The mysterious object that Alex Campbell has discovered is much more than just a fancy, shiny artifact; an ancient, white supremacist organisation is on her tail, and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to get their hands on it.

What do they want it for? And what are they up to? And how are Alex’s ancestors connected to all of this?

As was the case in Quantum Tangle, which compiled the first two chapters (of the first volume) of creator Henry Chebaane’s The Panharmonion Chronicles, there’s a very dense, layered story in Synchronic Velocity (which features chapters three and four of the first volume).

It’s blessed with the same vivid sense of place, as well as time, with London in particular being impressively detailed; being able to recognise actual, real world locations, either within the visuals or when they’re referred to in the dialogue, was particularly thrilling for this particular reader (seeing as I grew up in and around London, I’ve perhaps got a bit of an unfair advantage in recognising the landmarks in the story!).

Though the flashbacks are deliberately anachronistic, they don’t have the same level of accuracy, but of course this is intentional. Stephen Baskerville’s art is both detailed and highly realistic; even those aforementioned trips to an alternate past do a great job of feeling authentic.

One thing I must mention is that I did find the narrative somewhat difficult to follow at times. This was also the case with the first part; though my suspicion there was that it was due to how much setup had to be done, there’s clearly much more exposition and detail needed to tell this dense and rather layered story.

One thing’s for sure; it’s an impressively well put together and unique story that draws from a variety of sources and genres, with some great social commentary coming to the fore here too, and it’s unlike almost anything else I’ve read before, which is something that should definitely be commended.

If your local comic book store doesn’t stock The Panharmonion Chronicles: Times of London, you can purchase it from the publisher directly here.

Many thanks to Henry Chebaane for sending me a digital copy of the full first volume of The Panharmonion Chronicles: Times of London for review purposes. Look out for my reviews of the next chapters soon.