Review by Ian Keogh

The Aerie Farms facility generates genetically engineered young people referred to as the Cloven, so named for having goat’s legs, allowing for greater agility than humans. Other modifications also set them apart, and their background was presented via chapters alternating the past and the present in The Cloven Book One. Sympathy figure Tuck reached his late teens, escaping into the wider world just before being scheduled for extermination, not realising his memories have been tampered with.

Garth Stein begins the middle section of his trilogy with former genetic engineer Kenneth Langner contacting journalist Jake Arthur. Despite being fired years previously, Langner’s well aware of the work being carried out by Aerie Farms, but Stein cleverly diminishes his credibility via his free association of assorted conspiracy theories. However, some of those theories are subsequently investigated.

Perhaps picking up on that, artist Matthew Southworth is even more expressive than last time, really channelling that Alex Toth influence, pushing the boat out with wild pages giving the whole project the feel of experimental late 1960s cinema. It’s not that structure disappears, but it’s definitely secondary to experience in places. Southworth’s use of spreads and colour is now bolder, with some wild pinks providing a trippy atmosphere.

The combination of road movie and innocent finding themselves sustains this middle chapter through ideas that aren’t as well communicated, such as Arthur’s conversion from cynical hack to quivering wreck. However, such moments are rare, and can be seen as the consequences of introducing hyperreality as a theme.

The Cloven remains an entirely unpredictable exploration of the ruling elite and their contempts and vices, with Tuck a sympathetic innocent victim at its heart. Has he survived for the finale in Book Three?