Review: The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson
The Last Days of Krypton
by Kevin J. Anderson
Krypton is a planet in trouble. Its red sun has been acting strangely. Massive earthquakes and unprecedented volcanic activity are wracking the southern continent. An ineffective aristocracy runs the political machine and society is stagnated. The Council, which tightly controls any and all technological advances, have forbidden space travel and decreed that everything is fine. Brilliant scientist Jor-El and his brother Zor-El are working to save the planet, but with a government opposed to their progress and a rebellion threatening to throw everything into chaos, Krypton is surely doomed…
Ah, Krypton. Home planet of DC Comic’s Superman, its mythology is revisited and revised frequently but it has never been fully explored. I’ve never been much of a Superman fan. (I always liked Batman better.) But I watched The Batman & Superman Adventures all the time in middle school, and was familiar enough with his story that when I heard Kevin J. Anderson had written a book about Superman’s planet, I was intrigued. Given my lack of background - never read the comics, never saw the movies - I worried I’d be confused.
Luckily, you don’t really need to know all that much about the Superman universe to enjoy this book. In fact, just ignore that this is a Superman book. Just read it as a straightforward sci-fi story about people on another planet struggling to save themselves from certain doom. The characters are a little wooden, and the dialogue doesn’t exactly sparkle. But Krypton is a fully realized planet, with its own mythology and traditions. General Zod is positively Machiavellian as he manipulates the people around him in a quest to seize power, while Jor-El’s budding romance with an artist working on his estate is touching. It’s a neat tribute to the Superman world, and as near as I can tell (thanks Wikipedia!) Anderson takes all the various Krypton stories that have come up over the years and unites them into a single timeline. (Of course, given that Krypton was destroyed in like five different ways, depending on what the Superman story needed in any given year, it makes for a truly apocalyptic story.)
Fans of Superman, you have to read this. It’s a fantastic addition to the world, smoothing out and solidifying established elements of the canon. Even casual fans of the series can enjoy the reading.
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