It was the last great science hero fight, but the energy blast ripped a hole in reality and birthed the Empire State – a young, twisted parallel prohibition-era New York. When the rift starts to close, both worlds are threatened, and both must fight for the right to exist.
Empire State follows private detective Rad Bradley's, a small-time, no-scruples bootlegger, watches the city’s two rocket-boosted superheroes fight an epic battle in the sky. Once friends, now mortal enemies, the Skyguard and the Science Pirate end their final fight in an explosion that alters reality. And it leaves our hero, Rad, to discover the truth behind his foggy home of Empire State, a sparsely populated, generic city that has nineteen years of history behind it and very vaguely resembles a Prohibition-era Manhattan under the constraints of perpetual "Wartime" with an unseen "Enemy" beyond its impenetrable borders.
What an opening, right?
Kiwi author, Adam Christopher's debut novel is a noir, Philip K Dick-ish filled science fiction superhero story and an enjoyable romp through a dedicated man who knows how to tell a tale set in another time altogether. Empire State deals with a bubble universe that is "a copy, a smaller, paler version of a city called New York."
Do you like superheroes? How about a noir ace detective? Or perhaps steampunk set in the 1930s? Alternate realities? Robots? Like Cuturedemandsgeeks, we are immersed in geek culture enough that superheroes, parallel universes are like honey on toast, we love that delicious sweet taste.
The Empire State is an interesting place. It’s a mirrored impression of NYC, so that the two cities share similarities but are nevertheless vastly different. The writing here is of a very high standard. The characters are rounded and edgy, and screams 'Noir.' The pacing of his story is just right, and It is a bold, stylish told story that had me gripped from the first pages, and I never relented until the end.
4/5 STARS