brief reviews
I could spend hours at this site: the TV tropes wiki. The entry for Plot Tumor includes this gem: “Compare: Adaptation Decay, Flanderization, George Lucas Love Story, Jean Grey Escalation, and Motive Decay.” This is not a wiki about citation, but it does feature deep fanlove, though everyone tends to make fun of the fanworks that they don’t themselves consume. (Perhaps I should add an entry on My Kink Is Fine, Yours Is Bad-but the overall sense I get is that most people who contribute think Everyone’s Kinks Are Funny, so I actually didn’t feel attacked.)
Perry Moore, Hero: Thom is the son of a disgraced former superhero, a human without any extra powers, and a woman who could turn invisible and who left Thom and his father many years ago. When he starts manifesting healing powers, he faces the choice to enter the world that rejected his father-but that’s not his biggest problem, which is that he’s gay, and his dad (among others) is homophobic. I really enjoyed this novel, in which adolescent angst and world-saving mix until a romantic ending. The flaw, and it is a big one, is that while the male characters get to reveal hidden and sometimes even non-stereotypical depths, the best female characters are the Crone and the Bitch with a Heart of Gold. Note to author: tragic backstories that, when revealed, make the nasty female nice do not subvert stereotypes. They are stereotypes. Not archetypes, which is what a superhero work can do really well.
Elizabeth Bear, Hammered: In an environmentally damaged world where the US has pretty much collapsed, a former Canadian military officer struggles with PTSD and her deteriorating replacement parts, both traceable to the explosion that claimed major portions of her body and to the subsequent medical experimentation. Her former doctor proposes to fix her up, but only if she helps with a new project, which involves extreme biotechnology with a pretty interesting source. Oh, and her mercenary killer sister is the one sent to track her down for the doctor, which as you might imagine brings up some issues for her. (There are several other POV characters, but Jenny/Maker was the one I connected with most.) The book ends in the middle of a big moment, which wasn’t great, but I liked Bear’s willingness to change the rules and kill off significant characters.
Perry Moore, Hero: Thom is the son of a disgraced former superhero, a human without any extra powers, and a woman who could turn invisible and who left Thom and his father many years ago. When he starts manifesting healing powers, he faces the choice to enter the world that rejected his father-but that’s not his biggest problem, which is that he’s gay, and his dad (among others) is homophobic. I really enjoyed this novel, in which adolescent angst and world-saving mix until a romantic ending. The flaw, and it is a big one, is that while the male characters get to reveal hidden and sometimes even non-stereotypical depths, the best female characters are the Crone and the Bitch with a Heart of Gold. Note to author: tragic backstories that, when revealed, make the nasty female nice do not subvert stereotypes. They are stereotypes. Not archetypes, which is what a superhero work can do really well.
Elizabeth Bear, Hammered: In an environmentally damaged world where the US has pretty much collapsed, a former Canadian military officer struggles with PTSD and her deteriorating replacement parts, both traceable to the explosion that claimed major portions of her body and to the subsequent medical experimentation. Her former doctor proposes to fix her up, but only if she helps with a new project, which involves extreme biotechnology with a pretty interesting source. Oh, and her mercenary killer sister is the one sent to track her down for the doctor, which as you might imagine brings up some issues for her. (There are several other POV characters, but Jenny/Maker was the one I connected with most.) The book ends in the middle of a big moment, which wasn’t great, but I liked Bear’s willingness to change the rules and kill off significant characters.