Vol. 5: Dream Sequence List Price: $20.95 Black and White 200 pages. Reprints: Finder #23-29

AND

Vol. 6: Mystery Date List Price: $17.95 Black and White 152 pages. Reprints: Finder #31, Mystery Date #1-2

Reviewed by Jamie Coville

I first met Carla Speed McNeil at TCAF 2003, I bought her first 4 trades and did an interview with her. When we met again at TCAF 2005, she remembered me. I asked her what was new since and she pointed out those two trades which I bought from her. See Finder is a different and good series. It's based in a future with lots of sci-fi elements. You see weird/alien type creatures, lots of tech and so forth. That said, the stories are about the people, their personalities and their internal conflicts. The sci-fi stuff is just a part of the world they are in. Volume 5: Dream Sequence. In the future, people have the technology to engage in REM sleep directly. For those that don't know much about sleep, it's after REM period (when we are dreaming) that we feel rested. You can sleep all night but if you don't dream, you won't feel rested. One creative sensitive type person called Magri White has a very active imagination and lets people plug into his head and his imaginative world. From there they go into REM / Virtual Reality experience and it becomes very addictive to the population at large. Shortly into the story we discover something is running loose in his world, causing damage to the dreamers inside of it. This affects what they see in the waking world as well. Part of the story is tracking down the monster and stopping it. There are two other ongoing stories within, one involves Magri's interactions with people and how he's disconnected from society at large. The other is something of a corporate work place drama involving the management that control the dreaming company and how they handle Magri. Note: You can read the 1st issue of this online for free at Carla's website: http://www.lightspeedpress.com Volume 6: Mystery Date is about a prostitute sex kitten named Vary Krishna who moves away from her small town and into the big city. As she's learning how to be a prostitute, she's enrolls into university and falls in love with two of her teachers. One of them isn't human and doesn't have sex in our way. The other is a grumpy old guy who hates her, but she makes it her mission to help him anyway. She sees it as part of what she's supposed to do as a prostitute. Despite the sex angle, virtually none of it is shown, nor is there any nudity (except in sketches at the back). Most of the book is about the Vary's attempts to get the crusty old professor to cheer up and screw her, but not in any overt way. She knows that won't work. Both these books remind me of Kurt Busiek's Astro City in that it's about random people in a futuristic world. Each arch has a main character, but the entire series does not. There is one character that always has a big or small roll in each story but he's of little consequence in these two books. You can pick up each trade and read it and not need to know about the previous, especially since they are completely different stories. What makes the series really unique is that they aren't big overblown action or heavy melodramatic stories. Sometimes I get into a mood where I want something to read that will take me away from my world, but isn't a wild roller ride of a story. Sometimes I'm tired or I've got more than my fill of drama in my real world. That's when I turn to Finder and enjoy. I give both books 4 out of 5 stars. Regards, Jamie Coville http://www.TheGraphicNovels.com News and discussion on a free, Delphi like forum.

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