It has been said (by me) that buying new comics and not reading them is stupid. Yet I have spent a good portion of my life doing just that, a state of affairs I have spent a not insignificant portion of the last year, year-and-a-half, stiving to rectify. One such series I bought in 1990 but have not read until recently is 2001 Nights by Yukinobu Hoshino. It was the third manga series I collected (following Lone Wolf & Cub and Crying Freeman) and was originally serialized in Monthly Super Action from 1984-1986. The series is Hoshino's version of the future chronicles of humanity's journey to the stars and our encounters with the universe. (Think: Arabian Nights + 2001: A Space Odyssey.) All of the stories occur along the same timeline, but years, decades, centuries apart. It is the hardest science fiction I have ever read, and if I had know the series was this good, I would never have put off reading it for so long.
Back in 1968, when Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey, the title was meant to be taken literally. But, by the time the century turned and he began writing sequels, "2001" came to be symbolic of the 21st century, or rather, the promise of the future. That's what 2001 Nights is about (although it stretches into the 24th century). Although I am a fan of Star Trek and Star Wars, I have always considered practical faster-than-light travel to be more in the realm of science fantasy than science fiction, but 2001 Nights has shown and convinced me how it might one day be achieved. The technology and lifeforms and phenomena depicted throughout the course of this series are mind-boggling.
Recommended to lovers of "hard" (i.e., serious) science fiction.
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