Review: And I don't even LIKE the Super-Hero Genre Much
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 8, 2014
This book is a rollicking adventure in a world where comic-book style super-heros and super-villains have become common. Beginning around the end of WWI and really coming to the fore during WWII, super-heros begin to dominate many areas of previously human endeavor. All that keeps them in check is that some of them are opposed to the plans of the others. Mere "vanillas" are pretty much irrelevant.Given that summary, I would think I would hate the book. But I loved it.it is the characters that did it for me:Christine Dark was brought over, for some important purpose, from a world like our own, one without super-heros. Through eyes we see this world perhaps more clearly than we would if she wasn't so central. Even as she develops powers of her own, or they are revealed, she remains a viewpoint character from our world.Face-Off is a hero with minor powers who fights on the side of justice, without joining one of the teams of caped crusaders that infest this reality. His interior "voice" resembles that of a hardboiled detective from noir. He assumed responsibility with some reluctance but takes it very seriously once he does.Each of the other characters, even the real super-powered ones and even the villains, major and minor, have some interesting traits.The action scenes are good and the dialogue is often witty.The ending is clearly not the end. That is in the tradition of the genre, where super-villains are often defeated but rarely stopped for good. This book would not be a ten if the ratings went from one to ten, I admit. It isn't _War for the Oaks_ or _Kim_ to name two, but the ending doesn't hurt because it belongs on this type of story.Some might ask "if this book is so good, why didn't a _real_ publisher bring it out?From what I understand, Mr. C submitted it to one, count em, one, publisher. Then he went the self-publishing route. That may be foolish but it doesn't detract from the book.