This year’s edition of Pilot Season is drawing to a close. This week’s Forever and 7 Days to Die (?) are the two remaining entries. Does Forever rise to the top of the pile and best Asset? 

I think, potentially, it’s a dead heat. While Forever deals with science fiction and the idea of the fountain of youth and immortality it manages to give its take a disturbing and riveting twist to keep the reader interested and the story fresh.  

In the near future the company Longevity has managed to stop people from dying and even aging. Ryan Chambers works for Longevity and is part of the reason why the company can do this. Ryan’s existence is completely altered when he meets Kane, a man who is prepared to peel back the veil and show Ryan what’s really going on and maybe expose something about Ryan’s orphan past.  

What I really liked about the book was the structure. I recently watched The Goodfellas and Forever had a very similar structure. It starts with a defining moment (meeting Kane) that is neither the end or the beginning it is simply the point where everything changes. It then goes back to the start and goes back over the defining moment, with the reader gaining some further knowledge and insight to judge it by, and then it surpasses the defining moment to show you how it effects the main character.  

I was also really interested in the setting and where the story would go next. There was just so much going on in this book that it’s just dying to be continued. I could definitely see it becoming a relatively long running series as there are quite a few plot lines developing even in the first issue. Like most of Pilot Season it does suffer from congestion, trying to cram in so much in one issue but also leave the reader interested enough to want to see more. Pulling that off is a hard task and while on the whole I was really intrigued and drawn in by the story in Forever there were a few rushed, skipped over or non-existent connections made like Ryan’s closing statement “Lived with the questions for too long” yet the reader doesn’t really know what those questions are. Apart from a flashback to his time in the orphanage and a comment about the recent deaths of many of his former orphanage friends Ryan didn’t seem all that inquisitive and doesn’t make clear what he wants answered.  

The art was good and I actually really liked what could best be described as the controlled sketch style of the book. There were a lot of pen lines used in the book but they didn’t overtake the character designs and appear erratic and unfinished. They generally enhanced the look of the book. The use of color was good especially to make Longevity appear cold and almost alien. There was a lot of blue, black and really pale green for medical gowns and the colors looked unnatural hinting at what Longevity are doing. Other scenes used more natural looking colors and it was an interesting parallel. Occassionally the facial expressions and body language appeared over the top but on the whole they were well done and conveyed a lot of emotion. The only real downside was the blood on Ryan’s face appeared more like paint than blood. It was like it was stuck where it was and it wasn’t moving.  

Forever suffers from the same issues as the rest of the Pilot Season candidates but the story still really grabs you and, barring a few minor issues, it’s a story you really want to read more of.