Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Writer: Tony Lee
Artist: Aneke
Editor: Joe Rybrandt
Release date: 28 October 2015
Price: $15.99

Given its clunky special effects you could almost be forgiven for thinking that the original 1978 TV series of Battlestar Galactica was a steampunk version! The TV version didn’t have giant size Cylons and aetherships which can be seen here in abundance along with all your old favourites, some in barely recognisable forms.

Steampunk Battlestar Galactica 1880 Trade Paperback tells with piratical jauntiness how Professor Baltar built the soulless Cylons and used them to destroy Caprica kickstarting the ongoing adventures of the Battlestar inhabitants and their search for the thirteenth colony.

Plot wise in Steampunk Battlestar Galactica 1880 Trade Paperback there is nothing that existing fans of Battlestar Galactica will not already be familiar with but its presentation is what makes Steampunk Battlestar Galactica 1880 stand out from all the rest.

The Victorian age saw the birth of science fiction and there is something about the melding of Victorian aesthetics with futuristic trappings making the fusion of the two greater than the sum of their individual parts.

Tony Lee writes Steampunk Battlestar Galactica 1880 with verve and obvious enjoyment and Aneke’s artwork is stunning. Newcomers will be blown away with the concept and the execution and those familiar with all the previous incarnations of Battlestar Galactica will marvel at how much new life has been breathed into what has become an accepted sci-fi concept. Battlestar Galactica may continue looking for a brave new world, but comic book fans have already found it in these very pages.

Steampunk Battlestar Galactica 1880 is a fracking joy. So say we all.

 

Reviewer: Gary Orchard
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker