The Battle of Blood and Ink
A Fable of the Flying City
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
If you're visiting the flying city of Amperstam without the latest printing of The Lurker's Guide, you might as well be lost. This one-sheet is written, edited, and printed by Ashe, a girl raised on the streets of the flying city, and is dedicated to revealing its hidden treasures and deepest secrets—including many that the overcontrolling government doesn't want anyone to know. The stakes are raised when Ashe accidentally uncovers the horror of exactly how Amperstam travels among the skies and garners the attention of those who would rather that secret be kept in the hands of the city's powerful leaders.
Soon Ashe is on the run from thugs and assassins, faced with the choice of imperiling her life just to keep publishing, or giving in to the suggestion of a rich patron that she trade in her voice and identity for a quiet, comfortable life. It's a war of confusion for Ashe, but in The Battle of Blood and Ink by Jared Axelrod, one thing is very clear: just because you live in a flying city, you can't always keep your head in the clouds.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the afterword, Axelrod and Walker compare the world they've created to that of the legendary Transmetropolitan series. It's a reasonable comparison as both are driven in part by their surrounding cities and focus on a crusading journalist. In the case of this graphic novel, the city is Amperstam, the only flying city in a world of da Vinci like airships. The journalist is Ashe, a young reporter from the streets whose insistence on uncovering uncomfortable truths is the bane of the city's leader, the Provost, especially when she discovers a terrible secret about Amperstam that could bring the entire city literally crashing to the ground. Axelrod and Walker take a "drop everybody in the pool and see who swims" approach to introducing the book, hurling a slew of names, places, and acts of political intrigue at the reader. If you can get past this opening section, the book becomes a fun adventure, but things work out all too easily for the main character, making it difficult to feel any real sense of danger or stakes as Ashe digs deeper into the Provost's secrets. As the first in a series about Amperstam, it's an adequate setup, however.
