Tongues Book 1 by Anders Nilsen. Patheon, 2025. 9781524747206. 368pp.
Oversized. Mythological. Philosophical. Violent. Absolutely beautiful.
I’m struggling to figure out what to write about this book. If you like graphic novels, you should pick it up; but if you’re getting it from a library, plan on having to check it out several times before you finish it (at least if your experience is anything like mine). It’s one of those books I had to think about, often for several days, before reading another part.
Most of the story takes place in the present. Prometheus chats with the generations of eagles that eat his liver, plus others, including the god who imprisoned him. A young man wanders on foot across a desert war zone. A girl with a destiny, a chicken, and a monkey are in the same area; the girl is being hunted for the cube she carries. (It looks like the kind of hyperobject you’d expect to see in a Grant Morrison comic.) It all has something to do with what may be the end of the world.
There are things in this book that remind me of work by Jeff Vandermeer, Warren Ellis, Edith Hamilton, David O. Russell, and Mike Mignola. It’s fantastic in all senses of the word, and worth checking out.
