Turns out I didn’t wait long enough to start this series. I have fast run out of Saga and that is a tragedy. When is the next book? Siiiiigh. (Reminder to self for next time starting a Brian K. Vaughan series: the “long enough” time to wait to start a series of his is “when it’s already finished”.) Slight spoilers to follow.
More than any other book in this series so far, I feel like Volume 5 really hit home for me why this series is called “Saga“. The focus of the story is so personal and intimate, and yet the scope of it is epic and galactic, and has far-reaching consequences for very big and important things. The whole time you’re reading, you just have this sense of each individual story being part of this huge whole that is only slowly being revealed to you, and also, that you will never entirely see the real whole, because there’s just too much of it to see.
And it’s just, it’s so well done. The storytelling is so focused on the individual, but it’s through those individual characters that we can see the larger things BKV is concerned with: family, love, and meditations on war and violence begetting nothing but violence. And there’s no heavy handedness at all. Part of the reason for this is that even as we’re watching characters make mistakes or hurt other characters, we always understand why they’re doing it. We sympathize with Dengo and his mission even though we know he’s going about everything the wrong way, and when he finally realizes that, too, along comes Prince Robot IV to take his revenge and halt Dengo’s redemption story right in its tracks. And we understand why he does that, too, especially as he takes his infant son from Dengo’s arms. And all of these little moments will have consequences, rippling out from their points in time, until someone finally steps out and stops the cycle.
I just fucking love all these characters. BKV is so good at characters. I don’t even know how he does it. Also, I just have to confess, Marko is hot. He’s fucking hot, ya’ll. I’m super into it.
If you’re hesitating at all about picking up this series, stop it right now. But maybe also, don’t stop it? At least until the next trade paperback comes out. The need for the next part of the story is intensely real.
And seriously, that wasn’t a rhetorical question at the beginning of this review. When is the next one??
P.S. Triple cannonball! My first one 🙂
