Sometimes the sign of a good book is not gelling with it straight away. It’s happened to me many times, but for whatever reason I’ve pushed through that initial uncomfortable phase and realised that, no, what I’m reading is great.
The Hard Switch is one of those books. I can now say Owen D. Pomery’s latest graphic novel is a fantastic emotional SF warm hug of a story, even when the horrible stuff happens. Because, spoiler alert, it bloody well does happen.
The Hard Switch is set in a universe where everybody can jump between star systems easily. Just not for much longer. The mineral they use to power these inter-system jumps, alcanite, is becoming scarce, and when it’s gone people will be stuck in whatever part of the universe they are currently in. This is the Hard Switch. This is the world we find ourselves in when we join Ada, Haika, Mallic, and Jones.
The first thing you notice when you read this sweet story of a group trying to survive in a ruthless universe is the beautiful Hergé-esque art. As with Tintin, the simplicity of the characters’ expressions somehow means that the emotion of the writing shows even more on their faces—and believe me, these guys are put through the wringer in this story. Betrayal, horror, anger, love: all of it is here.
We join the crew as they are searching for a crashed ship in the canyons of a planet called Dakhos. No sooner have they found the ship and Ada has clambered aboard than she meets with danger: an alien is waiting inside and pointing a gun at her, insisting that they were salvaging the ship first. What they take, they use to build their homes. You can see that this alien doesn’t want any trouble but is willing to cause some in order to survive. This is a theme that crops up throughout the book: people just want to live, and they are willing to do just about anything to achieve that end.
Ada is not interested in antagonising the alien, no matter what her original intentions were, and her focus shifts to a piece of metal which the alien has attached to their backpack. We don’t discover why straight away—in fact, we don’t have time to as there is more danger on its way. Haika warns Ada of a rapidly approaching ship with “hunters” aboard. These scare both Ada and the alien enough for the alien to stop worrying that Ada will take materials away from them and soon they’re working together to escape. They succeed but only just, and as a thank you for her assistance the still-unnamed alien gifts that piece of metal to Ada.
Before Ada can get back to her ship one of the hunters nearly takes her out; but after this action-packed introduction things settle down and we find out what’s going on. The metal comes from Ada’s home planet but has been on Dakhos “forever,” leading Ada to believe that it may hold a clue to a possible solution to the alcanite crisis. However, the crew isn’t all on the same page, with Haika accusing Ada of only wanting to investigate this piece because it’s from her home planet.
Pomery has written and illustrated three graphic novels prior to The Hard Switch and his confidence in his abilities shows in this latest work: he knows how to make his art work hard, only upping the speech bubbles’ word count when the story calls for it. He balances all the drama and action with humour really well. You get a good sense of the relationship between the crew members and can really believe they’ve been schlepping around the universe for years: they have a healthy respect for each other but are always ready to rip into each other, whether they just want to take the piss or take them to task for poor decision-making. The reader is dropped into this universe and its relationships with little preamble, but thanks to Pomery’s canny command of the form you will never be lost. Above all else, this balance and clarity is the hallmark of a good graphic novel.
The characters are ultimately what carries this story, their relationships the most interesting part of the comic. You instantly fall in love with the main protagonists, even though one (Mallic) is a deadpan octopus-like alien called a Manta’shi and Jones is a fish; even the characters that are introduced later earn their place in the reader’s affections.
The rapidly declining supplies of alcanite is less of a plotline, more a truth of these characters’ existence, one that influences everybody’s decisions. Our protagonists need to decide how long they can carry on scavenging, and where they want to be when the alcanite runs out. And other characters need to decide what’s best for themselves in turn. Unsurprisingly, a police chief has his priorities in complete disarray. He tells Ada and Haika, “The world is crumbling. It’s all raining down. Go find yourselves a rock to hide under, like the rest of us.” He, too, has decided that his main aim is to survive. He offers to help but is not keen to go sticking his toes in any hornet’s nest.
Indeed, The Hard Switch is powered along by the crew’s run-ins with people who believe that everything is coming to an end, or people who want to take control once it does. The real story of the book comes from the revelation, then, that—thanks to the small piece of metal Ada found—there might be another way of traveling between star systems. Now, when the alcanite runs out, whoever has monopoly over a suitable replacement (or the remaining alcanite) will be the most powerful person in the universe. You soon realise that the path Ada and Haika are following is an extremely dangerous one.
Ada and Haika, as well as their crewmates, aren’t heroes, but deep down they are good people. They do what they can to survive and they want to be on the right side of history, but that’s it. There is a moment at around the midpoint of the novel where they discover something horrific, and they deal with it in a manner somewhere between sensible and logical, weighing up the situation but ultimately wanting to do the right thing, and ultimately saving a life. But later on there is a moment when they are passing a ship which has stopped dead in the middle of space and they don’t stop to help. Haika points out that the people on board knew what they were doing: “these people made a pact with the gods of fate, and would’ve been very conscious of this as an outcome.”
We all say we would stop to help anyone, no matter what, but if you were in their position the question is: would you? This crew aren’t the bad guys—they (and we) meet plenty of those in this story—but they are far from pure. And neither are we.
Apart from the obvious parallel between the overuse of alcanite and the human race’s overuse of natural resources, this moral dimension is one of the most intriguing themes in the story. Are we as good as we say we are? Even if we try our best to help our community, our species, our world, if it came down to it, would we save ourselves at the expense of others?
Nevertheless, there is a traditional story going on amongst this. That story comes to a satisfying conclusion in an action-packed finale which leaves us in no doubt who we will be rooting for if there is a follow-up. Pomery certainly makes sure the novel leaves things open for another volume—and I, for one, would gladly join these characters for the next part of their adventure.