“The Electric State” by Simon Stalenhag – Blog by Andrew Malacarne

A teen girl and her robot embark on a cross-country mission in this illustrated science

fiction story, perfect for fans of Ready Player One and Black Mirror. One of NPR’s “Best

Books of 2018.

The Electric State is not what you expect. The cover fuses together rusted dystopian machines with childish Disney-esque robots. Within the pages is the picture book science fiction fans never knew they needed. Stalenhag takes readers into a broken world and shows us how dark our own could soon become if we aren’t careful. 

Art is all about story. Whether it’s a family portrait or a big-screen blockbuster, all art tells a story regardless of the medium. The best artists use their medium to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. That is exactly what Stalenhag has done with The Electric State. Stalenhag perfectly weaves in the written word with huge splash pages to pull the reader into his world. The art is not merely visualization of the words, but rather the next step in the story. The pictures are part of the story, each picture flows along as if they were a page of words painted for the eyes. The world of The Electric State lives somewhere between the picture books of youth and graphic novels of adulthood.