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Bezkamp
Nem is living in his father's shadow. Migal, one of the strongest warriors in all of BezKamp, is disappointed that his son shows no sign of fire or strength. Nem would rather spend his days collecting rare artifacts from their village's ancestors, especially books and writings, even though the written word has been outlawed in BezKamp for decades. On their planet of Klassew, the people live in fear of the dangerous Crig beasts that can poison their land. BezKamp is isolated from the Crig territory, and the villagers techno-ritual called "Creejun" allows them to cultivate land and expand their territory. But when unexpected corruption begins taking land and lives around BezKamp, the village leaders, warriors, and healers must venture out of the city gates to war-torn lands to protect their livelihood. Heading the charge, Migal hopes to use this mission as a way to finally show his son the meaning of honor and responsibility.
When Nem begins to see more of Klassew beyond his home village, he sees a world full of corruption, deceit, and lies. When he meets Janny, a BezKamp outsider living off the land on her own, Nem's view of BezKamp begins to shatter. As the pair begins to unlock deep-seeded secrets about their peoples suppressed past, Nem learns that the strongest warrior fights for the truth.
When Nem begins to see more of Klassew beyond his home village, he sees a world full of corruption, deceit, and lies. When he meets Janny, a BezKamp outsider living off the land on her own, Nem's view of BezKamp begins to shatter. As the pair begins to unlock deep-seeded secrets about their peoples suppressed past, Nem learns that the strongest warrior fights for the truth.
256 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2019
68 people want to read
About the author
Samuel Sattin
33 books115 followersSamuel Sattin is an American writer. His books include the multi-volume Unico series for Scholastic Graphix, Buzzing, Side Quest, The Silent End, and (as co-author) both A Kids Guide to Anime and Manga and The Essential Anime Guide: 50 Iconic Films, Standout Series, and Cult Masterpieces. He has also adapted the Academy Award-nominated films WolfWalkers, Song of the Sea, and The Secret of Kells to the graphic novel format. He graduated with an MFA in comics from the California College of the Arts and works as a studio writer for Schulz Creative Associates, aka Snoopy Central. Samuel resides with his wife in Northern California, and travels frequently to Japan.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 28, 2019
Nem is a young human boy on a dangerous alien world trapped in a society that outlaws reading and writing. It forces everyone into a class system. His family are all warriors while he wants to excavate artifacts and discover what they used to do. Eventually he discovers more about his world that could have a huge affect on his society. The plot isn't bad at all.
My largest problem with the book is they speak in this future pidgen version of English. This is one of my pet peeves of sci-fi books because it completely takes me out of the story while I focus on translating in my head what each character just said. I found myself just becoming a translator instead of absorbing the story. The book is also way too long at 250+ pages. I found Jen Hickman's art very rudimentary, especially the alien creatures. They almost looked as if they were drawn by children.
Received a review copy from Lion Forge and Edelweiss. All thoughts are my own and in no way influenced by the aforementioned.
My largest problem with the book is they speak in this future pidgen version of English. This is one of my pet peeves of sci-fi books because it completely takes me out of the story while I focus on translating in my head what each character just said. I found myself just becoming a translator instead of absorbing the story. The book is also way too long at 250+ pages. I found Jen Hickman's art very rudimentary, especially the alien creatures. They almost looked as if they were drawn by children.
Received a review copy from Lion Forge and Edelweiss. All thoughts are my own and in no way influenced by the aforementioned.
August 7, 2019
Not too bad a comic, but one certainly with flaws. The world is an alien one, where society has devolved – the spoken language is a bastardised version of what we have today, people are stuck in one of only a few roles, and it's not an easy life. Our hero is a boy who doesn't want to become a warrior, but to explore what was left around by the people that were there before, and learn to write as well, which is a criminal act of sedition. All that would be well and good, if the artwork matched that outline, but it's no match for the action scenes, and when things get weird they stay weird with this cartoonish lack of clarity. I don't think people poised on the back of giant poodles really cuts it. The plot and script could get four stars, but the art really dumps this down to the two and a half mark.
May 14, 2019
Nem was raised to believe that everything outside the walls of Bezkamp was poison, that writing and reading were blasphemous and illegal, that humans predated the creatures of the wildlands, that his mother was a traitor, that asking questions was wrong, and that he was too weak to be valued. It is only when Nem gets lost in the wildlands outside Bezkamp's walls does he discover that nearly everything he was taught is wrong. Sam Sattin has skillfully crafted an inventive, action-filled sci-fi adventure that simultaneously wrestles with family trauma, environmental destruction and the danger of destroying history. Nem's ancestors fled Earth as refugees but when they found a new habitable plant they arrived as invading colonizers. Jen Hickman's gorgeous art illuminates a hopeful future in which humans are willing to learn from their mistakes, change their ways, work in partnership with the native beings and save their mutual home. Humorous and deeply moving by turns, I highly recommend it! I was delighted to receive an advanced reader copy of this book, which is one of the best perks of having author friends :)
September 11, 2019
A story that will feel both epic and close-to-home, and extremely relevant. Nem’s community wants to make their planet livable—but for whom? His father does not accept his bookish ways (writing is not allowed) and the more he questions their way of life, the more he realizes that path is not for him. When he meets a stranger outside of Bezkamp, the truth about his family and their home becomes clear. “Bezkamp” is an emphatic commentary on our current relationship with the environment, and a reminder that we can grow from discord. Finally, Jen Hickman’s art is stunning, their use of color setting the mood for each turn in the narrative. I read it in a single sitting.
October 6, 2019
'Bezkamp' by Samuel Sattin with art by Jen Hickman is a graphic novel with an interesting SF story at its heart.
Nem is a disappointment to his father Migal. They live in a village called BezKamp and are at war with creatures on the planet. Nem would rather try to dig for old artifacts to try to figure out the past. In a world where reading and writing are banned, his choices make him unpopular. Migal is determined to make his son a warrior and teache him about "Creejun" which is used to terraform.
I liked this story, but it took a while to get used to the odd way the characters speak. A hint for readers might be to sound things out. The language is a derivation of English (as might happen without writing or literature). The art wasn't initially my favorite, but it also grew on me. By the end, I did enjoy this.
I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Lion Forge, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.
Nem is a disappointment to his father Migal. They live in a village called BezKamp and are at war with creatures on the planet. Nem would rather try to dig for old artifacts to try to figure out the past. In a world where reading and writing are banned, his choices make him unpopular. Migal is determined to make his son a warrior and teache him about "Creejun" which is used to terraform.
I liked this story, but it took a while to get used to the odd way the characters speak. A hint for readers might be to sound things out. The language is a derivation of English (as might happen without writing or literature). The art wasn't initially my favorite, but it also grew on me. By the end, I did enjoy this.
I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Lion Forge, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.
January 7, 2023
Look at those mixed reviews - some people like the story but not the art, and vice versa.
I heard about it in Gene Ambaum's library comic newsletter. And the cover intrigued, so I can use it for 'chosen for the cover' challenge items.
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Ok done. I personally found things to like about the art, and things to like about the text & ideas, and things to dislike about all of the above. I guess, imo, the basic fault is that it reads like a mediocre movie, or even an 'afterschool special' in a sort of a way. Rather predictable, rather tropey, but not completely. Not much more to the plot, characters, ideas than a short story... but the art does flesh it out to make it almost worthy of a whole book.
But yeah, lots was confusing, as others have said. How did the language only change that much in that many years? How did our boy become an "excavator" in the first place? What are those mounts (that resemble giant doggies)? I wonder if the author has sequels in mind if it catches on.
I heard about it in Gene Ambaum's library comic newsletter. And the cover intrigued, so I can use it for 'chosen for the cover' challenge items.
---
Ok done. I personally found things to like about the art, and things to like about the text & ideas, and things to dislike about all of the above. I guess, imo, the basic fault is that it reads like a mediocre movie, or even an 'afterschool special' in a sort of a way. Rather predictable, rather tropey, but not completely. Not much more to the plot, characters, ideas than a short story... but the art does flesh it out to make it almost worthy of a whole book.
But yeah, lots was confusing, as others have said. How did the language only change that much in that many years? How did our boy become an "excavator" in the first place? What are those mounts (that resemble giant doggies)? I wonder if the author has sequels in mind if it catches on.
August 30, 2019
I read this book as a pdf preview from Lion Forge's newsletter.
This book follows Nem, a boy from a family of warriors who are tasked with fighting off the crigs and using "creejun" to protect their land from poisoning. Nim, however, does not have a warrior spirit. Instead, he wants to be an excavator, digging up relics and trying to learn things from the past that his society has chosen to forget. It is a very rigid society, purposefully portrayed as superstitious and a bit backward, reinforcing Nem's wish to question why things are the way they are and why they have to be that way.
Along the way he meets Janny, a girl who lives outside the Bezkamp society. The two have a connection that appears to the reader before it is discovered by themselves, and together they discover the truth about the planet they are on and the Bezkamp society. It is then up to them to go back and tell people the truth and try to get them to face up to the actual realities of their situation.
These are good messages, but the more interesting part to me was the history of the society, and the revelation that the truths that Bezkamp had forged for itself were in conflict with reality. This was really good.
But then it just sort of ends. Nem and Janny's message is met with a lot less skepticism (or outright hostility) than you would typically expect, and events come quickly to a climax where everything just sort of works itself out.
I think this would have been a much better story if instead of the epilogue with the happy ending, we were getting a second volume where the society had to wrestle with some of the problems and revelations that come up in the middle part of the book. The society's origins are rather dubious. Their relationship to the planet and crigs is not what they have always believed. The crigs are revealed to be intelligent beyond what was understood and even having this memory web that it incredibly useful and advanced.
That could have been a really interesting story, but instead we got this rosy, "the planet is doing something we don't understand but it means we can live in harmony" ending.
Lastly, I want to note the use of dialect throughout the story. It's is mostly kept close enough to standard English that there isn't anything that is completely unintelligible, but it was a little distracting in the first couple chapters of the story before I got used to it. Other than the words that are sort of coined for the story like crigs and special things like "creejun," I think the author could have dialed it back a bit. It does provide a contrast when they come across the A.I. on the ship, but that's really it's only function in the story. It looked like there was a moment where Nem drops some of the accent when he's by himself, but either it was just the specific words he was using weren't as accented or that was an angle that was dropped because it never seemed like that again.
Overall, it was good, but there were places where I could just see where it had potential to be a lot deeper and more interesting, and the fact that it didn't go to those places was a little disappointing.
This book follows Nem, a boy from a family of warriors who are tasked with fighting off the crigs and using "creejun" to protect their land from poisoning. Nim, however, does not have a warrior spirit. Instead, he wants to be an excavator, digging up relics and trying to learn things from the past that his society has chosen to forget. It is a very rigid society, purposefully portrayed as superstitious and a bit backward, reinforcing Nem's wish to question why things are the way they are and why they have to be that way.
Along the way he meets Janny, a girl who lives outside the Bezkamp society. The two have a connection that appears to the reader before it is discovered by themselves, and together they discover the truth about the planet they are on and the Bezkamp society. It is then up to them to go back and tell people the truth and try to get them to face up to the actual realities of their situation.
These are good messages, but the more interesting part to me was the history of the society, and the revelation that the truths that Bezkamp had forged for itself were in conflict with reality. This was really good.
But then it just sort of ends. Nem and Janny's message is met with a lot less skepticism (or outright hostility) than you would typically expect, and events come quickly to a climax where everything just sort of works itself out.
I think this would have been a much better story if instead of the epilogue with the happy ending, we were getting a second volume where the society had to wrestle with some of the problems and revelations that come up in the middle part of the book. The society's origins are rather dubious. Their relationship to the planet and crigs is not what they have always believed. The crigs are revealed to be intelligent beyond what was understood and even having this memory web that it incredibly useful and advanced.
That could have been a really interesting story, but instead we got this rosy, "the planet is doing something we don't understand but it means we can live in harmony" ending.
Lastly, I want to note the use of dialect throughout the story. It's is mostly kept close enough to standard English that there isn't anything that is completely unintelligible, but it was a little distracting in the first couple chapters of the story before I got used to it. Other than the words that are sort of coined for the story like crigs and special things like "creejun," I think the author could have dialed it back a bit. It does provide a contrast when they come across the A.I. on the ship, but that's really it's only function in the story. It looked like there was a moment where Nem drops some of the accent when he's by himself, but either it was just the specific words he was using weren't as accented or that was an angle that was dropped because it never seemed like that again.
Overall, it was good, but there were places where I could just see where it had potential to be a lot deeper and more interesting, and the fact that it didn't go to those places was a little disappointing.
Read
January 5, 2022No star rating because I know the author, but I will say this is a pretty interesting take on the subgenre of "far future people in a scary alien landscape discover that their history isn't what they thought" (there's a fair amount of thematic overlap with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, for instance) that I think benefits from making the world small enough that the epic problems have a clear connection to the personal problems. The art is expressive and covers a nice range of "wow, cool" to "ugh, gross" in a YA key. I'm kind of ambivalent about the way it's all written in future dialect; sometimes that works for me, other times I'm bothered by how some of it is eye-dialect where the different spelling wouldn't have a different sound (in a setting where there's no written language). But for me it's mostly about the characters and the monsters, and I like all of those.
June 6, 2020
3.5 stars. I found the story interesting and I liked the art, not it kind of ends suddenly after s big reveal. I would have liked more chapters with the adults coming to terms with the revelation and an explanation on how the humans would continue to live off the land. I see a lot of complaints about the language. I can understand why many people were confused by it, but when spoken aloud sounded like existing English accents I've heard so once I caught the rhythm in my head, I was able to speed along.
December 4, 2019
Nem's curiosity and tendency toward exploration is disappointing to his father, who values strength, and dangerous in his village, which has outlawed the written word. The story and characters are well-written, exciting, and interesting, but the ending was far too neat for my taste. In real life, endings are rarely, if ever, wrapped securely with no loose edges or unanswered questions, but that seems to be what Samuel Sattin aimed for here. The result is unsatisfying to me.
February 6, 2020
The story is super interesting, but I don't feel like the art fits well with the story, and the weird slang english used throughout the whole book is just confusing and makes the reading slow. I could not for the life of me force my way through it even if I want to, which I do. Because like I said the actual story is interesting and I want to read it. I am sad honestly.
March 26, 2020
An immersive, at times terrifying world... And beautiful! Everything from the shape of the characters' hair to the colors chosen and everything in between is powerfully meaningful. It starts out looking like a classic parable for colonialism and then takes some interesting turns.
December 9, 2019
Jen Hickman's art was beautiful and I loved the colours but I found the story a bit confusing and hard to follow.
July 15, 2020
good story set on a fallen colony world. The bastardized English the characters speak takes a little getting used to but just read everything phonetically and it’ll make sense.
April 25, 2020
| Reader Fox Blog |
Bezkamp by Samuel Sattin and illustrated by Jen Hickman was interesting. In a world where history and the written word are basically condemned to the point that it is outright banished, the son of a warrior on a planet filled with terrifying aliens finds himself more fascinated with learning about what came before than he is in following in his father's footsteps. As everyone in the society sort of falls into their given roles, Nem rebels from his as much as he is able under the tutelage of his father and aunts until one day an unexpected disaster strikes that changes everything.
I was honestly kind of blown away by Bezkamp. From the deterioration of both the society's education and language, you're not quite sure what to expect from this story but as it progresses and piece by piece the truths of the world are revealed, you're left with a story that's actually quite brilliant. While admittedly a number of plot points are somewhat easily predicted, you still find yourself invested in the story and the characters.
As Nem stumbles through his shocking adventure, he happens upon a young girl who has sort of been left on her own in the world but holds many answers that he has been searching for. And together they continue on a journey to answer even more. What was most shocking to me, in fact, was how much I did care about what happened to the people of Bezkamp, a name that I didn't quite understand until later on in the graphic novel. It was one of those lightbulb moments for me, which was genuinely fun to experience.
The ending was, unfortunately, a bit rushed in the hope of tying up loose ends and leaving this graphic novel as a standalone, which I don't think was necessary. I feel as though this story would have worked far better with a sequel or perhaps a little bit more of a transition and less of an all-happy ending. Conflicts were resolved far too quickly for it to really be believable and a time jump just feels contrived.
The artwork worked for me, though I wouldn't say I was blown away by everything. While the characters were excellently drawn, the aliens were quite odd and the landscape somewhat bare. Ultimately, however, this didn't really affect much with my ability to enjoy the story. I'm actually rather fond of it all as a whole and I appreciated the fact that areas in which battles and wounds were depicted weren't too terribly graphic or disturbing, though one scene did stand out to me as slightly uncomfortable.
All in all, I'm definitely glad I got a chance to read this one.
I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Bezkamp by Samuel Sattin and illustrated by Jen Hickman was interesting. In a world where history and the written word are basically condemned to the point that it is outright banished, the son of a warrior on a planet filled with terrifying aliens finds himself more fascinated with learning about what came before than he is in following in his father's footsteps. As everyone in the society sort of falls into their given roles, Nem rebels from his as much as he is able under the tutelage of his father and aunts until one day an unexpected disaster strikes that changes everything.
I was honestly kind of blown away by Bezkamp. From the deterioration of both the society's education and language, you're not quite sure what to expect from this story but as it progresses and piece by piece the truths of the world are revealed, you're left with a story that's actually quite brilliant. While admittedly a number of plot points are somewhat easily predicted, you still find yourself invested in the story and the characters.
As Nem stumbles through his shocking adventure, he happens upon a young girl who has sort of been left on her own in the world but holds many answers that he has been searching for. And together they continue on a journey to answer even more. What was most shocking to me, in fact, was how much I did care about what happened to the people of Bezkamp, a name that I didn't quite understand until later on in the graphic novel. It was one of those lightbulb moments for me, which was genuinely fun to experience.
The ending was, unfortunately, a bit rushed in the hope of tying up loose ends and leaving this graphic novel as a standalone, which I don't think was necessary. I feel as though this story would have worked far better with a sequel or perhaps a little bit more of a transition and less of an all-happy ending. Conflicts were resolved far too quickly for it to really be believable and a time jump just feels contrived.
The artwork worked for me, though I wouldn't say I was blown away by everything. While the characters were excellently drawn, the aliens were quite odd and the landscape somewhat bare. Ultimately, however, this didn't really affect much with my ability to enjoy the story. I'm actually rather fond of it all as a whole and I appreciated the fact that areas in which battles and wounds were depicted weren't too terribly graphic or disturbing, though one scene did stand out to me as slightly uncomfortable.
All in all, I'm definitely glad I got a chance to read this one.
I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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