When I saw the spoilers to Graveyard Shift: Omega Storm, I did wonder why I backed, but I am trying to give it a fair shake- to be able to say what the best and worst part of the book was – since that’s a thing now.*

Day One

I’m only on page six (for a few different reasons). First three pages were pretty good. Great use of a flip for a shocking reveal (Jigsaw style), but the two pages after that (the usual news reporting style layout) are not the greatest. The light font against the black margins (but not solid black – a Graveyard Shift logo- which may not help) looks blurry. Should I be wearing 3D glasses? Is it me? A printing issue? I needed the flashlight on my phone to focus well enough on it to be able to read it.

The details of each team members’ deaths are sadistic and vulgar. Some of the news headlines on the ticker are funny and look like some could be Easter eggs further in the book (a creative touch).

Overall, I’m not sure that I like that this book is pulling all the punches to shock the reader.

Day Two

Made it through page 20 today. There is a lot of text on these pages. Tons on the opening few pages. Is it important? Am I going to retain it?

There is some kind of relationship trouble – I’m a girl, I kind of dig it. Unfortunately, she is a cringy bitch.

The dialogue has moments of cringe, corny, and at times, seems forced. The pacing works well. As I try to find a decent place to set the book down, I do find myself wanting to turn the next page.

Day Three

I’m somewhere around the 30-page mark. Please send help. The characters are not likable. I have yet to feel invested. There is only one that seems to have depth and interest. There is gore and action! The colors and art help make it pop (literally).

There are super crude protagonists that take you out of the story. Either Malin (writer) needs a therapist, or after this, I will.

Day Four (part A)

I received some ‘night letters’ last night (now deleted tweets), asking if it’s a similar humor to The Boys and what I would suggest for the characters. Not sure why they were deleted, discussion is good. And remember, opinions are like…

Even in my state of semi-slumber, I composed some tweets, which didn’t post then, as the original tweets blew away with the wind… so here we are, part “A”. I will start with similarities to The Boys.

I’ve watched the first few episodes of The Boys a couple of years ago… I think this is darker, but yeah, he could be reaching for a similar ‘humor’. But I don’t find shock for shocking sake funny. It is not creative story craft… more like low-hanging entertainment? But, I was also never one that cared for movies that had what I called ‘stupid humor’ – (i.e. Scary Movie, Zoolander). There needs to be layers, and maybe I am not to the point that the layers make sense to me in Omega Storm.

As far as the characters, it’s more of a situation where they are doing non-likable things (arguing, distrusting someone, using crude dialogue), or we don’t really get a sense of them at all. Maybe this will change, but I’m not rooting for ‘the good guys’. I had a similar feeling with The Boys, which is probably why I never continued watching. However, there were more subplots which made the story line more interesting.

Day Four (part B)

I made decent progress in the book and ended around page 68 (less than halfway). I was able to finish the second part. The fight scene, the rescue, and the reveal of what’s going on kept me interested.

There were some short flashbacks that I don’t have a clear understanding of their importance (yet). I am assuming they have importance, as one seems REALLY pointless (edit it out?). I’m thinking the next part should continue the pace and my interest as they head into outer space!

Thankfully, there were no major moments of disgusting shock. There were some expansions of the characters (yay!). And I am starting to feel a vested interest in the story.

Day Five

I read about 10 pages into part 3, but I was beat from the day. There was a bunch of establishing information, nothing super exciting, but stuff that could be important later. Or at the very least, excite some sci-fi loving nerds.

Day Six

Finished part 3. There was some weirdness, but nothing to the levels that were seen before. Just hypersexual men that act like 17-year-olds discussing the same things every time they are shown. Solid holograms for the win with lonely guys in space!

There are some random jokes being delivered, but I don’t fully understand them. Maybe I haven’t found the voices of the characters to appreciate the delivery? Is the Voltron reference a funny nod to a childhood story? The moment seems insignificant and not needed. Maybe Voltron WILL come to save the day? And what’s the deal with Steve Buscemi? I don’t understand that reference.

The characters also seem to get uniform changes and I think they really missed a moment to have a two-tone omega symbol on Maria (like the others have). I’m also seeing some art ‘issues’ that I am not a fan of. There is a page where the eyes of the news lady are seen through the hair – anime style. I have not noticed this anywhere else.

But overall, the story is progressing decently – even if I am slightly confused by how long they have been in space and how much longer, and how getting certain materials will cut their time by 20 days. Maybe somebody is keeping track?

Day Seven – The End?

I’m not even sure what to say after reading part IV. It left me with questions and frustrations. I will say that it was the best part at engaging my emotions while reading. I was laughing at the gore, I was cheering during the fights, I was even a bit sad at moments of death. The whole book should have been more like this. There were still corny jokes, but from the guys you expected it from, though I still think they lacked growth or background.

I feel that the focus of Omega Storm is all over the place. Are they trying to find a killer? Are they trying to find the smuggled ‘drugs’ and the people responsible? Are they trying to find a material to save time on their trip? Really, it’s all of the above, but when they complete something, it seems lackluster for what should be a more significant moment (in my opinion).

For Example (SPOILERS!) the drug user bad guys find the red team (Omega Storm). Basically, telling them they are going to kill them. They battle. There is some great art, some great scenes, some meh dialogue, but the battle is done and the book ‘ends’ saying ‘to be continued in Graveyard Shift V’. But what about the buildup from all the pages before, there are still questions that were presented earlier in the book and they haven’t even gotten off site. It seems too truncated even after all the pages leading up to that point. What a horrible ending. And that’s only the way part 4 ends. The epilogue is twisted, but…

It is an edgy (maybe too edgy) way of letting the readers know that the Georgy (Omega Storm killer) is with them on the Castle Dracula. However, I can appreciate the twist at the end.

For a lot of the last part, I was confused by who people are (honestly the same feeling as most of book). There were groups that had different missions, which makes sense for pulling off a big task, but I had trouble keeping track of who was with whom, who is who, would I know these people better if I reread the previous GYS? Do I even need to know them? In the middle of reading Omega Storm, I realized I didn’t finish Graveyard Shift book IV, is that what I am missing?

There is a layout (maybe it’s more the dialogue) that bugged me. There is conversation on the left-hand side of the page, with a cut off. As you scan the double-page spread, there are prisoners that are talking. Then, the farthest point on the left of the double spread, was the completed sentence from the right side. I think it lost its impact when they had random dialogue between the sentences. I think it would have made a bigger impact if changed around, but then it would have messed up the double-page spread, so maybe the result was the lesser of the two evils?

I didn’t even notice Malin’s intro until I went back looking for the contribution page. It is way too dark – hidden. Reading it after I read the book makes the book (the shock value) a little more understandable- even if I preferred to have it left out.

Postmortem

Omega Storm is a supplement to the GYS IP, the fourth supplement. The others have been short stories to help broaden ideas and backgrounds of the characters that make up Graveyard Shift. They have all been complete. I am not sure why this thicker than the average book was not a complete story. It was more of a set up to lead into GYS book V.

Also, it was the first book to have more graphic adult content, the rest of the novels were more PG-13, a bewildering directional choice.

Many of the questions that I had in the beginning while reading it were never answered when finishing the book. The tickers I thought would be easter eggs? Nope. There was a relationship square that was never addressed beyond the first few pages, maybe I was hoping there would be more? And the aforementioned ‘bitch’ had very little to do in the rest of the book. The character that showed growth from the traumatic beginning flatlined for the last half of the book despite being the team leader. There was nothing interesting going on with him.

The flashbacks that I was hoping would have importance? Not within these pages. The jokes and gore seemed out of place. The only ones that made sense were the ‘cringy’ ones that were back and forth locker humor between two male members of the team. That seemed to be their only growth through the story, a pair of bonded adolescents that can kick ass. I can understand to put the little easter eggs of humor in there, the kind that those may only truly get if they watched Malin on his YouTube streams, but if you don’t, they seem especially out of place.

I don’t like to feel as though I am missing key components of a story, and while reading this, I felt it often. It seems like some things were developed really well, while other things simply weren’t. We were given the puzzle box, the straight edge pieces that we could connected, but the pieces that go inside, well, they will be coming in another book. And it’s a pretty big “supplemental” to be missing pieces.

In the author’s note in the beginning, Malin mentioned that he didn’t want a ‘meh’ book; that he wanted it to stand out. And while Omega Storm did have people talking for the shock value and dedication, I feel when you take that out, we were left with a ‘meh’ book. There were moments of good, even potentially great moments, but I don’t think things were fleshed out as well as they could have been.

*Amanda B originally shared these impressions on X, which you can see here.

Thanks for reading!

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