Welcome back, readers! Now that we’ve hit fall weather finally (Well. In the Northern Hemisphere at least.) how did you do with those summer reading lists? I know I came up a little short on mine but I hope that you got some good literature under your belts!
Speaking of good books, I have one for you this month. I’ve commented a couple times in these articles that I’m kind of a perfect consumer for books pitched to me via ads on social media – being able to buy stuff with a simple click is a blessing and (Sometimes.) a curse. Time Limit was one such title where I saw the ad and less then five minutes later, the order was placed. The premise grabbed me immediately as did the great art on display in the ads, plus the creator’s genuine passion for this project. I was all-in pretty much immediately, went ahead and grabbed a copy and took my time with it once it arrived. I generally review the audiobook version for most of these Spotlight articles and that’s for one very specific reason, and one that relates back to the title of this novel; time! I never have enough of it, but I can listen to an audiobook on the commute to work or while doing stuff around the house thereby killing two birds with one stone. A book like Time Limit requires a lot more of a time and attention investment because it’s a manga/novel hybrid. It’s primarily written prose, but illustrations and comic pages are interspersed throughout to better illustrate key scenes, characters and concepts. In short, I was happy to carve out the time required to sit down, take a breather and enjoy reading this physical book.
So! Part novel, part manga. Exciting, right?
I definitely think it is. So, board your spaceship, grab some snacks and let’s head to a little known planet named Earth to get some reading in!
Mild spoilers ahead, so be warned!
Book Stats
- Author: Kweku Hopkins.
Formats: Paperback
Price: $25.99.
Length: 258 pages.
Illustrator: Levi Tonin
Number of books in the series: One at the time of writing with a second volume in the works. You can help with that! Check out the Kickstarter link later in the article.
Basic Premise
We start with a prologue set on a planet called Amazu. It’s an azure skied paradise that smells of cinnamon and is filled with wonders. Unfortunately, we don’t get to stay there long before shock troops start descending from the sky, tearing the planet apart. We follow Ade, an Amazian youngster, who manages to board an escape ship bound for safety off-world. Through the window, other such craft can be seen leaving the world as it’s being ransacked. These Amazians, now refugees, head out to find new worlds to call home.
Chapter one picks up fifty years later on a huge warship. We’re introduced to Lord Gold. He’s an emperor, shepherding his flying fortress through the cosmos, loaded down with tens of thousands of soldiers, prisoners and technologies from many conquered worlds. He has ten children, many of whom have been out on assignment, far away on other worlds. Each of these children he’s sired has a different mother, each has the blood of another planet’s race flowing in their veins and this, combined with Lord Gold’s own array of abilities, has granted them incredible gifts; combat abilities, genius level intelligence. That kind of thing. They return from their various tasks and this is a massive cause for celebration.
One child, though, is conspicuously absent. Kamit. He was sent to a little watery orb named Earth. He still hasn’t returned and people are starting to talk. Lord Gold is not pleased. Eventually he decides that either the people of Earth must return his son to him or they’re going to be obliterated. He sends a message to Earth, stating this and then shoots a blast out into space, headed directly at them. It will arrive in ten days… that’s the Time Limit.
We jump back in time to Kamit’s arrival on Earth a year-ish ago. Unlike the places his siblings were sent, it’s a beautiful planet, filled with life. He meets some locals and then winds up being taken to a city named Sunsum. At first, people don’t believe that he’s an alien because he looks, essentially, human. He also doesn’t seem to exhibit any startling abilities and loses a footrace to a guy named Amari.
First contact is not exactly the world shattering event you might expect.
Sunsum takes Kamit in, gives him a place to stay, and people who are interested in him and his mission. They give him a place to train, people to train with and an insight into their own ancestry and powers. The people of Earth, some anyway, can manipulate Ka. It’s a spiritual energy that manifests as inky black constructs that can do things as simple as grab a cup from a table for you or sprout massive spikes from the ground during combat. Kamit’s abilities are quite different and he’s having trouble manifesting them on Earth. Despite that, he does train and begin to enjoy life in the village of Sunsum. He makes friends, becomes invested in the history of the region and the people and starts to find life as an adopted Earthling to be fulfilling in ways he didn’t know he needed. Compared to the sterile, warlike and competitive atmosphere of Lord Gold’s warship, Sunsum is warm, inviting and fun. This stirs something of a conflict within him.
Of course, this peace can’t last forever. It’s right there in the title – we have a time limit!
How do things shake out? You’ll have to pick it up and see!
My Take
So, I’m kind of a nerd for this stuff. The anime aesthetic, obviously, and the fact that it’s a story about super powered aliens and intergalactic conquest and combat training. An alien boy taken in and trained on Earth? Kamit is in great company, there. Love it. Love all that. No notes. The other really cool thing, though, is that this book uses elements of African cosmology within its anime inspired power system. Ka, Ɔkra, Sunsum – all real words describing elements of real spiritual beliefs. When I realized that, I immediately jumped online and fell down the rabbit hole of researching this stuff, comparing what it’s said to be versus how it’s talked about within Time Limit. Overall, I had a great time learning about these concepts and any time a book can get me doing supplemental reading as well as just reading the novel, you know it’s gotta be interesting.
Time Limit is written in a manner that’s extremely cinematic, which is only emphasized by the comic panels and full page illustrations. I will say that it does have some issues with head-hopping and this can make the point of view character a little unclear at times. Multiple characters are used in each scene and point of view changes rapidly. Some sections I was unclear on who was the focal point and who I was reading about initially. This is a minor complaint overall but it did draw me out of the story on occasion. Omniscient third person point of view can be hard to parse in general, unfortunately, though it’s very much in-theme for prose that’s tied to manga pages where the reader is their own omniscient being, privvy to everything going on in the panels. My favorite aspect of the writing was the action sequences. Battles are written with a great sense of pace and motion and are extremely exciting.
Speaking of excitement, let’s talk illustrations. Levi Tonin kills it with really dynamic character work; expressive faces and wild action in panels where it’s required, and extremely solid background work as well. Tons of detail on things like clothes, buildings and vehicles also. The quality of the art remains consistently great throughout. My favorite panels are those featuring Lord Gold as he’s made to look super impressive and imposing! Not the kind of guy you want mad at you!
This is intended to be a multibook series so our key plot doesn’t wrap up within the pages of volume one. If any of this sounds interesting to you, there’s a Kickstarter Page up for volume two that wraps up on October 19th. As of the date this Spotlight goes up, that gives you about two weeks if you want to get in and become a backer. You can also check out Time limit on Insta and Facebook.
I generally save cool stuff like this for November and December Spotlights. I always want to put forward a couple holiday options for folks who might be buying gifts for the readers in their lives, especially for kids. I could hardly think of a better gift for older kids or teens who might like anime and manga, and who might be looking for something a little more prose heavy to sink their teeth into without losing any of the intensity or fun of those shonen style stories. It’s great for adults who like that stuff too! But let’s try and get the next generation doing as much reading as possible, right?
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