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Neozoic Volume 1
In a gritty sci-fi fantasy world where dinosaurs did not become extinct, human history has unfolded side-by-side with the giant reptiles. The greatest of the dinosaur slayers are known as the Predator Defense League. When an act of kindness causes thousands of the beasts to destroy the walls of Monanti City, it leaves culture vs. culture, mammal vs. reptile, friend vs. friend and father vs. daughter. Collects the hard-to-find critically-celebrated series, Neozoic #1-8.
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First published May 12, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 13, 2016
I loved the art in this book, which is reminiscent (in a good way) of fantasy RPG art, particularly Torchlight for me, and the depiction of light (different times of day, torchlight, light filtered through a jungle canopy) was fantastic. This is a great, fun action story, and I think that it would make a wonderful TV series. However, it's definitely light on character development; actually there isn't much character development at all, and it somewhat difficult to keep track of the characters when the story jumps around because you don't know much about the characters and all the female characters look like the same Bratz-doll-esque pin-up girl.
March 21, 2021
Fun, fast action with a decent plot and lots of interesting characters. Essentially this book is a mash up of "Games of Thrones and Jurassic Park".
February 9, 2013
I wanted to like it more than I did, but the pacing was sloppy, the characterization was only lip service, and all the ladies looked like pin-up models. Save me.
March 13, 2024
A series with a ton of potential. It's set in a world where dinosaurs never died out and humans live in a walled city. There's another race of albinos (who are evil, I guess) and a girl who can control the dinosaurs with mind powers. My problems are that the storytelling isn't very good and neither is the worldbuilding. There's a bunch of slang that isn't explained or shown so you just don't know what they are talking about. The art is pretty good. However, there are a ton of characters and they all look the same. I had a problem telling most of them apart.
March 17, 2024
Might have been four stars, but I was really struggling to tell the difference between a lot of the characters. There's "female character," "young man," and "old man," and I really couldn't tell beyond that. I also wish the dinosaurs had played a bigger part, rather than just being undifferentiated monsters. (And am I confused, or were sauropods depicted as eating people?)
May 16, 2023
Alternative history. A world when dinosaurs did not die out. Where they live alongside humans (somehow) in a quasi-fantasy setting. This should have totally been my thing. Unfortunately, Neozoic doesn’t live up to its potential, in almost any way.
Sixty-five million years ago, an alien battleship in the middle of an engagement is struck by a volley of missiles (don't give any other thought about the aliens it never comes up again). The destroyed ship collides with the asteroid that would have wiped out the dinosaurs, causing it to go off course and collide with the moon (it destroys like a quarter of the moon. The meteor was big, but it wasn’t that big, and that much of the moon destroyed would have an enormous impact on earth, but ok, ill let the artistic licence go). Leaving the dinosaurs untouched, to continue. Cut to sixty-five million years later, dinosaurs or Megasavros still inhabit the Earth along with large mammals and humans. The large human city of Monanti, is protected from the dangerous beasts by high thick walls and the elite Predator Defence League, the PDL. On a mission, Lilli, one of the PDLs best fighters finds a swarm of Megasavros all clustered around a small girl – a Talpid, a different culture/species of human. Lilli, against the laws of both the city and the religion brings her back to the city. This leads to a crisis in Monanti City and threats from outside the city’s walls.
The potential here was massive, but what we got is a muddle of half-baked ideas told poorly. Monanti City is a city of millions, but there’s no mention of any other human settlements, so we don’t know if there are other cities, nations or even people exist. They talk about high alloy steels, and the PDL have fancy weapons that throw acid bombs, and they seem to have video cameras but stuff like guns, cars and planes don’t exist, with swords, bows and riding on horseback the main weapons and transport. They don’t even ride on dinosaurs which would seem to be the easiest thing to do here. This was to create a more fantasy led story I’m guessing, but talking about specialised alloys, enough tech for large TV screens and video cameras but it stopped it terms of weapon development when the danger from dinosaurs is ever present and the PDL is the elite of society you’d think getting better weapons would be a priority, than cutting at a giant sauropod with a broadsword.
The whole political and religious aspects of Monanti are sparse and barely given any explanation. Like the religious laws or the Triety are brought up quite a bit yet are never explained. The Talpids which seem to serve as the antagonists of the book aren’t given much either or looking back seem to fill the Elves role in generic fantasy stories. A race of humans I guess, that are pale grey, telepathic and have a long-contested history with the Monanti political and religious authorities. But we learn nothing of this. What are the Talpids? We never find out. What is the history of the Talpids and their claim of Monanti City? Don't know. All this is brought up but never answered leaving massive unanswered questions and what plot filled those holes wasn't particularly good. There’s a lot left out or left very vague but the writer and the book itself makes this stuff seem important which makes it more infuriating that nothing is done with it. And the big draw for this book, that the dinosaurs never went extinct, seems like a massive, wasted opportunity. You could have replaced them with generic monsters for all the impact they have and it’s surprising how little it played a role. Other than a few instances of a T. Rex attack and a couple of raptors showing up later, they stay pretty much in the background. Why not have to Talpids be an evolved dinosaur species? That seems like a homerun story with this premise.
The art is...complicated. On the one hand it has a decent style, which reminded me a lot of animation films in the late 90s and early 2000s, on the other though all the style the characters are drawn in make them look all the same. It’s really difficult to tell the characters from each other, especially the female ones as the way they are drawn just make them look like the same person. The male characters aren’t treated much better, but they have a greater mix of clothes, hair, and beards to help identify who was who. Added to lacklustre, generic dialogue make the characters dull and fail to make an impression. You don’t have a favourite and with the dullness in both story and writing it’s hard to remember who anybody was.
For me, anything with dinosaurs in it gets a better rating than it should, but this is such a let-down, even the presence of dinosaurs cannot help drag it up. With its unimaginative main plot, littered with unexplained plots holes that are both particularly important and unnecessary at the same time, an art style that confuses more than it impresses and just the total missed chances in storytelling with the initial concept. Its hard for me to recommend. Unless you are really, really into dinosaurs like me, it’s a hard sell, and even then, I’d say probably give it a miss. Not as much a disappointment for being a badly written book, bit for the missed opportunity.
Sixty-five million years ago, an alien battleship in the middle of an engagement is struck by a volley of missiles (don't give any other thought about the aliens it never comes up again). The destroyed ship collides with the asteroid that would have wiped out the dinosaurs, causing it to go off course and collide with the moon (it destroys like a quarter of the moon. The meteor was big, but it wasn’t that big, and that much of the moon destroyed would have an enormous impact on earth, but ok, ill let the artistic licence go). Leaving the dinosaurs untouched, to continue. Cut to sixty-five million years later, dinosaurs or Megasavros still inhabit the Earth along with large mammals and humans. The large human city of Monanti, is protected from the dangerous beasts by high thick walls and the elite Predator Defence League, the PDL. On a mission, Lilli, one of the PDLs best fighters finds a swarm of Megasavros all clustered around a small girl – a Talpid, a different culture/species of human. Lilli, against the laws of both the city and the religion brings her back to the city. This leads to a crisis in Monanti City and threats from outside the city’s walls.
The potential here was massive, but what we got is a muddle of half-baked ideas told poorly. Monanti City is a city of millions, but there’s no mention of any other human settlements, so we don’t know if there are other cities, nations or even people exist. They talk about high alloy steels, and the PDL have fancy weapons that throw acid bombs, and they seem to have video cameras but stuff like guns, cars and planes don’t exist, with swords, bows and riding on horseback the main weapons and transport. They don’t even ride on dinosaurs which would seem to be the easiest thing to do here. This was to create a more fantasy led story I’m guessing, but talking about specialised alloys, enough tech for large TV screens and video cameras but it stopped it terms of weapon development when the danger from dinosaurs is ever present and the PDL is the elite of society you’d think getting better weapons would be a priority, than cutting at a giant sauropod with a broadsword.
The whole political and religious aspects of Monanti are sparse and barely given any explanation. Like the religious laws or the Triety are brought up quite a bit yet are never explained. The Talpids which seem to serve as the antagonists of the book aren’t given much either or looking back seem to fill the Elves role in generic fantasy stories. A race of humans I guess, that are pale grey, telepathic and have a long-contested history with the Monanti political and religious authorities. But we learn nothing of this. What are the Talpids? We never find out. What is the history of the Talpids and their claim of Monanti City? Don't know. All this is brought up but never answered leaving massive unanswered questions and what plot filled those holes wasn't particularly good. There’s a lot left out or left very vague but the writer and the book itself makes this stuff seem important which makes it more infuriating that nothing is done with it. And the big draw for this book, that the dinosaurs never went extinct, seems like a massive, wasted opportunity. You could have replaced them with generic monsters for all the impact they have and it’s surprising how little it played a role. Other than a few instances of a T. Rex attack and a couple of raptors showing up later, they stay pretty much in the background. Why not have to Talpids be an evolved dinosaur species? That seems like a homerun story with this premise.
The art is...complicated. On the one hand it has a decent style, which reminded me a lot of animation films in the late 90s and early 2000s, on the other though all the style the characters are drawn in make them look all the same. It’s really difficult to tell the characters from each other, especially the female ones as the way they are drawn just make them look like the same person. The male characters aren’t treated much better, but they have a greater mix of clothes, hair, and beards to help identify who was who. Added to lacklustre, generic dialogue make the characters dull and fail to make an impression. You don’t have a favourite and with the dullness in both story and writing it’s hard to remember who anybody was.
For me, anything with dinosaurs in it gets a better rating than it should, but this is such a let-down, even the presence of dinosaurs cannot help drag it up. With its unimaginative main plot, littered with unexplained plots holes that are both particularly important and unnecessary at the same time, an art style that confuses more than it impresses and just the total missed chances in storytelling with the initial concept. Its hard for me to recommend. Unless you are really, really into dinosaurs like me, it’s a hard sell, and even then, I’d say probably give it a miss. Not as much a disappointment for being a badly written book, bit for the missed opportunity.
October 22, 2019
just not my thing,
June 8, 2013
Can't really wrong with dinosaurs, right? Not sure if I like the brown text for dialog. Why are there always old men who are bad asses in dinosaur-themed scenarios? Lots of characters in this book. Had hard time learning who's who. Also, not a fan of dinosaurs crashing through walls and floors and land critical attacks to humans. HOW DID THEY KNOW THEY WERE THERE?! Can they see through solid objects? I know it seems like I'm bashing book but I am enjoying the read. Coming to an end. Might pick up rest of Neozoic because of art. And dinosaurs. The traitor is kind of a b!tch. A manipulative one I might add.
April 2, 2012
Fun quick read, great art, I love many Red5 comics.
February 22, 2016
Simple story, but the art is really cool. I would read another.
April 19, 2017
Exiting and fast pace story with a strong female lead.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews