November 4, 2013

Over the Top: Paging through "Punk Rock Jesus"



So.

In the future, there’s this all-around gifted scientist.  She’s already won the Nobel Prize, and there is some research she’s working on that will create plants that use many times more the CO2 than regular plants.

Somehow, the only person who will fund her research is a meglomanical super-rich guy who wants to clone Jesus and show him growing up as part of a reality show.

There’s also the young woman who was chosen to carry the Jesus clone who is in over her head, and there’s an ex-IRA assassin who has promised to never kill again.

The Jesus character grows up isolated, and rebels, and gets really into punk rock, and tries to start a revolution.

It’s all over the top, and it feel like it’s trying too hard.  The art’s good, but the storytelling is lacking. I say this as someone who randomly found the title on a shelf who loves punk rock and mocking the Christian savoir. 

The premise goes too far, and that’s assuming that there is a historical Jesus (something dealt with, but may be a spoiler situation.)  Murphy still has some good work in him, so I look forward to what he may do next, but not this.
And I’ll digress, my biggest complaint here, as with some other sci-fi influenced stuff is that if you are creating a world that is based off of the current one that we live in, the reader has to be able to recognize the world as a logical historical extension of the current world.  The one in Punk Rock Jesus just doesn’t work for me, though others may like it.  It is a very subjective thing, but one that I have no answer for.

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