Reeks (Love Hurts, 2015, etc.) and debut editor Richardson assemble a series of tales centered on superheroes’ constant struggles with saving the world and maintaining secret identities.
In Cat Rambo’s opening “Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut,” the titular character’s all-female band of superheroes adds new members and debates a group name. But everyone has issues with self-identity, from cybernetic Ms. Liberty to shapeless, human-created X. The stories in this book wisely eschew parody, opting instead for characters with special abilities counterbalanced by all-too familiar obstacles. Superhero Alice’s incognito trip to the supermarket, for one, in Seanan McGuire’s “Pedestal,” is ruined by a nosy blogger. Likewise, Mary of Carrie Vaughn’s delightful “Origin Story” spots her high school crush at the bank, only now it seems he’s supervillain Techhunter, in the process of a robbery. Narration and dialogue in the tales follow suit: characters often experience something fascinating that may, rather amusingly, have become routine. Mary, for example, notes Techhunter entering the bank with “a swarm of hovering metallic balls zooming down the hole in the ceiling with him,” adding a somewhat indifferent observation: “They probably shot lasers or tranquilizer darts.” Some of the characters are born into superhero families: Oliver’s fiery ability may be courtesy of his estranged father in Michael Milne’s “Inheritance,” while rumors that rock musician Atlas’ dad was an alien could be true in Nathan Crowder’s “Madjack.” It’s nevertheless possible that superpowers are not a necessity, as in the other “Origin Story,” by Kelly Link; even if Bunnatine’s mom is just a waitress, her daughter may see her as a superhero. Sympathetic supervillains crop up as well: in Keith Frady’s “Fool,” Dr. Entropy isn’t quite ready to go through with his plan to eradicate all life. The tales cater to traditions of comic-book champions, including cities known for frequent superhero appearances (Vaughn’s Commerce City or Crowder’s Cobalt City). But there’s always a twist on the conventional, not so much satire as it is, like any superb comic-book story, an opportunity to dig deeper into characters’ lives. For example, Aimee Ogden (“As I Fall Asleep”) drops readers into recognizable action, with superhero Cerebrelle squaring off against a villain. Cerebrelle’s hazy recollections, however, ultimately lead to a more intimate and rewarding approach—indicative of this vital anthology as a whole.
A momentous, readable collection, its sole downside being that there are only 20 superhero stories.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Meerkat Media
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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BOOK TO SCREEN
Kin “[find] each other’s lives inscrutable” in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.
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Inseparable identical twin sisters ditch home together, and then one decides to vanish.
The talented Bennett fuels her fiction with secrets—first in her lauded debut, The Mothers (2016), and now in the assured and magnetic story of the Vignes sisters, light-skinned women parked on opposite sides of the color line. Desiree, the “fidgety twin,” and Stella, “a smart, careful girl,” make their break from stultifying rural Mallard, Louisiana, becoming 16-year-old runaways in 1954 New Orleans. The novel opens 14 years later as Desiree, fleeing a violent marriage in D.C., returns home with a different relative: her 8-year-old daughter, Jude. The gossips are agog: “In Mallard, nobody married dark....Marrying a dark man and dragging his blueblack child all over town was one step too far.” Desiree's decision seals Jude’s misery in this “colorstruck” place and propels a new generation of flight: Jude escapes on a track scholarship to UCLA. Tending bar as a side job in Beverly Hills, she catches a glimpse of her mother’s doppelgänger. Stella, ensconced in white society, is shedding her fur coat. Jude, so black that strangers routinely stare, is unrecognizable to her aunt. All this is expertly paced, unfurling before the book is half finished; a reader can guess what is coming. Bennett is deeply engaged in the unknowability of other people and the scourge of colorism. The scene in which Stella adopts her white persona is a tour de force of doubling and confusion. It calls up Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the book's 50-year-old antecedent. Bennett's novel plays with its characters' nagging feelings of being incomplete—for the twins without each other; for Jude’s boyfriend, Reese, who is trans and seeks surgery; for their friend Barry, who performs in drag as Bianca. Bennett keeps all these plot threads thrumming and her social commentary crisp. In the second half, Jude spars with her cousin Kennedy, Stella's daughter, a spoiled actress.
Kin “[find] each other’s lives inscrutable” in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53629-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION
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SEEN & HEARD
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