Velveteen!
After what was a much, much more complicated process than it should have been (shipping: ain't it fun?) I finally have my hardback copy of Seanan McGuire's Velveteen vs. the Junior Super Patriots. Yay! I have a book with a superheroine in bunny ears on the cover!
...hmm. Possibly early and formative experiences with Phil Foglio's Angel and the Ape miniseries left a mark...?
Anyway, my questionable psyche aside, Velveteen vs. is glorious. It's a series of stories about an ex-superheroine in a world where almost all superheroes are effectively owned and raised by the corporation of Super Patriots, Inc., where image is everything and Marketing controls all. Our heroine Velma Martinez had a couple of terrible experiences, hit eighteen and decided that this was no life for, basically, anyone, and walked away. Marketing is not happy. They're a huge corporation and she has...the ability to animate any toy in range?
...somehow, this works out better than it should. (Well, it would be a short series if they squashed her like a bug.) Vel has a scathing sense of humor, a bunch of interesting friends (most notably the daughter of the incarnations of Winter and the embodiment of fairy-tale princessness) and, you know, the ability to bring teddy bears to life and make that into an awesome crimefighting power. The stories are funny--of course they're funny, it's Seanan McGuire doing superheroes; the first story features the wrath of a crayfish army--and there's a lot of (often sarcastic) musing on the details of the superhero life. But there's also a lot of serious subtext about choices and control and putting your life back together when you don't know what you're doing, and a couple of spots that just broke my heart. Plus it's got a ton of alternate universes, and that always makes me happy. :) It's a genuinely beautiful series, and it's all online at the author's website (first half) and LJ (second half). I'm so pleased to have the book! *cuddles book*
This entry was originally posted at http://greenygal.dreamwidth.org/87130.html.
...hmm. Possibly early and formative experiences with Phil Foglio's Angel and the Ape miniseries left a mark...?
Anyway, my questionable psyche aside, Velveteen vs. is glorious. It's a series of stories about an ex-superheroine in a world where almost all superheroes are effectively owned and raised by the corporation of Super Patriots, Inc., where image is everything and Marketing controls all. Our heroine Velma Martinez had a couple of terrible experiences, hit eighteen and decided that this was no life for, basically, anyone, and walked away. Marketing is not happy. They're a huge corporation and she has...the ability to animate any toy in range?
...somehow, this works out better than it should. (Well, it would be a short series if they squashed her like a bug.) Vel has a scathing sense of humor, a bunch of interesting friends (most notably the daughter of the incarnations of Winter and the embodiment of fairy-tale princessness) and, you know, the ability to bring teddy bears to life and make that into an awesome crimefighting power. The stories are funny--of course they're funny, it's Seanan McGuire doing superheroes; the first story features the wrath of a crayfish army--and there's a lot of (often sarcastic) musing on the details of the superhero life. But there's also a lot of serious subtext about choices and control and putting your life back together when you don't know what you're doing, and a couple of spots that just broke my heart. Plus it's got a ton of alternate universes, and that always makes me happy. :) It's a genuinely beautiful series, and it's all online at the author's website (first half) and LJ (second half). I'm so pleased to have the book! *cuddles book*
This entry was originally posted at http://greenygal.dreamwidth.org/87130.html.