Satania

Starred review from October 30, 2017
The team behind the acclaimed Beautiful Darkness upends readers’ expectations with subversive force. Things start off as a jaunty hollow-earth adventure tale, with shades of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne. An arrogant scientist and a gruff village priest are joined by a flame-haired young woman, Charlie, in exploring underground caverns to find her beloved brother, Christopher, who has gone missing trying to prove his outré theories about the world below. While the priest and scientist bicker over the intersection of theology and science, the team descends ever closer to an unbelievable inferno, uncovering one deadly wonder after another. Kerascoet’s art transitions from the wide-eyed cartoonishness of young adult graphic novels to a more intricate, gruesomely beautiful style as the ever-smaller expedition comes closer to discovering not only Christopher’s fate but possibly the secret of the afterlife and hell itself. Vehlmann’s writing is refreshingly willing to tangle with philosophical subjects in a highly NSFW manner. This bruising, antiromantic odyssey to the heart of darkness still manages to locate a glimmer of light amidst all the hellishness.

November 15, 2017
As they did in Beautiful Darkness (2014), here French author Vehlmann and duo Kerascoet (Marie Pommepuy and Sebastien Cosset) serve up another sly tale of subterranean evil. For controversial scientist Christopher, the existence of hell is irrefutable; it may even resolve the long-standing Neanderthal extinction enigma. More than two months ago, he journeyed deep within the earth to prove itthen disappeared without a trace. Now, Christopher's kid sister, Charlie, and a ragtag crew, including a priest, an amateur mountaineer, and a deranged nephew, are braving mysterious molten depths to find him, and perhaps, something more. Sometimes wryly funny, sometimes deeply haunting (the ghost of Charlie's cruel mother looms large), ever philosophical, Vehlmann's narrative, like the labyrinthine Satanian underworld, never fails to swerve and surprise. Kerascoet's vivid watercolor illustrations, delivered across slick black pages, are equally kaleidoscopic, seesawing between acrid greens, scorching reds, and splashy, psychedelic segments to render a world as dangerous as it is dizzyingly spectacular. A thought-provoking, eye-catching, and thoroughly enjoyable descent into the bowels of hellready your thermal protective gear and dive in.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)