Judgment Day

Posted on March 25, 2012 by

The rumors are true. We’ll read anything here at SuperheroNovels.com. If a book features a protagonist who wears a cape and cowl, we’ll pick it up. We don’t exclude self-published novels from our reading queue. We’re an inclusive bunch.

But we’re acutely aware that self-published novels are wildly unpredictable. We’re all for the freedom and singular vision that indie publishing provides, but we firmly believe that rigorous editorial guidance inevitably produces better work. We’ll continue to read self-published books, but we remain convinced that traditional publishing methods (including slush pile gatekeepers) provide a service to both the author and the reader.

Which brings us to the novel Karis, by R.M. Strong. It’s a typical self-published affair, full of boundless enthusiasm and potential. But like similar books, is ultimately defeated by clumsy, immature writing.

It’s about a teenage girl who sees her family gunned down by a Dr. Psycho-like supervillain. Later, she dons a triple-weave Kevlar bodysuit and a facemask and seeks revenge and/or peace of mind. The author borrows freely from the familiar Batman mythos and even introduces a Superman stand-in at some point. In a way, she’s creating her own World’s Finest universe. Which is cool.

Unfortunately, the novel struggles to find a balance between dialog, action, summary, and exposition. It’s also a novel that pushes a personal theological agenda that is (sincere, but) disruptive. In the end, every mistake in this book could have been avoided had the author sat down with a professional editor and suffered the scrutiny of craft and style.

First novels are meant to be celebrated and quickly forgotten. And that’s the case here. We appreciate the author’s commitment to her muse, but Karis is not so much a complete novel as it is a manuscript still in progress. Hopefully we’ll see better things from the author in the future.

[Karis / By R.M. Strong / First Printing: December 2011 / ISBN: 978-1468150209]

Posted in 004 Superhero Novels (Original Characters), 011 Superhero Novels (Published in 2011) | Tagged ,

Adventure Time

Posted on March 18, 2012 by

Michael Gabriel Gurick III spends all his time in a subterranean workshop 80 feet under his house. It’s a place that resembles the Batcave, Dexter’s laboratory, and Walter Bishop’s playpen. There’s only one problem, however. What’s the point of having a secret, subbasement lab if your mother knows about it? For goodness sakes, where does a teenage kid have to go to get a little privacy?

But his mother’s nosey nature is the least of young Michael’s problems. Ever since his father was “killed in a car crash” six months ago, he’s been living at the nexus of an upside down world. His best friend can crush stone and bend steal, his blind girlfriend can see better than he can, superheroes keep popping into his underground lair unannounced, and his dad has been replaced by a shape-shifting government agent.

Dispensing Justice takes place in 1984, nearly 40 years after a supernova wavefront blasted Earth’s atmosphere. Alien intervention helped diffuse the cosmic disaster, but nothing could prevent 10 percent of the planet’s population from perishing in a storm of “radiation and unsterilized neutrinos.”

The unexpected appearance of alien benefactors changed our world in so many ways. Not only did their goodwill wipe out numerous diseases and put cancer on the endangered list, but they also inadvertently created the first Nova Genesis generation, aka the first generation of superheroes.

Michael’s father, the Dispenser, was a member of the first superhero generation. And Michael is positive that his father didn’t die in an auto accident. That’s why he’s spending all his time down in his rabbit hole of solitude. He’s making plans to assume his father’s secret identity, hunt down the killer, and dispense a little justice.

The author successfully captures the voice of mid-century adventure stories for kids. Taking a page from Robert Heinlein’s classic juvenile novels, Dispensing Justice is a story set in a science fiction/superhero universe and features a clique of smart and likeable teenagers grappling with complex (adult) issues. Compared to today’s current crop of sensationalist YA novels, it may seem a tad quaint. But that’s a good thing. Anyone who grew up reading Have Space Suit—Will Travel or Starman Jones will get a kick out of this book.

[Dispensing Justice / By Fritz Freiheit / First Printing: December 2011 / ISBN: 9780984795536]

Posted in 004 Superhero Novels (Original Characters), 011 Superhero Novels (Published in 2011) | Tagged ,

Super City Blues

Posted on March 11, 2012 by

Super City is a swell place to live if you’re a superhero, a supervillain, or an invading space alien. “Everything’s fine,” says Captain Javier Garcia of the city’s police department, “unless you’re a cop. Then you’re totally fucked.”

That’s because the superheroes of Super City are an untouchable, self-absorbed bunch. Sure, they battle supervillains and space invaders. But in doing so, they follow the beat of their own drum and don’t give a hoot about their constituency. They set their own agenda, ignore procedure, and don’t cooperate with the police. To underscore their arrogance, the heroes have built a garrison that floats high above the city. They are literally above the law.

But when a serial killer known as the Claw returns to the city, the heroes of Super City and the police department must find a way to work together. As expected, the members of the Superior Six don’t want to share their classified intel. And the Terrific Trio is (conveniently?) out in space preventing a comet from smashing into one of Jupiter’s moons. Their receptionist doesn’t really know when they’ll be back on Earth.

The author is doing his best to write a police procedural that includes superheroes. In other words, he’s trying to combine Hill Street Blues and Dragnet with the DC Nation. It’s an interesting, if not wholly successfully, genre mash-up.

Part of the problem is that the procedural element of the novel falls flat. We follow detectives Peter MacAvoy and Kristin Milewski as they butt heads with uncooperative superheroes and departmental roadblocks. But there’s no payoff. The case ultimately unravels without their assistance. “We didn’t do anything,” gripes Milewski at the end of the book. And she’s partially right. If she wanted to solve a mystery, she should have stayed home and read an Agatha Christie novel.

On the upside, however, the first Super City novel is filled with a cast of oddball characters and their personal unresolved dramas. This bodes well for upcoming sequels (S.C.P.D.: Avenging Amethyst will be available later in the year). Fans of TV shows like NYPD and CSI:NY know that part of the fun is getting hooked on the soap opera tangents these police procedurals provide each week. Here’s hoping future installments of S.C.P.D. can deliver the same type of thing.

One final comment: The author deserves a standing ovation for his encyclopedic knowledge of comic book history. Every neighborhood, street, building, and school in this novel gets tagged with a creator’s name. There’s Leesfield, Eisnerville, Woodcrest, Heckton (!), Fingerville, Gaines Avenue, Goodwin Expressway, Simon Valley, Kirby Park, DeCarlo Middle School, Colletta High School, Colan Island, and Ellis Island. And the list doesn’t stop there. It goes on and on and on. Frankly, the only city landmark he missed was Trimpe Tower.

[S.C.P.D.: The Case of the Claw / By Keith R.A. DeCandido / First Printing: July 2011 / ISBN: 9780983434870]

Posted in 004 Superhero Novels (Original Characters), 011 Superhero Novels (Published in 2011) | Tagged , ,

Divided We Fall

Posted on March 4, 2012 by

Invasion, the first novel of Mercedes Lackey’s superhero series, was about metahumans fighting Nazi robots from outer space. It was awesome. As readers, we experienced the “shock and awe” of the Fourth Reich. Now we get a follow-up novel that predicts the end of the world. “Why, whenever things go seriously tits-up, are there always Nazis involved?”

The title of the new book is World Divided and it pretty much describes the dire situation immediately following the Krieger invasion. The Earth has been reduced to rubble and no one can come to an accord…especially in the United States. The government is barely hanging on, Echo, a branch of metahuman do-gooders, is in the midst of a hostile takeover, and the Super-Sobratiye Sovetskikh Revolutzionerov is still recruiting members and buying equipment on CraigsList. How pathetic. And worst of all, the eggheads from Metis—a Super Science LaLa Land—won’t expend nary a byte to help.

To complicate things even further, a bedridden precog by the name of Ides O. March has predicted the end of the world. “Fire and death, fire and death,” he scribbles moments before setting himself on fire. “Nothing left. No one. The end.” He may not be a poet, but as a seer, he’s right on the money. No one wins when superheroes battle Nazi supermecha from outer space.

The first book of the Secret World Chronicle was full of action. And we loved it. The new one takes a step back and allows us get to know the survivors a little bit better. Seraphym is still a mopey angel and Natalya Shostakovich is still a grouchy communist. That, for better or worse, hasn’t changed. But we gain a deeper understanding of important characters such as John Murdock, Victoria Victrix Nagy, and Red Djinni. And as an added bonus: two splendidly evil villains are introduced and a very important question is asked. “Would the world be a better place without metahumans?”

[World Divided: Book Two of the Secret World Chronicle / By Mercedes Lackey, Cody Martin, Dennis Lee, Veronica Giguere / First Printing: February 2012 / ISBN: 9781451638011]

Posted in 004 Superhero Novels (Original Characters), 012 Superhero Novels (Published in 2012) | Tagged , , , ,

Level Up

Posted on February 26, 2012 by

In the future we’ll all be superheroes. Do you want to climb buildings like a spider? Shrink to the size of an ant? Talk to a fish? No problem. All you’ll have to do is dial up any modification you desire. It’ll be as easy as downloading an app to your smartphone.

Connor Rix was one of the first modified humans. He was officially sanctioned and government approved. But when the Breakup War split the United States into regional sovereignties, Rix was cut loose. He no longer took orders from the government. He became a free agent and a superhero for hire.

Now a Brazilian mobster is trying to form his own personal modification cartel. He wants to become the exclusive supplier of biological raw materials. And to do so, he has declared war on a Massive Dynamic-like corporation based in New Mexico. To the rescue comes Rix and his team of super modified heroes.

The author is a middling futurist who predicts a new dawn for mankind. Biological alterations, he writes, has “the truly awesome potential to vanquish humanity’s ancient weaknesses, to uplift humanity for the better.”

But what happens when everyone becomes a superhuman? Undoubtedly some of these superheroes will become supervillains. Connor Rix turned out to be one of the good guys. But you don’t want every bully on the block to morph into an eight-foot rampaging hulk.

And that’s why Rix and his crew must stop Vinicius Cunha and his Brazilian musclemen. Cunha is a particularly vicious bastard. Six-foot-six, thick as a brick and impervious to bullets, he is rigged with every physical modification available. The mobster was a leader in the primitive sense of the word, an alpha male in a pack of wild animals. If Cunha wins the war of biological modification, mankind’s bright future will be forever tarnished.

Before Rix and Cunha put on their boxing gloves, Rules of Force debates the moral, political, and financial implications of continued human alterations. The author peppers his narrative with pros and cons of the issue, and we have no doubt he will continue to do so in upcoming sequels. Rix, of course, is an indefatigable advocate for continued modification research. He wants to live in a world where modifications take mankind to the next level. “People will be stronger, faster, they’ll live longer and be able to achieve things that earlier humans could never have achieved,” he says. “I want to see those days come to pass.”

[Rules of Force / By Steve Statham / First Printing: November 2011 / ISBN: 9781467935142]

Posted in 004 Superhero Novels (Original Characters), 011 Superhero Novels (Published in 2011) | Tagged ,

The Justice Society of Steam, Part II

Posted on February 19, 2012 by

Sarah Stanton isn’t an actress, an heiress, murderess, temptress, or diabolist. She’s a steampunk superheroine. “I’m no lady,” she informs a misinformed adversary, “I’m the Adventuress.”

Specifically, she’s the only daughter of the Industrialist, the leader of a group of gentlemen adventurers called the Paragons. Until recently she’s lived a privileged life under her daddy’s careful supervision. But now she’s living on her own and serendipitously building a gang of likeminded superheroes. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree apparently. Everybody in the Stanton family ends up being the leader of a team of costumed exhibitionists at some point in their life.

And the timing couldn’t be better. Her father’s gentlemen’s club is slowly being dismantled by a mad genius with a chip on his shoulder and electricity at his fingertips. The Children of Eschaton want to destroy the world and rebuild it in their own image. There’s no place in their evil plans for a collection of greybeard superheroes called the Paragons. Sic transit Gloria mundi—the glory of the world so quickly passes away.

Since this is a steampunk novel, the fate of the world will be determined by whoever locates the Alpha Element and wields the power of steam and smoke. We’ll give you one guess who has it. That’s right, the spunky Stanton gal. The Alpha Element is contained within a key hanging from her necklace. The author is being as blunt as possible. But in case you missed it, the Adventuress is the key to everything.

Hearts of Smoke and Steam is a transitional novel. The villainy remains the same as the first book, but the series has shifted from the first generation of superheroes to the second generation. Call it SOS:TNG if you like. Gone is the Submersible, the Sleuth, Iron-Clad, the Industrialist, and Sir Dennis Darby. In their stead is the Turbine, Anubis, Il Acrobato, the Pneumatic Colossus, and, of course, the Adventuress. She’s the spark, the progeny, and the avenger. Lord Eschaton has hurt or killed everyone that she ever cared about. And now she’s ready to fight a war. “I have judged you, Sarah Stanton,” says Anubis, a villain turned hero. “And I have found you worthy!” We couldn’t agree more.

[The Society of Steam, Book Two: Hearts of Smoke and Steam / By Andrew P. Mayer / First Printing: November 2011 / ISBN: 9781616145330]

Posted in 004 Superhero Novels (Original Characters), 011 Superhero Novels (Published in 2011) | Tagged , ,

She Fought the World, and the World Won

Posted on February 12, 2012 by

You might be rich. You might be righteous. You might even be a Kardashian. But in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Nobody leaves this island Earth alive.

Two supervillains by the name of Sundancer and Pit Geek have no delusions about their ultimate fate. They know the end will come for them eventually. With nothing better to do, they embark on a Bonnie and Clyde-like adventure. Robbing banks is beneath them. But they don’t care. They’re just trying to keep things interesting before the final bell tolls.

And, boy, do things get interesting. After depositing $80 million from banks across the country, Sundancer and Pit Geek start butting heads with the Covenant, a trio of superheroes with a spotty history. The team consists of a male prostitute, a crime boss, and the estranged daughter of Dr. Knowbokov, the guy who purposely detonated a second big bang and destroyed the universe. (See the prequel novel, Nobody Gets the Girl, for more mind-bending details.)

The Covenant is doing its best to squash Sundancer and Pit Geek. But their efforts are in vain. The dirty pair has already sewn up our sympathies. This is a supervillain novel, after all. It says so in the indicia.

Sundancer, otherwise known as Sunday Jimenez, gets most of the attention here. By harnessing the power of the sun, she is practically invincible. But unfortunately her superpowers have exposed her body to massive amounts of radiation. She’ll die of cancer unless she gets help fast.

During her villainous career, Sunday pushed death upon dozens of people with utter indifference. And now it’s her time to go. But you never know. Can she survive her mortal coil with the help of a super-intelligent chimpanzee? Or a black donut from outer space? Or maybe her partner in crime has an ace down his gullet? In a supervillain novel, anything is possible.

Burn Baby Burn is more straightforward than it’s prequel. We missed the earlier book’s unexpected twists and unwavering insanity. And we were a little disappointed that Rex Monday bowed out so quickly. But overall it’s funnier than the first book and has a bigger heart. Also, the romance between the two criminals was (inevitable, but) sweet.

In the end, says Sundancer, we’re all going to die. No one gets out alive. “Well, sure,” responds Pit Geek, her heartbroken lover. “But there’s no need to be in a such hurry.” Ultimately, everybody wants to spend a little more time in this veil of tears.

[Burn Baby Burn / By James Maxey / First Printing: November 2011 / ISBN: 9781465731586]

Posted in 004 Superhero Novels (Original Characters), 011 Superhero Novels (Published in 2011) | Tagged ,