reading in bits on Sterte's Patreon, works remarkably well as a narrative, if you let it.
It's very slow-moving, with various short story detours along the way, which mostly wind their way back to the central narrative soon enough.
But really, the artwork is sumptuous! The switches from black & white to exquisite colour are a wonder to experience, and the detail in these convincing, strange organisms is sensational.
It's got the feel of a far future that matches Clarke's maxim that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic... I'm not sure there's any way to class this as hard science fiction, but it has the "feel" of SF.
Cannot recommend highly enough - it's somewhere in the vicinity of Anders Nilsen's Tongues I, which is the greatest graphic novel (first half of) in the last couple of decades, so being nearby is high praise.
It's very slow-moving, with various short story detours along the way, which mostly wind their way back to the central narrative soon enough.
But really, the artwork is sumptuous! The switches from black & white to exquisite colour are a wonder to experience, and the detail in these convincing, strange organisms is sensational.
It's got the feel of a far future that matches Clarke's maxim that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic... I'm not sure there's any way to class this as hard science fiction, but it has the "feel" of SF.
Cannot recommend highly enough - it's somewhere in the vicinity of Anders Nilsen's Tongues I, which is the greatest graphic novel (first half of) in the last couple of decades, so being nearby is high praise.
November 20, 2025
everyone needs to lock in NOW
December 5, 2025
(stand in until the collected edition is added)
best bit of fantasy i have read in years!
best bit of fantasy i have read in years!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews