The Universe Chronicle is a journey into a stark visual graphic novel universe. Enjoyable for science fiction and comics readers.

In my occasional series of 'tips from reviewers to book readers' comes this entry – "look out for the word breathless, and consider whether it's a good thing or not". This book opens breathlessly, with a small crew of a small spacecraft – an academic one, where the crew grizzle about cyber-lectures provided by a head in a jar that's less funny than Futurama – and its accompanying alien cargo getting sucked inside a star, only to find a planet to crashland on. Now, if any of that sounds at all dubious to you science heads, let me know. Also dubious here is a character called Qsi, which sounds like the latest tw*tter to make it big on Weibo as opposed to Youtube. Also extremely dubious here is this speech bubble, as explanation to the crash, which I produce in full. "According to the most likely hypothesis [I'm with it up to then, I'll let you know], the thrombus of a luminous horizon is an unknown congestion of flux which creates a gravitational vortex that can absorb external objects into the physical heart of the star." The last time I had an 'unknown congestion of flux' I changed takeaway providers. But enough about me – you just know this wants to be 'Alien', and ends up being 'Prometheus', 'Nuff said. Actually it ends with a speech bubble of WTFery that needs to be seen to be believed. One and a half planets-within-stars.