* I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book. *

It's not often that I find myself totally gripped by a graphic novel; Letter 44 is one such story. It is an engrossing blend of political skulduggery and space opera with plenty of nods to 2001 A Space Odyssey, among other inspirations.

Stephen Blades is the incoming 44th President of the USA. Just before his inauguration, he is given a letter from his predecessor. The letter contains shocking news; there is a secret mission called Project Monolith that has sent the vessel Clarke into outer space to find a gigantic alien construction detected in the asteroid belt. All of the USA's economic and defence policies have been subverted to this secret end for years. Blades is torn between keeping the secret and revealing it to the world. He is undermined in his efforts to establish his influence over this mission and is frustrated in his attempts to take impose his policy aims.

The scientists and the military crew on the Clarke are approaching contact in the asteroid belt, and there have been developments there that mission control is not aware of. The crew makes it through the asteroid belt and then sends a massive discovery back to earth.

I liked the concept of this book and the internecine plot twists, which promise plenty more intrigue to come in future issues. The characters may seem a little bit like stock characters that have been encountered in countless movies along these lines, but Soule does enough with them to avoid being cliched. A very good read overall, and I look forward to the next chapter. ( )

Charles Soule is very hit or miss with me. I keep hoping the next thing of his I read will be another Strange Attractors, but more often than not, I get something nearly as bad as Death of Wolverine. This sci-fi epic is somewhere in the middle, but still quite a bit of a mess, with most of the actions of the politicians on Earth and the astronauts in space making little sense. If I didn't have the next volume on hand already, I might stop here. Ad Astra per Aspera! ( )