Free Y: The Last Man, Vol. 4: Safeword

Y: The Last Man, Vol. 4: Safeword

Author: Visit Amazon's Brian K. Vaughan Page | Language: English | ISBN: 1401202322 | Format: PDF

Y: The Last Man, Vol. 4: Safeword Description

From Publishers Weekly

Vaughan and Guerra have crafted a frequently funny, sometimes compelling, postapocalyptic American road story with a twist. A mysterious plague has wiped out every man around the globe, except for one: a sardonic 20-something romantic named Yorick. Poor Yorick, however, has to conceal his identity from man-hating Amazons, renegade separatists and all sorts of other female factions who want to use him for one thing or another. He's on the run with a government agent and a geneticist as they hope to figure out what caused the plague and how Yorick survived. This volume focuses on the character development of Yorick and geneticist Dr. Alison Mann. Vaughn spends three chapters on Yorick's past and present psychosexual traumas, as he encounters a very eccentric therapist; the next three chapters follow Dr. Mann down some dangerous roads. Vaughn is an excellent episodic writer, able to sustain a suspenseful arc of plot, themes and realistic characters from one moment to the next. Guerra's art is unremarkable but competently conveys all kinds of action. Most important, Vaughn makes readers care for his characters. In the tradition of much good sci-fi writing, his fantastic plague backdrop is a very clever way of isolating and expanding on simple human themes of love, loneliness, fear and, of course, gender relations.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

If the story tacked on to One Small Step [BKL My 1 04] was seventh-inning-stretch comic relief, the fourth installment of Y: The Last Man gets back to the game in high style. California-bound Yorick Brown, agent 355, and cloning expert Alison Mann reach deep-rural Colorado, where 355 leaves Yorick with former associate 711 while she and Mann get antibiotics for the only other living male, Yorick's monkey, Ampersand. Yorick isn't just getting stashed out of harm's way. Unbeknownst to him, 711 is to play with his head to curtail his penchant for life-threatening heroics. The treatment involves testing his sexuality as well as his will to live. Though lurid (think Kitten with a Whip meets The Evil Dead), it seems to work, and when Yorick's fellow travelers return, the little troupe heads further west. In Arizona, they encounter survivalist secessionists as dangerous as the self-proclaimed Amazons still pursuing them. The action blazes before a foreboding jump cut back to Kansas. Still artfully written and plainly drawn, Y remains a helluva trip. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Vertigo (December 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401202322
• ISBN-13: 978-1401202323
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 6.7 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

I missed all the hype about this series, and just happened upon the trade paperbacks at the library. The premise, as the title says, is that some kind of plague spontaneously kills every male on earth at the same instant -- except a 20something slacker named Yorick and his monkey Ampersand. Following the events of the first three books, this fourth picks up the story of Yorick, his government agent bodyguard (Agent 355), and the geneticist (Dr. Mann) who might be able to solve save humanity. On their way to a genetics lab in California, they trek though Colorado, where they find the cabin of ex-Agent 711, an old friend of Agent 355. It's decided that Ampersand's wound (sustained in the last book) needs antibiotics, so Agent 355 and Dr. Mann head to town to find some, leaving Yorick in the care of Agent 711. The first half of the book is just him and her, and involves some totally ridiculous therapy (if you know what a "safeword" is, you can guess what's involved). The only thing this does is deliver some of Yorick's backstory, and attempt to explain Yorick's celibacy over the course of the previous books. Major issues like survivor's guilt and suicide are dealt with in a totally unconvincing way, and the whole thing is pretty laughable and gratuitous.

In any event, Agent 355 and Dr. Mann return for Yorick and the trio moves on into Arizona. The second half of the book details their adventures when they come up against a roadblock of I-40. Apparently an octet of survivalist secessionists has disrupted all interstate commerce, causing food shortages on either side. It's not clear why all the truckers can't just detour around this one stretch...but whatever... It's also not clear how these paramilitary ladies have managed to be so disruptive.

Y: The Last Man, Vol. 4: Safeword Preview

Link

Please Wait...