Lazarus: Sourcebook Collection Volume 1

Lazarus Sourcebook #1-3

by Greg Rucka, Neal Bailey, David Brothers

Collecting the first three LAZARUS SOURCEBOOKS, covering the lands ruled by Carlyle, Hock, and Vassalovka, now in one volume. With revised and expanded content, including additions to reflect developments in LAZARUS as the series moves into the year X+67 with “FRACTURE,” beginning Summer of 2018.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Science Fiction

152 pages, Paperback

Published April 24, 2018

About the author

Greg Rucka, is an American comic book writer and novelist, known for his work on such comics as Action Comics, Batwoman: Detective Comics, and the miniseries Superman: World of New Krypton for DC Comics, and for novels such as his Queen & Country series.

Reviews

[✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this was pretty shrimping good for a book about Super Extra Dense Stuff (SEDS™) I never knew I wanted to know about the world of Lazarus in general, and the Carlyle, Hock and Vassalovka families in particular.

Holy stinking fish, the author did such a splendiferous job here that it almost feels like you're reading a history/geopolitics book about um, you know, real history/geopolitics, and not about, um, you know, a slightly dystopian and somewhat a little screwed-up (albeit quite deliciously scrumptious) world. Most stunningly fantabulous this is. Mr Rucka, my murderous children and my little nefarious self gleefully click ours pincers in your honor. Well-deserved it is indeed.

Okay, so because this volume is so very extremely detailed and factual and sometimes reads like a heavy-duty encyclopedia, I ended up feeling a little like this:



Do not worry your little selves, for my little head grew back after this most unexpected incident, and I am quite deliriously happy to report that my two ever-decaying grey cells were not much affected. So yay and stuff.

But hey, moderately painful headaches aside, this is still brilliant stuff and fascinating stuff and rich stuff and complex stuff, so QED. And stuff.

➽ Nefarious Last Words (NLW™): not reading this volume affect your Lazarus experience will probably not, and better suited for hardcore shrimps Lazarus fans it probably is. But a most enlightening read it happens to be. So strongly consider perusing it you should. You're welcome and stuff.

Chronological Reading Order:
· Volume 1: Family ★★★★
· Volume 2: Lift ★★★
· Volume 3: Conclave ★★★★
· Volume 4: Poison ★★★★
· Volume 5: Cull ★★★★★
· Lazarus X+66 (side stories about supporting characters) ★★★★
· Fracture: Prelude 1 (issue #27, previously published in digital format only and now included in vol. 7) ★★★★
· Fracture: Prelude 2 (issue #28, previously published in digital format only and now included in vol. 7) ★★★★
· Volume 6: Fracture I ★★
· Volume 7: Fracture II ★★★

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't really essential to any but the most determined Lazarus completist, but is interesting nonetheless. Basically, the volume outlines the societies under Carlyle, Hock, and Vassalovka rule. Carlyle essentially controls the western US and Canada, Hock the eastern US and Canada, and Vassalovka controls Russia and the Baltics. We see what life is like for people under each of the various systems, including such things as bureaucracy, crime, culture, etc. The Carlyle and Vassalovka systems are very similar, a form of neo-feudalism, while the Hock empire is primarily controlled by an enforced drug regimen and sounds something like Brave New World combined with 1984. This volume is primarily text-based and reads something like a "bible" for the story background. The really important stuff here has been parceled out in bits and pieces as needed throughout the main story. The rest of it is little more than an interesting footnote.

[Trike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is what it says on the tin: the sourcebook for the Lazarus comic series. This is the worldbuilding backgrounder for the series, and I found it fascinating. But then I’m the kid who bought the The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Volume 1 when they came out in individual issues back in the day, so this was right up my alley.

[Harris · Rating 1 out of 5]

The world of the Lazarus series of comics is a pretty typical pulpy techno-thriller, post-apocalyptic setting with one of those fun future maps where the globe has been cut up into a bunch of bizarre new countries that can cause a lot of speculation just looking at it. As the comics focus on Forever Caryle’s personal battles, much of the setting can only be hinted at, leading to a lot of reader speculation. A “sourcebook” like this is something fans of the setting can use to fill in all of those blanks, but unfortunately, whatever you had imagined yourself is probably more interesting than whatever is revealed here.

This collection of background data for the Carlyle, Hock, and Vasselka families reads more like a dry, uninspiring RPG sourcebook for the Lazarus world, which is odd because there already is an RPG sourcebook for the Lazarus world. How much of this information is duplicated there? I feel like that makes this compilation of “facts” rather superfluous, as I don’t really see what other use these boring rundowns of each of these faction’s domains, government (such as it is), technological advances and equipment, military, and so one might be.

I feel a more interesting take for this would have been a more in-universe, found document take, like, say, a geography textbook sent to Carlyle serfs or even family intelligence passed on to a lazarus. To be frank, what suspension of disbelief I had for the world was kind of broken by the rather tepid explanations for each of these factions' shallow worldviews, and it doesn’t really add anything much to the story. See my review for the graphic novels here.

[Sam (Hissing Potatoes) · Rating 5 out of 5]

So this is by far the highest rating I've given a book I've DNFed. It is a wonderfully organized background volume for the lore of Lazarus, perfect for fanfiction writers or anyone intending to play in a Lazarus-based RPG. I intend on doing neither of those things, so the encyclopedic presentation read a little dry. However, I can definitely see myself using it as a reference while I continue the actual storyline. The level of thought, detail, complexity, and believability the creators have put into this world, as laid out in this volume, is incontrovertible evidence for why the actual storyline works so incredibly well.

Flipping through the volume allowed me to stumble on some interesting tidbits, like the "grief farms," which are basically online government-sponsored and controlled spaces for (in effect, primarily male) users to vent their furious energy that the government weaponizes against its political enemies. Sounds terrifyingly familiar and believable, no?

[Mihai · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a massive piece of work! This feels more like preparation for the upcoming series on Amazon and the amount of information Greg Rucka pours into the world building here is just staggering.

In this first volume we get a glimpse inside the totalitarian systems of Carlyle, Hock and Vassalovka. Each of them unique but with familiar and contemporary ingredients of domination and control.

[J.J. Ulizio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad read. Not recommended for the casual fan. This “sourcebook” is Rucka Doing some serious world building. It doesn’t follow a direct narrative at all but more reads like an encyclopedia or history book. It chronicles the history of this world including the fall of the old world governments and the rise of the familial governmental structures that took over. From family histories, to technological advancements even down to cultural factoids including common crimes and preferred leisure activities native to each territories. Some of the information is insanely fascinating while other pieces of information can be a bit of a slog to get through.

If you are a super fan of the Lazarus series you should definitely pick this up.overall id say it’s Interesting more than entertaining. But overall not bad, and a very detailed look into the world Rucka has built.

[jcw3-john · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, if occasionally dry, exposition on the Lazarus setting. Kind of gets bogged down in tedious minutiae here and there, and genuinely interesting segments on culture and the way these fucked up societies work is often immediately stopped to a halt by a weaker segment on a less interesting topic. I don't regret reading it, but I do wish it had different priorities.

It's a 7/10 for me, C-. Choosing to be generous and round up because the Hock and Vassalovka segments especially were great at presenting these horrible societies and how they function. Would never recommend someone start Lazarus with this book, but, like, who else is going to read this other than people who really liked Lazarus?

[Lukas Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense. VERY...very dense. But even though I had read some of the stuff in the individual volumes quite a bit I missed or had forgotten. Feels a bit like a guide for a RPG in the 90's, like a Mechwarrior or something, so pretty fun to read it along side the series and see just how far Rucka went in building this world.

[A.j. Garner]

Really neat idea...but I want more books. I think if this were a very large universe, I would love this (and I still love it). Here it just feels dense and I just miss Faith.

[Douglas Hancock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything you never knew you needed to know about Family Carlyle, Family Hock and Family Vassalovka from the Lazarus comic book series.

[Brienprime · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an A+ series. The source book collections give amazing information on the houses that make up the rulers of a ravaged world.

[Fresno Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hock is scary

[Theo]

Fascinating if you are reading the comics and want to know more details about the Families. I'm not going to rate it as it is a source book. It is laid out nicely.

[Alex Sarll]

In some ways, my love of invented worlds came before my love for stories set in them. I read the Tolkien Bestiary before I read any actual Tolkien past LotR. I used to read the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe when I'd only read a handful of Marvel comics – and inspired by that, made up my own superheroes with fact-files, only subsequently and half-arsedly telling anything approaching stories with them. I'll read RPG sourcebooks for games I'm never going to play. Sure, I'll read actual non-fiction too, but that's biased, incomplete, subject to endless revision. Fictional non-fiction? That can give you the whole picture. The fact that it's a whole story of no practical use, that it's not even a narrative in the sense supposedly so crucial to hominid brains, is irrelevant. Nowadays, I love stories too, but it's the fascination of a visitor to a strange land; I think that's why it infuriates me so when I see people getting stuck in bad stories they're telling themselves, because that seems like such an avoidable trap. Also why dialogue which tells, rather than shows, annoys me so much – if you wanted to just tell, could you not have just told, rather than affecting to show? I would probably have found that more engaging, but as is you're just wasting everyone's time.

And to think people have suggested I may not be entirely neurotypical.

All of which is to explain why I read a universe book for a comic I don't even especially like, one that's at the bottom end of books I keep reading when the library get them in. The problem being, at times this is also near the lower acceptable margin of sourcebooks. It can't altogether decide how in-universe it's meant to be, so sometimes we seem to be getting an omniscient perspective, at other times one clouded by the partial information available to someone writing in a dystopian and strictly regimented future. And it is in sore need of a decent editor: I was particularly appalled by the sentence "Memphis has long been a consistent source of conflict between Carlyle and Hock since long before the breakout of the Conclave War", but that's by no means unique, and the Hock book has the spelling 'alottment' on its cover. Still, as against the parent book, in which the corporate-run dystopia looks pretty much like now only very slightly more so, and is occluded behind a fairly generic story of dynastic rivalry and Pinocchio shit, the good bits here can get into the workings of what's interesting about the setting. The Carlyle dominions, for instance, which are the series' POV faction, turn out to run under a system known as 'longitudinal capitalism'. Essentially, it's the corporate feudalism for which many West Coast tech bros and neo-reactionaries currently yearn, but the team here have thought through some of the ways that might work out to a degree which the serious exponents have often neglected: "Carlyle government can be seen in one of two lights: either there is no government, or everyone works for the civil service". Is that what you want, small state advocates? In some ways the look at the Hock state, pharmacologically managed by a paranoid tyrant, feels like a missed opportunity: superficially propaganda against bleak backgrounds is one thing, but shouldn't the modern approach be more like twee menus and Innocent smoothie bottles, backed with firepower? Still, I like the way it combines Brave New World with 1984, each after all having anticipated different details of the present, and the tension over the degree to which US iconography is acceptable in a polity which has at once dissolved and replaced it – very reminiscent of the current uncertainties over the equivalent point in the states which once made up the USSR, and hence a subject in another book I'm reading at the moment. The third section covers the Russian territories of Vassalovka, and I didn't actually count the pages, but this felt slimmer than the other two – which is amusingly often the way when Americans do worldbooks (I remember the early days of Vampire, where an individual US city would get a whole book, and then the rest of the world also got one whole book). It does lean somewhat on familiar tropes in presenting Russia and its once and future subject territories as a grim, brutal and corrupt expanse, operating under a bastard feudalism, but the fault there lies at least as much with the depressing repetitions of Russian history as with the writers. Crucially, it does retain those little spots of colour - the Moscow Cat Circus as one of the few avenues for expressing dissent – which have always provided sparks amid the gloom.

One particularly dispiriting note: if anything, I think it may be a little optimistic. The sociopolitical dystopia is pretty much a linear extrapolation from where we are now, or even where we were when Lazarus began, which wasn't quite so bad. But ecologically...sure, there are regular coastal superstorms, and famines, but something recognisable as civilisation persists, and the Arctic is still icy. I really hate reading about dark futures with my fingers crossed that it won't be darker far.

Still, against other reviews saying this is strictly for completists, it's definitely my favourite volume of Lazarus to date.