Having very much enjoyed the five volumes of the Aldébaran sequence of bandes dessinées by Brazilian writer/artist Leo, I have now started the next five-volume sequence, Bételgeuse. Once again we have lush illustrations of a completely alien world, with humans clinging to its rim and feuding with each other. This time round, a colonisation effort has collapsed, leaving the survivors divided into two armed camps over, among other issues, whether or not the indigenous aliens are sentient.

Unlike the previous series, this volume is divided pretty firmly into two different viewpoints. For the first half, the young Mai Lin (whose parents are clearly of Vietnamese descent) escapes from the two sets of humans and reveals her own ability to communicate with the aliens. In the second half, Kim from the Aldébaran sequence arrives in the Betelgeuse system to start finding out what has happened. Neither story line is resolved, so I'll just have to get the next one.