Review by Frank Plowright
Sometime in the future Alcanite has been the substance powering interstellar travel, but it’s a fuel that burns out, and the last known source has been exhausted. A new and dangerous trade has grown of salvaging the substance from historical shipwrecks. Ada and Hiaka are among those risking their lives for possible reward, accompanied by their craft’s unique engineer Mallic.
There’s a quiet fortitude to Owen D. Pomery’s work, which seems to deal with the familiar, even in the context of the future as seen in The Hard Switch, but actually offers new ideas and new methods of approaching established ideas. This is as much visual innovation as the way the story is steered. Look at the detail of the sample page. The actual drawing resembles the comfort of Tintin art, and what’s illustrated isn’t too far removed from a refugee camp, but the originality is in the whimsical visual details of the transport and helmets. The same innovation and thought is applied to all future technology, and it’s a delight.
Based on Pomery’s previous work, this might be expected to be the more cerebral end of SF, but the allegory of climate change is easily understood, and it’s not the real point, just a viable background to the times. An even more horrific reminder occurs later. Those times are becoming desperate as the hard switch of the title is approaching, the term applied to the very near future when space travel will no longer be possible. A long conversation in the middle of the book is key, showing humanity’s reaction being short term thinking or resorting to piracy. A second conversation almost immediately afterward determines Ada and Hiaka’s course, following a very slim hope of an alternative form of travel.
It’s not a very optimistic view of humanity presented in The Hard Switch, but then humanity is hardly at its best in 2023 with too many world leaders paying lip service to the necessities of the future while prioritising short term benefit. Perhaps the best hope we have is to ensure there are always people like Ada able to see the bigger picture. This is low key, yet with a full set of adventure priorities wrapped into a warning.
