After five issues, I believe “Alex and Ada” might become ‘the new Saga,’ attracting the same readers, willing to take a well-paced ride with likeable characters through a fully conceived Other Realm, even one so close to our own.
So much underlies A&A that continually rises to just below the surface—enslavement, political rights, freedom and its consequences, intellect, and *it’s* consequences—that speaks so directly to our own real lives. It’s there for us to see, in A&A, but it’s never ‘in our face’. This’s a really political story, but the politics is background to the story, and it stays in the background. No one says to Ada, (issue 1) Would you like us to treat you as a person? Or even, Hey, Ada, how do you feel about any of this? Very interesting dynamic created here; we're placed right at the edge of the new tech: it’s available, it’s in use, but still uncommon enough most don’t know how to deal with it.
I like that restraint, that none of this is front and center. I think it shows respect for the readers' ability to follow along. Alex and Ada show their world to us remarkably thoroughly just by being in it. The closest to a bill-board of what their world is, comes with Franklin’s admonition (issue 5)to Ada that she’ll have to live her life pretending to be ‘a robot’.
The nightclub riot (issue 3) really highlights an interesting human fear reaction: 'I don’t know you so must attack before you attack me.' The attack on the android was really an attack (as it proved to be, following) on each other—as soon as someone pointed out the android was an “it” the crowd felt free to tear ‘it’ apart, to start there, and then “in the fury of the moment,” turn on each other.
Ada’s ‘awakening’ (issue 5) was nicely portrayed. Really good idea that Ada remembers everything: her treatment by Alex might be the nicest any of her kind has met, and soon, she’s going to know this, if she hasn’t intuited it, speaking with other sentient AI’s.
And it’s nice to have a story about nice people. But best of all: the parallel scenes, this issue with last, when last issue’s sunset is beautiful to Ada because Alex finds it so, and this issue’s sunrise, beautiful to Ada because it *is* beautiful, and she, herself, finds it so.