Review — ‘Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense And Hospitality Unit’ Is A Superb Sci-Fi Satire

Judging a book by its cover and you’d be forgiven for thinking the new graphic novel Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit by Josh Hicks is a YA sci-fi book. But you’d be mistaken. While it is a fun, comedic 137-page sci-fi saga for all ages, it’s also one with a deeper message that any put-upon worker will recognise and empathise with. While the inspirations of manga, mechas and monsters are obvious, you might not expect a tale of frustrated underpaid and overworked service industry grunts, privileged and pampered guests and crooked corporations. All wrapped up in action, space operatics and sticking it to the man! In this case, the CEO of mega-corporation Apatus, Dylan Blumquist.

If science fiction often holds up a mirror to the modern world and reflects its contemporary fears, then this new graphic novel does just that in using the service crew of this mecha-hotel and its privileged passengers to satirise our collective worries of corporate greed, careless exploitation of people and resources. It may not be a new target, but it’s down its such aplomb in this energetic, well crafted and creative graphic novel.

The main hero of Hotelitor is Anna Greene, a rather anxious unpaid intern who’s looking for work experience, and achieves this more by mistake than by design as she and her fellow crew members and hotel guests end up stranded in space after being attacked by a kaiju from space. But, if you thought this was another cliche-riddles space opera you’d be wrong. As her confidence blooms and her natural skills come to the fore, her misadventures in space get worse and what the reader may have dismissed as cliches are cleverly revealed to be something else. And all integral to the story of corporate irresponsibility. It’s a story with plenty of surprises and twists.

Like the script, the artwork is deceptively simplistic, but the design of the alien entities, the layout of the pages and more are smart, contemporary and oftentimes evocative of early Astro Boy comics, with a colour palette that is bright, breezy and uncomplicated. Anna may well be the star of the show but the diverse cast of characters that support her, or hinder her, are a delight and help energise the book and give it heart. 

A fun, satirical sci-fi saga that’s big on laughs and big on ideas, all delivered with a kind of wide-eyed innocence that does well to hide its fiendishly delightful satire.

Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit is out on Wednesday 7th May from Graphic Universe/Lerner Publishing Group