2001 Nights
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| 2001 Nights
<tr><td colspan="2" style="background: #ccf; text-align: center;">2001夜物語 | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Manga | |
| Authored by | Yukinobu Hoshino |
| Publisher | |
| Serialized in | |
| Original run | – |
| No. of volumes | |
| OVA | |
| Directed by | |
| Studio | TMS Entertainment |
| No. of episodes | 1 |
| Released | 7/87 |
| Runtime | |
2001 Nights is a manga series published in the early 1990s by Yukinobu Hoshino. This series is largely inspired by classic hard science fiction, with many visual homages to previous SF novels and films. The title is a fusion of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Arabian 1001 Nights.
Each of the books is loosely structured around a series of short graphic stories, all of which are taking place in a unified timeline spanning several hundred years. Many of the stories are related to each other (even across books), each building upon the achievements of the previous ones. The stories are often (but not always) scientifically plausible, recalling a lot of the early science fiction of the 1950 and 1960 eras.
Contents |
[edit] Artwork
The manga's visuals lean toward a delicate photo-realism uncharacteristic of the medium, with characters inked by brush, detailed background linework in pen, and finely shaded with ziptones. The effort put into each panel is impressive and some of the images which establish locations are quite stunning. The drawing style is somewhat similar to Katsuhiro Otomo's work (especially his Legend of Mother Sarah and Domu (A Child's Dream) manga). Loving attention has been paid to the various spacecraft and equipment, which are rendered with an almost engineering-like precision.
[edit] Stories
The stories that make up the complete manga are placed in chronological order, with one exception. By the technology used, Night 14 ("Elliptical Orbit") seems to belong somewhere between Nights 6 and 7 (after the invention of suspended animation and interstellar travel, but before the Lucifer discovery).
Night 1, "Earthglow" - A space shuttle carries a special cargo.
Night 2, "Sea of Fertility" - An executive is summoned to the Moon by the death of her younger brother and shares his startling lunar discovery.
Night 3, "Maelstrom 3" - A solar sail spacecraft runs into trouble in the asteroid belt.
Night 4, "Posterity" - An embryo space colonization starship is launched toward a distant planet with the help of a comet.
Night 5, "Rendezvous" - The first suspended animation tests produce a strangely spiritual result.
Night 6, "Discovery" - An interstellar probe guided by an A.I. is readied for flight.
Night 7, "Lucifer Rising, Part 1 & 2" - An expedition is sent to the remote 10th planet in the solar system.
Night 8, "The Lights of Heaven" - The test trials of the first faster than light starship.
Night 9, "Journey Beyond Tomorrow" - The probe from Night 6 makes an unexpected rendezvous, and people from Earth begin a terraforming project.
Night 10, "Medusa's Throne" - A starship explores a strange planet with three separate expeditions.
Night 11, "A Stranger's Footsteps" - A planetary intelligence observes human explorers.
Night 12, "Symbiotic Planet" - Humans must learn to live with an alien ecology.
Night 13, "Final Evolution" - A starship encounters a bizarre black hole creature.
Night 14, "Elliptical Orbit" - A long-range starship is attacked by terrorists, forcing the crew to defend itself. (Note: the cargo should be Helium 3, not hydrogen)
Night 15, "An Hour's Song in a Birdless Sky" - The strange behavior of alien birds gives a clue to a colony's ultimate fate.
Night 16, "Colony" - A man returns to a colony on an alien world to face his demons.
Night 17, "So Brief, So Lasting a Love" - A couple is separated by a black hole.
Night 18, "Odyssey in Green, Part 1 & 2" - A crew finds itself stranded on a doomed planet with a complex ecology.
Final Night, "Children of Earth" - In which the ultimate fate of spacegoing humanity is revealed.
