The last, desperate hunt is on. Humanity is losing its tripartite war against the Vinn and the Continuum of Makers. But the scout ship Machito might yet turn the tide of war, by recruiting a species that can fly a starship like no one's ever seen. The ship and its crew have desperately searched Veeta, Slaughter, Du Fu and the Great Hold of the Sill. But across these vast stretches of space, they've found only one tiny clue: the species they seek, the species that could save humanity, lives on a planet of "tall trees with high-built homes, in endless jungles of blue." Can they find that planet before humanity falls?
Act three of the very fun Drive webcomic is right back into the thick of it. The Second Spanish Empire is now at war with two alien species: the Continuum of Makers and the Vinn. And it's losing both. The scout ship Machito is tasked with finding more of of Skeeter's alien species - he's able to navigate a spaceship like nobody else - but they're running out of clues, and Humanity is running out of time.
I actually had to go back and read the whole previous volume to bring me back up to speed before I started into this one. The characters are still as immensely fun as before - Nosh, in particular, is so loveable. The plot is pretty twisty, as different factions have different agendas, most of which aren't compatible with each other. The Fillipods are a brilliant species - very intelligent, but more concerned with turning that intelligence to poetry slams than weapons or technology. And the Astronomer Royal in particular is brilliant, in his inability to sensibly compliment the emperor.
It's not a long volume, the main story is only about 160 pages long, but it is very pretty. The comic pages are well-produced with lots of detail. There are also a number of short stories set in the universe at the end, although given that these aren't written by Kellett, it's not clear how canonical they are. But notwithstanding that, the story Motherbear by Beth Reidmiller is marvellous, and quite heart-breaking.
I don't know how many acts the story as a whole is envisaged to cover, but it feels like we must be past the mid-point now. We've had many revelations about the universe, and we've finally found out who Skitter's people are. It sort of feels like it should start to wind up a bit fairly soon. Although mind you, at the pace that the webcomic is released, that could still take several years to come to completion.
I follow the webcomic, but I always reread the print volumes when I get my hands on them and it's nice to get a refresher on what's going on in the current online run. I'm in such awe of Kellett's alien mythology here as we get closer and closer to a realization among all the different aliens (there is so much going on underneath the Emperor's nose!), and Ahmis and the Continuum of Makers is my favorite subplot of all, though Nosh is my favorite character (and the Qen species were freaking wonderful).
A delightful continuation of the Drive saga! I highly recommend the entire series! The only frustration is that it takes so long for the next book to come out especially since the story is only being added to one page per week. Everyone needs to pay Dave more through Patreon so that we can speed this up.
The DRIVE saga continues, with further adventures of our favorite semi-rogue Drive ship and its crew. More revelations among the Makers, and about the Vinn. If you stuck with the story through Arc 2 (book 2), you'll want this part also. Oh, and more excellent short stories by excellent writers and artists!
The characters remain the main driver of this series. The story moves too slowly to be truly compelling on an "ideas" level. But the jokes are fun and the poetry is so enjoyable bad that I want to spend more time with these characters and this world!