And another round of super powers for my friends.

Soon I Will be Invincible by Austin Grossman
Where the trail of vampire romances like Twilight ends, remakes and reinterpretations of the superhero genre picks up. Not that that’s a bad thing. I just finished Soon I will be Invincible and found it utterly amazing. It’s not just that I find the whole super power thing fun and entertaining, Grossman’s take on the genre is fresh and enlivened. We’re asked to suspend our understanding of the world and enter one where people with super powers exist. Where time travel and robots so realistic you can’t tell they’re robots exist. The story shifts perspectives from the main villain to a relatively new super hero. The “bad guy,” Doctor Impossible (feel free to giggle, it’s part of the book’s charm), has just escaped from jail and now plans on taking over the world—but not if Damsel and the rest of the New Champions have anything to say about it. I loved the writing. I love how it’s just assumed we know all about superheroes (because we all secretly do; “we” meaning me). I love Grossman’s wit; “Wearing a cape doesn’t do much for your social life. There’s a standing, unspoken, and utterly unreliable truce among enhanced criminals, the robot-army, hood-and-mask, good-evening-Mister-Bond set. My peer group is largely a collection of psychotics, aliens, and would-be emperors. The result is I meet people like Lily. Lily was born in the thirty-fifth century…My other best friend is the Pharaoh, a supervillain, and he’s an idiot.” It’s great stuff. You really don’t need to know much about superheroes to get into this book, just an imagination and a hidden desire to wear a cape.

Up, up, and awwaaaaaay!