Romeo and Juliet in Space
I'll say one thing for Mr. Vaughan: he can come up with some pretty engaging ideas. His execution of them, though, leaves for me much to be desired - though, perhaps more accurately, "much less" to be desired. As in, much less gratuitous language and sexual content (oh, and, sure, violence, too). I would be quite willing to give this four or even five stars without all of that extraneous detritus, but I am well aware of the mentality that says "it's just real life." I disagree with that mentality. But back to the story. So here we have Romeo and Juliet in space on the run from machines and unicorns and mercenaries, plus a little baby and magic and pacifism and Farscape-like ships and ghosts and more. Sure, I'll read that story - sounds neat. It's not wholly original, but nothing is, and Mr. Vaughan has an engaging way of taking the mostly-familiar and turning it around into unexpected directions. I just would prefer he do it a little more sanitarily, but I'm in the minority there, as usual, so c'est la vie. If I can find vol. 2 at the library, I'll be glad to continue the interesting story of these lovebirds and their narrator daughter (sort of spoils that tension, one would think) and their quest to escape the universe-spanning war and see the galaxy and find some quiet.