I’m torn on Drafted. For every aspect of this book that strikes me as interesting, there’s another aspect that feels pedestrian. I appreciate the overall storyline, just as I appreciate that it’s trying to tell a larger than life sci-fi story. But just when I think it’s a book that I’ll start raving about, my excitement is undermined by sci-fi trope done in a standard way.

Drafted #10 could be considered something of a crossroads in the series. The good guys (that would be the human race and their alien allies) have managed to map out enemy territory and are preparing to launch what would be, ideally, the last major offensive of the war. At the same time, each one of the main characters seems to be dealing with their own emotional package, just in time for them to risk their lives in one of those high risk missions we read about so often.

The pacing is great and the artwork does a good job of telling the story. The sheer number of plot lines is fantastic and gives the book plenty of depth. On flipside, one of our main characters, Paul, wakes up to find that he’s lost an arm in battle, and that it’s been replaced by a mechanical number. Of course, he starts screaming that he’s been turned into a monster, a pretty standard character beat (and one I’ve always found to be odd – you’d think the loss of the arm would be the main issue, not the addition of the robot parts).

That’s a minor complaint, though. The major groan from the issue comes when we find out that, while the benevolent aliens are sending the humans to attack the enemy, that’s not the only front of their offensive. No, their true weapon is the disease that the humans are carrying, which will supposedly infect and destroy the enemy. There aren’t a lot of alien invasion tropes that come in above the human disease angle.

Still, if you can overlook these moments, Drafted is a good book, and I think it’s striving to be a better book. At the very least, it deserves watching.

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