Writer/artist Larry Johnson delivers one of the most amazing characters ever to trek through the cosmos: Bart Rover. He's a shapeshifter, employed by the android manufacturer, Free Radical Corporation, to track down its renegade products. (In this respect, one could consider the resourceful Rover a blend of Rick Deckard, Philip Marlowe, Deep Space Nine's Odo and X-Men's Mystique).
Johnson's anthology contains nine tales, with each entry adorned by an elegant illustration, all of which enhance the ongoing action.
As part of that action, Rover's assignments not only cater to his android ("New Man") tracking, but assimilating instances where he morphs into a tentacled specimen, a Mandrella monster, a lady bug, a "honey"-suckling beast and even a Rock Hudson/Cary Grant hybrid, while encountering varying cultures, including one with a class division between moth and butterfly creatures and a mysterious sector called Wolfenshire, in which the roughness of life grows rather "hairy."
There's a pleasing dab of Quantum Leap in the stories' conceptualization (in the way that Rover adapts new guises and occupies surroundings), but the author's offbeat concoctions click because they place readers smack dab inside Rover's head. To see through Rover's eyes is to embrace awe-inspiring perspectives and from there, be inspired to imagine far more.
For those who enjoy spellbinding, speculative fiction, Bart Rover is the ideal platform for full-throttle escape.
Order Bart Rover at
https://www.amazon.com/Bart-Rover-Larry-Johnson/dp/B0CKDBG56T
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