posted 09-27-2001 08:24 AM               

The Coffin is a wonderful book, a thought-provoking and intelligent piece of science fiction that meditates on life, death, and life after death with no sacrifice of characterization or plotting. Combined with beautiful illustration that shows off Mike Huddleston's versatility, this book is exactly the sort of thing that would have had my college roommates and me up until six in the morning and loving every second of it.

Dr. Ashar Ahmad has discovered a way to trap the soul at the moment of death, by placing the body in a hermetically sealed containment suit made from a new type of polymer. Heller, the head of the company that funds Ashar's experiments wants the technology for himself, and orders Ashar killed; the doctor manages to encase himself in the suit in time to trap his soul, and sets out to stop the financier. More importantly, he has to determine what kind of life he hopes to lead, now that he is dead.

Phil Hester does a magnificent job with this story. The suit, or coffin, has a number of enhanced abilities, so there is plenty of action as Ashar gets used to his new form of existence and tracks down his enemy. Both Ashar and Heller are extremely intelligent men, so there's a nice psychological element to the conflict as each tries to find the other's weakness. This is a relatively short book, and Hester wastes no time in the telling. All o the characters are believable in their actions and motivations, and there are no cheats or easy, pseudoscientific answers to any of Ashar's problems.

But what makes this more than just a well-told Iron Man tale is its willingness to explore the very nature of life and death, in way that feels satisfying without trying to wrap things up into neat bows. Ashar, at first, treats the soul as little more than a phenomenon of quantum physics, a force of electricity to be manipulated and contained - much like he treats everything else he encounters, including other people. At the moment of death, he experiences what may be either hallucinations or a journey through the underworld. The visions give him a chance to reflect on the relationship between the soul and the body, on the existence and nature of the afterlife, on the punishment suffered by damned souls, and more. Hester not only treats these questions with seriousness and avoids flip answers, but he does a deft job of showing the effects that these experiences have on Ashar. He captures the irony of a man becoming more alive emotionally after his physical death without dwelling on it to the point that it becomes trite.

I mentioned Huddleston's artwork at the beginning, but it bears repeating - this is wonderful work. The linework reminds me of Planetary's John Cassaday in its clean yet detailed style. Huddleston's characters have a very 'real' look to them in facial expressions, body posture, and general appearance, and he does an outstanding job of conjuring the grotesque visions of hell and tortured souls. His shading work is also quite nice, at times capturing an almost photographic realism and at others using stark whites on black that's more abstract and suggestive. It really brings alive the sense of wonder and grandeur that's contained within the story, and I'm tremendously looking forward to future collaborations between these two.