The Wrenchies by Farel Dalrymple

The Wrenchies by Farel Dalrymple
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Paperback, 304 pages
Published July 15th 2014 by First Second

This tried way too hard to be something much more than what it ends up to be. The premise is intriguing and the world-building was awesome; involving, alternate worlds, parallel realities, time traveling, astral projection, and even regular ordinary dreams most of us have. The book switches point of view from one set of characters to another then another making it difficult to get a sense of orientation for some time. However, when we do start knowing the characters a bit better, well, they start dying, getting killed or disappearing. There are three teams from different space/time realities working together to stop the world from being blown to smithereens. First, there is the modern today world where unlikely heroes want to save the earth. Then there is a future dystopian world populated with children who are fed upon by the Shadows. This is a tough cruel world. Finally, there is the world inside a comic book which when given the right spells and incantations finds the warrior heroes transferred into the post-apocalyptic world. They must all come together to break evil's hold over earth. A lot of stuff going on which needless to say the reader needs to keep their wits about them and no real sense of any of the characters made it all come down to me feeling like I didn't care what was going on or what happened to who. I also can't say I liked the art style though it did certainly capture the dark, dismal future of this world.