Review: Incomplete and needs revision
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 11 17, 2013
The premise of this book is billed as a look at what happens in the lives of a super hero (or villain) when they aren't fighting crime -- when they are in their everyday lives.  While that's an interesting notion, the problem is that, except for a couple of spots, the book doesn't really delve in to this topic.  The first half of the book is all setup in which each chapter takes the reader in to the lives of a different character.  All of these various snapshots of life seem disconnected, but in the second half of the book, Hammes begins tying some of these threads together.  However, several storylines are never addressed or resolved in the larger picture.  The primary connected storyline of all the characters also leaves a bit to be desired -- the action is anticlimactic and ends in shocking quick succession.  Overall, though, the book doesn't quite come together.It seemed as though the author intended to make this a much larger work and perhaps simply grew tired of writing or forgot some of the storylines.  The work is in need of a revision to be of good quality.  Hammes has done a lot of work in the genre of short story, and much of this novel almost reads like a number of short stories that don't quite connect despite the attempt.  While the method of attempting to weave together disparate tales worked well in The Twenty Dollar Bill, it just fell flat and did not work here.*******NOTE SPOILERS BELOW***********************As I mentioned, several storylines are never resolved or included in the main story arc.  For example -- one character in the book is a giant named Big Tall Guy who attempts a robbery and is ultimately stopped by a laughable character called The Mallard.  Once Big Tall Guy is defeated, he then begins shrinking (which the reader later finds out) until he runs in to the small children that are randomly teleporting throughout the story.  The reader never finds out how Big Tall Guy got away after his defeat; why he is shrinking; or what ultimately happens to him.  The children who teleport through the story are another matter -- they show up at random times throughout the story, but how or why they are moving through the action is never explained.  Another character that comes across the children, Julius Ghosthunter, is included in the work as a sort of sorcerer who is trying to find out what happened to his mother and uncle -- but those topics are also never quite addressed.In addition, two characters were introduced that never had any resolution to their story and seemed completely out of place.  Cinder, who has the ability to generate vast heat, and Raindrop, who has water powers are introduced early on as two who are attracted to one another but unable to come together because of their opposing powers.  Raindrop eventually begins following two homeless villains to their camp, but eventually grows bored as they are simply recounting their past exploits, and wanders away.  Those villains (Bill the Barbarian, Texas Joe, The Mute, and Freddie Fingers) are seemingly only included in the book because they are down on their luck, which somewhat goes along with the theme.  They are included in a couple of chapters with a lot of buildup regarding a story by Texas Joe, but the reader never gets resolution.