Clock Striker, Volume 1 (Saturday AM)

Cast is a brilliant engineer—or she could be, if anyone would give her the chance. She and her mother and brother live in a small town with low income and little in the way of opportunities. She is constantly inventing and fixing things, but her teacher refuses to recommend her for a competition to join the Smiths—a legendary society of warrior-engineers who saved the world from the war-machines during the silicone era. Cast’s teacher insists that as a girl, she could never be considered to apprentice to a Smith. And if that weren’t enough, she is also missing a hand—though neither of these things stop her from constructing a high-tech robot prosthetic hand that can do everything from delicate wiring to massive blasts!

It’s not until the mysterious Philomena Clock comes to Cast’s small town that she finally gets the mentor she deserves. As they face down against Cast’s evil teacher together and manage to save her mother and brother, Cast proves herself to be brave, chivalrous and quick-witted—all excellent qualities in a Smith.

Clock asks Cast to be her Striker (apprentice) which would mean traveling far and wide to find lost remnants of the Silicone Era and prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. But as Cast helps Clock to rescue runaways, destroy relics and even defeat the notorious bandits The Demon Gang, she begins to realise that Clock’s hiding some serious secrets, and the society she works for might not be as altruistic as Cast thinks. Luckily, she’s determined as ever to become a Smith, so she can rebuild them from the ground up!

This book bridges the gap between manga and graphic novels, with a familiar manga art style and Shonen-esque plot, but reading left to right like a Western comic. The diversity of the characters’ ethnicity and abilities, and Cast’s passionate commitment to ignoring all the barriers in her way, makes this an inclusive and positive reading experience. Bombastic fight scenes, dystopian steampunk aesthetics, imaginative sci-fi technology, and even train heists make for a fast-paced story that will have readers on the edge of their seats! A promising start to the series.

science fiction, dystopia, steampunk, robots, engineering, STEM, justice, helping others, mentorship, apprentice, action, manga

1. Language: bollocks x 1, bastard x 1, use of ableist language like “cripple” to demean Cast. 2. Tucker calls Clock a witch (p. 96, 105). Malakai calls Clock a witch (p. 175, 191, 193). Rumours that a mine is haunted—it’s not, there is a Servant in a mineshaft making strange noises (p. 137). 3. Frequent fight scenes, no blood or gore. A frame depicts a man being shot in the head in silhouette (p. 165).