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Soon I Will Be Invincible
Doctor Impossible—evil genius, diabolical scientist, wannabe world dominator—languishes in a federal detention facility. He's lost his freedom, his girlfriend, and his hidden island fortress.
Over the years he's tried to take over the world in every way imaginable: doomsday devices of all varieties (nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological) and mass mind control. He's traveled backwards in time to change history, forward in time to escape it. He's commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies. Fungus army. Army of fish. Of rodents. Alien invasions. All failures. But not this time. This time it's going to be different...
Fatale is a rookie superhero on her first day with the Champions, the world's most famous superteam. She's a patchwork woman of skin and chrome, a gleaming technological marvel built to be the next generation of warfare. Filling the void left by a slain former member, Fatale joins a team struggling with a damaged past, trying to come together in the face of unthinkable evil.
Soon I Will Be Invincible is a thrilling first novel; a fantastical adventure that gives new meaning to the notions of power, glory, responsibility, and (of course) good and evil.
Over the years he's tried to take over the world in every way imaginable: doomsday devices of all varieties (nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological) and mass mind control. He's traveled backwards in time to change history, forward in time to escape it. He's commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies. Fungus army. Army of fish. Of rodents. Alien invasions. All failures. But not this time. This time it's going to be different...
Fatale is a rookie superhero on her first day with the Champions, the world's most famous superteam. She's a patchwork woman of skin and chrome, a gleaming technological marvel built to be the next generation of warfare. Filling the void left by a slain former member, Fatale joins a team struggling with a damaged past, trying to come together in the face of unthinkable evil.
Soon I Will Be Invincible is a thrilling first novel; a fantastical adventure that gives new meaning to the notions of power, glory, responsibility, and (of course) good and evil.
287 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
About the author
Austin Grossman
20 books528 followersAustin Grossman graduated from Harvard University in 1991 with a plan to write the great American novel; instead he became a video game designer at Looking Glass Studios.
He has since contributed as a writer and designer to a number of critically acclaimed video games, such as ULTIMA UNDERWORLD II, SYSTEM SHOCK, DEUS EX, and TOMB RAIDER: LEGEND, and has taught and lectured on narrative in video games. He is currently a freelance game design consultant,
He is also a doctoral candidate in English Literature at the University of California at Berkeley, where he specializes in Romantic and Victorian literature.
SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE is his debut novel. (from the author's website)"
He has since contributed as a writer and designer to a number of critically acclaimed video games, such as ULTIMA UNDERWORLD II, SYSTEM SHOCK, DEUS EX, and TOMB RAIDER: LEGEND, and has taught and lectured on narrative in video games. He is currently a freelance game design consultant,
He is also a doctoral candidate in English Literature at the University of California at Berkeley, where he specializes in Romantic and Victorian literature.
SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE is his debut novel. (from the author's website)"
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,997 reviews
April 13, 2010
I bought this book based on a strong review, and was quite disappointed. Any reviewer who praises this book's imagination clearly hasn't read a comic book within the last 5-10 years. The settings, characters, and powers all seem to have been lifted wholesale out of the most dire quick cash-in books of the 90s comics boom.
I will grant that there is some amusement to be found in Dr. Impossible's story. His wry, matter-of fact viewpoint is often entertaining, and the telling of a comic book tale from the villain's side is at least a bit unusual, if not unheard of (see Astro City: The Tarnished Angel, for one particularly fine example). Unfortunately, Dr. Impossible's side of things only occupies half the book. The rest of it is told from Fatale's perspective, and she's an absolute bore. A cyborg with a lost past, she doesn't seem to be terribly passionate about anything. The most she ever manages is some uninspired teenage-esque angst that her character seems much too old for.
In fact, the Dr. Impossible/Fatale contrast is indicative of a larger problem with the book. Grossman has some fun poking into the psychologies and histories of his villains, people with frightening powers living with the perpetual cognitive dissonance that exists between their world-conquering ambitions and inevitable humiliating defeats. He has no such insight, however, into the minds of his heroes. None of them spend any time pondering why they chose to put on tights and fight crime. Dr. Impossible wonders why he didn't choose to become a hero instead, but none of the heroes ever ponder why they didn't choose to just go rob a bank and retire to a tropical island. None of them appear to get any particular enjoyment from fighting crime, or derive any pleasure from helping others, so why do they do it? This book has no answers, so it does its best to dodge the question. Worse, Grossman attempts to substitute angst and bickering amongst his heroes in place of psychological depth. The New Champions, the super team that Fatale joins, bicker and sulk like a car full of high school students reluctantly dragged on a field trip, rarely displaying a single likable trait between the seven of them.
Worse still, this book reads more like a first draft than a published work. The writing is sloppy and inconsistent, and the whole thing seems to have been untouched by an editor. Descriptions are few and far between; it reads more like a comic book script than a novel, still waiting for an imaginative artist to draw in the undefined settings, faces, and costumes. Characters repeat observations several time throughout the book, each time as if they're new. The book is riddled with inconsistencies and dangling plot threads. Dr. Impossible sometimes talks as if he loathes magic and does his best to avoid it, and sometimes comfortably mentions incorporating it into past and future plans. Fatale observes that a hammer weighs a couple hundred pounds, then, several paragraphs later, picks it up and finds it "surprisingly heavy." Conflicts are set up, but never pay off. Other conflicts seem to appear out of nowhere. A scene in which Fatale accuses a mystical teammate of not being a real fairy comes entirely out of left field; one scene later, the conflict is completely forgotten, and is never mentioned again.
Character voices are also wildly inconsistent. Everyone sounds the same in conversation, and no one sounds particularly interesting. Dr. Impossible, an evil genius, comes the closest to having a unique voice, but even he bounces unpredictably between occasionally inspired bits and inexplicably juvenile lines such as, "Whatever. Just don't think you can stop me." Most dismayingly, the two narrators sound remarkably similar for most of the book, with the only distinct difference being that Fatale's utterly flat sections lack the occasional moments of inspiration that sparingly pepper Dr. Impossible's narrative.
This book is an "adult" take on superheroes only when compared to the simplistic comics of the 30s-50s. The story and dialog ibook don't hold a candle to the clever and insightful works of such modern-day comics writers as Kurt Busiek, Brian Michael Bendis, and Neil Gaiman. The novel format tries to sell this as a more adult and literary take on comic books, but it's ultimately just a pale and surprisingly shallow imitation of the real thing.
I will grant that there is some amusement to be found in Dr. Impossible's story. His wry, matter-of fact viewpoint is often entertaining, and the telling of a comic book tale from the villain's side is at least a bit unusual, if not unheard of (see Astro City: The Tarnished Angel, for one particularly fine example). Unfortunately, Dr. Impossible's side of things only occupies half the book. The rest of it is told from Fatale's perspective, and she's an absolute bore. A cyborg with a lost past, she doesn't seem to be terribly passionate about anything. The most she ever manages is some uninspired teenage-esque angst that her character seems much too old for.
In fact, the Dr. Impossible/Fatale contrast is indicative of a larger problem with the book. Grossman has some fun poking into the psychologies and histories of his villains, people with frightening powers living with the perpetual cognitive dissonance that exists between their world-conquering ambitions and inevitable humiliating defeats. He has no such insight, however, into the minds of his heroes. None of them spend any time pondering why they chose to put on tights and fight crime. Dr. Impossible wonders why he didn't choose to become a hero instead, but none of the heroes ever ponder why they didn't choose to just go rob a bank and retire to a tropical island. None of them appear to get any particular enjoyment from fighting crime, or derive any pleasure from helping others, so why do they do it? This book has no answers, so it does its best to dodge the question. Worse, Grossman attempts to substitute angst and bickering amongst his heroes in place of psychological depth. The New Champions, the super team that Fatale joins, bicker and sulk like a car full of high school students reluctantly dragged on a field trip, rarely displaying a single likable trait between the seven of them.
Worse still, this book reads more like a first draft than a published work. The writing is sloppy and inconsistent, and the whole thing seems to have been untouched by an editor. Descriptions are few and far between; it reads more like a comic book script than a novel, still waiting for an imaginative artist to draw in the undefined settings, faces, and costumes. Characters repeat observations several time throughout the book, each time as if they're new. The book is riddled with inconsistencies and dangling plot threads. Dr. Impossible sometimes talks as if he loathes magic and does his best to avoid it, and sometimes comfortably mentions incorporating it into past and future plans. Fatale observes that a hammer weighs a couple hundred pounds, then, several paragraphs later, picks it up and finds it "surprisingly heavy." Conflicts are set up, but never pay off. Other conflicts seem to appear out of nowhere. A scene in which Fatale accuses a mystical teammate of not being a real fairy comes entirely out of left field; one scene later, the conflict is completely forgotten, and is never mentioned again.
Character voices are also wildly inconsistent. Everyone sounds the same in conversation, and no one sounds particularly interesting. Dr. Impossible, an evil genius, comes the closest to having a unique voice, but even he bounces unpredictably between occasionally inspired bits and inexplicably juvenile lines such as, "Whatever. Just don't think you can stop me." Most dismayingly, the two narrators sound remarkably similar for most of the book, with the only distinct difference being that Fatale's utterly flat sections lack the occasional moments of inspiration that sparingly pepper Dr. Impossible's narrative.
This book is an "adult" take on superheroes only when compared to the simplistic comics of the 30s-50s. The story and dialog ibook don't hold a candle to the clever and insightful works of such modern-day comics writers as Kurt Busiek, Brian Michael Bendis, and Neil Gaiman. The novel format tries to sell this as a more adult and literary take on comic books, but it's ultimately just a pale and surprisingly shallow imitation of the real thing.
February 11, 2019
The temperature went on rising. Spiderweb cracks formed on the glass of the containment chamber an instant before the explosion. The pain was like burning or drowning, and it went on and on, unbearable. I wanted to faint, to leave my body. When you can't bear something but it goes on anyway, the person who survives isn't you anymore; you've changed and become someone else, a new person, the one who did bear it all. The formula saturated my body, and I changed.
This is one my all-time favorite books.
Trapped in prison after his 12th attempt to take over the world, evil genius and super-villain Dr. Impossible is wondering if he'll ever escape. Can he once again create a brilliant and amazing plan to make the Earth's populace bow down before him?
I'm the smartest man in the world. Once I wore a cape in public, and fought battles against men who could fly, who had metal skin, who could kill you with their eyes. I fought CoreFire to a standstill, and the Super Squadron, and the Champions. Now I have to shuffle through a cafeteria line with men who tried to pass bad checks. Now I have to wonder if there will be chocolate milk in the dispenser. And whether the smartest man in the world has done the smartest thing he could with his life.
...
This takes place in an exciting world of superheroes, a world that might exist in a comic book. People routinely obtain superpowers from alien technology, fairy or god intervention, chemical accidents, and genetic experimentation.
This book is told from two alternating points of view: that of Doctor Impossible and that of budding new superhero Fatale, a cyborg who used to work for the NSA fighting drug lords before she got invited to join the New Champions.
...
The book itself is physically beautiful: the cover and the inside. Each chapter is marked with either a little ray gun (Impossible's chapters) or a little cyborg eye (Fatale's chapters). The book is also divided into three parts, each marked with a full page black and white superhero-type photograph. I loved this.
...
The prose and writing is beautiful and truthful. This book is very powerful, it hits you full on and never relents.
If you're different you always know it, and you can't fix it even if you want to. What do you do when you find out your heart is the wrong kind? You take what you're given, and be the hero you can be. Hero to your own cold, inverted heart.
Grossman is also smart and weaves an amazingly intricate story here. I've read this book three times and even upon the third reading I was discovering and picking up on new things that eluded me the first two times.
This is NOT sci-fi, it's fantasy, so don't expect any hard science here. It's all death-rays, and zeta beams, and alternate dimensions and stuff.
...
I can't believe the psychology and humanity that Grossman manages to fit into this book. He coaxes out the intricacies of why people choose to do good or evil. Doctor Impossible is not just a one-dimensional villain, and his choice to embrace darkness is the result of a lot of different factors that sounded very familiar and true to me. We are in Impossible's head and able to know his thoughts and his past - and in knowing him so intimately we become aligned and sympathetic to him - even more so since things never seem to go his way.
I won't talk to much about what happens in the book, because I don't want to give anything away - half the fun is piecing it all together. Grossman didn't skimp on the intricacies and delicacies of plotting. You'll be going "Ah-ha!" when different pieces to the puzzle emerge and you put something together that wasn't clear before. It's really masterful.
...
Another thing that I think Grossman does insanely well is the balance he makes between the glossy-candy part of the comic book world and the gritty, grim underside.
Fatale is experiencing the high-class, expensive, flashy world of the superheroes.
Being this close to so much power is a vertiginous sensation. The heroes pop out at you, impossibly vivid, colorful as playing cards but all from different decks, a jumble of incompatible suits and denominations dealt out for an Alice in Wonderland game. A man with the head of a tiger sits next to a woman made of glass. The woman to my right has wings. This is where I want to be - the players.
She and the other superheroes move through a world that adores, idolizes, and complies with them.
Damsel and I pass the first perimeter - she flashes some identification at the policemen on the barricades, who stare at our costumes as if we were brightly colored poisonous fish.
But beneath all that glamour lies ugly truths, open wounds, and anguished pasts. All the superheroes seemingly perfect, God-touched lives have some open and sometimes festering wounds underneath.
The villains are just as complex - and a lot of the book is spent in dumpsters, motel rooms, and sewers. This is the modern real world - but a world where some people can fly and see through walls, or generate force fields or summon lightning.
I love the juxtaposition of grimy and glossy that Grossman does so perfectly here.
He hits me again, and this time I almost feel it. It's been a long time since I felt much of anything.
....
What else? Grossman has a great vocabulary. I love learning new words and he did not disappoint. I mean, he's no Donna Tartt - the book is pretty accessible, but he slips some gems in there and I loved it.
...
The chapter titles are so much fun. "Foiled Again" and "Enemy of my Enemy" and "Maybe We Are Not So Different, You and I" are just a few examples.
...
If you like comic books, this is the book for you.
If you don't read comic books - I'm with you. I am not a comic-book-reader. But I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this book and that means that you might, too. You don't need to be a comic book fanatic to understand or enjoy this novel.
I have a therapist here [in prison], "Steve," a sad Rogerian I'm taken to see twice a week in a disused classroom. "Do you feel angry?" "What did you REALLY want to steal?" The things I could tell him - secrets of the universe! But he wants to know about my childhood. I try to relax and remind myself of my situation - if I kill him, they'll just send another.
...
MEDIA THAT RELATES TO THIS NOVEL:
MOVIES:
Megamind
Hancock
Despicable Me 1 and 2
Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog
Mystery Men
Sky High
Kick-Ass 1 and 2
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Special (2006)
Watchmen
Big Hero 6
Unbreakable / Split / Glass
Any traditional Marvel or DC film. I won't list them.
BOOKS:
Attack of the Mutant
Any superhero comic book, I won't list them.
...
But I want to add in here that this book has a serious, adult tone to it. It is not a joke - although it is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. But instead of mocking or poking fun at superhero/supervillain clichés, Grossman is playing it pretty straight. He takes this opportunity and backdrop to really explore human feelings and psychology. It's fun, it's thought-provoking, and it's emotional - there's a deep vein of sadness and despair that counteracts the silliness and wit that Grossman glosses this with. I loved every minute of it and can't recommend it highly enough.
Why is it always like this? I'd forgotten about this stuff. Let myself get complacent. Images of Peterson get confused with the present day. In another room with a tiled floor, they stand around jeering while I face the urinal. I leave, face blank, in a trance of shame. Somewhere in that darkness, I wedded myself eternally to science and genius and anger. How had I forgotten that?
Not as dark as something like Watchmen, but not as light as traditional comic book fare, I think this book achieved the perfect balance in a way I haven't seen before.
...
All my life, I'd been waiting for something to happen to me, and now, before I was ready for it, it was. I saw the misadjusted dials and whirling gauges and the bubbling green fluid and electricity arcing around, and a story laid out for me, my sorry self alchemically transmuted into power and robots and fortresses and orbital platforms and costumes and alien kings. I was going to declare war on the world, and I was going to lose.
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.
- Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
This is one my all-time favorite books.
Trapped in prison after his 12th attempt to take over the world, evil genius and super-villain Dr. Impossible is wondering if he'll ever escape. Can he once again create a brilliant and amazing plan to make the Earth's populace bow down before him?
I'm the smartest man in the world. Once I wore a cape in public, and fought battles against men who could fly, who had metal skin, who could kill you with their eyes. I fought CoreFire to a standstill, and the Super Squadron, and the Champions. Now I have to shuffle through a cafeteria line with men who tried to pass bad checks. Now I have to wonder if there will be chocolate milk in the dispenser. And whether the smartest man in the world has done the smartest thing he could with his life.
...
This takes place in an exciting world of superheroes, a world that might exist in a comic book. People routinely obtain superpowers from alien technology, fairy or god intervention, chemical accidents, and genetic experimentation.
This book is told from two alternating points of view: that of Doctor Impossible and that of budding new superhero Fatale, a cyborg who used to work for the NSA fighting drug lords before she got invited to join the New Champions.
...
The book itself is physically beautiful: the cover and the inside. Each chapter is marked with either a little ray gun (Impossible's chapters) or a little cyborg eye (Fatale's chapters). The book is also divided into three parts, each marked with a full page black and white superhero-type photograph. I loved this.
...
The prose and writing is beautiful and truthful. This book is very powerful, it hits you full on and never relents.
If you're different you always know it, and you can't fix it even if you want to. What do you do when you find out your heart is the wrong kind? You take what you're given, and be the hero you can be. Hero to your own cold, inverted heart.
Grossman is also smart and weaves an amazingly intricate story here. I've read this book three times and even upon the third reading I was discovering and picking up on new things that eluded me the first two times.
This is NOT sci-fi, it's fantasy, so don't expect any hard science here. It's all death-rays, and zeta beams, and alternate dimensions and stuff.
...
I can't believe the psychology and humanity that Grossman manages to fit into this book. He coaxes out the intricacies of why people choose to do good or evil. Doctor Impossible is not just a one-dimensional villain, and his choice to embrace darkness is the result of a lot of different factors that sounded very familiar and true to me. We are in Impossible's head and able to know his thoughts and his past - and in knowing him so intimately we become aligned and sympathetic to him - even more so since things never seem to go his way.
I won't talk to much about what happens in the book, because I don't want to give anything away - half the fun is piecing it all together. Grossman didn't skimp on the intricacies and delicacies of plotting. You'll be going "Ah-ha!" when different pieces to the puzzle emerge and you put something together that wasn't clear before. It's really masterful.
...
Another thing that I think Grossman does insanely well is the balance he makes between the glossy-candy part of the comic book world and the gritty, grim underside.
Fatale is experiencing the high-class, expensive, flashy world of the superheroes.
Being this close to so much power is a vertiginous sensation. The heroes pop out at you, impossibly vivid, colorful as playing cards but all from different decks, a jumble of incompatible suits and denominations dealt out for an Alice in Wonderland game. A man with the head of a tiger sits next to a woman made of glass. The woman to my right has wings. This is where I want to be - the players.
She and the other superheroes move through a world that adores, idolizes, and complies with them.
Damsel and I pass the first perimeter - she flashes some identification at the policemen on the barricades, who stare at our costumes as if we were brightly colored poisonous fish.
But beneath all that glamour lies ugly truths, open wounds, and anguished pasts. All the superheroes seemingly perfect, God-touched lives have some open and sometimes festering wounds underneath.
The villains are just as complex - and a lot of the book is spent in dumpsters, motel rooms, and sewers. This is the modern real world - but a world where some people can fly and see through walls, or generate force fields or summon lightning.
I love the juxtaposition of grimy and glossy that Grossman does so perfectly here.
He hits me again, and this time I almost feel it. It's been a long time since I felt much of anything.
....
What else? Grossman has a great vocabulary. I love learning new words and he did not disappoint. I mean, he's no Donna Tartt - the book is pretty accessible, but he slips some gems in there and I loved it.
...
The chapter titles are so much fun. "Foiled Again" and "Enemy of my Enemy" and "Maybe We Are Not So Different, You and I" are just a few examples.
...
If you like comic books, this is the book for you.
If you don't read comic books - I'm with you. I am not a comic-book-reader. But I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this book and that means that you might, too. You don't need to be a comic book fanatic to understand or enjoy this novel.
I have a therapist here [in prison], "Steve," a sad Rogerian I'm taken to see twice a week in a disused classroom. "Do you feel angry?" "What did you REALLY want to steal?" The things I could tell him - secrets of the universe! But he wants to know about my childhood. I try to relax and remind myself of my situation - if I kill him, they'll just send another.
...
MEDIA THAT RELATES TO THIS NOVEL:
MOVIES:
Megamind
Hancock
Despicable Me 1 and 2
Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog
Mystery Men
Sky High
Kick-Ass 1 and 2
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Special (2006)
Watchmen
Big Hero 6
Unbreakable / Split / Glass
Any traditional Marvel or DC film. I won't list them.
BOOKS:
Attack of the Mutant
Any superhero comic book, I won't list them.
...
But I want to add in here that this book has a serious, adult tone to it. It is not a joke - although it is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. But instead of mocking or poking fun at superhero/supervillain clichés, Grossman is playing it pretty straight. He takes this opportunity and backdrop to really explore human feelings and psychology. It's fun, it's thought-provoking, and it's emotional - there's a deep vein of sadness and despair that counteracts the silliness and wit that Grossman glosses this with. I loved every minute of it and can't recommend it highly enough.
Why is it always like this? I'd forgotten about this stuff. Let myself get complacent. Images of Peterson get confused with the present day. In another room with a tiled floor, they stand around jeering while I face the urinal. I leave, face blank, in a trance of shame. Somewhere in that darkness, I wedded myself eternally to science and genius and anger. How had I forgotten that?
Not as dark as something like Watchmen, but not as light as traditional comic book fare, I think this book achieved the perfect balance in a way I haven't seen before.
...
All my life, I'd been waiting for something to happen to me, and now, before I was ready for it, it was. I saw the misadjusted dials and whirling gauges and the bubbling green fluid and electricity arcing around, and a story laid out for me, my sorry self alchemically transmuted into power and robots and fortresses and orbital platforms and costumes and alien kings. I was going to declare war on the world, and I was going to lose.
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.
- Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
August 8, 2008
Should I be embarrassed about giving "Soon I Will be Invincible" four stars? Should I even admit that I bought it because I loved the title and the cover? This a silly piece of entertaining fluff. It's dessert after a really healthy dinner. It doesn't have any hidden meanings, heavy symbolism or deep thoughts. It's just really, really entertaining. I laughed a few times and had a big grin on my face when I put it down. Even better, I can pass this book to my son without any worries about inappropriate material. It's very funny and very refreshing.
April 4, 2008
I'm considering writing an essay, in the tradition of Mark Twain, called Austin Grossman's Literary Offenses.
This book is that bad. Really.
It's so bad, I wonder what's wrong with someone that they could actually like this book. I know, that's a really mean thing to say, but if you read this book and it doesn't make you feel like the world just got a little darker and more dreary, I challenge that you aren't actually a human being, but probably some sort of text scanning utility maintained by a Belarusian literature pirate.
My first complaint is with the book's form. While Grossman's and his editor removed all traces of typos and other rudimentary grammatical errors, they left intact all of the awkward and flailing writing that seems to form the backbone of Grossman's style. In most basic terms, this book was not edited. Writing should be clear or at least intentionally obfuscated; neither is the case here. Whole sections requiring rereading not because of their complexity, but because of their incomprehensibility.
At one point I had to stop reading to go watch TV when the author wrote “Give me where to stand, said Archimedes, and I will move the world.” That one sentence condenses everything that’s wrong with the author’s incomprehensible, cluttered style. Not enough pickled ginger in the world to scrub that out of my skull.
Beyond matters of form, we have issues of style. In this, I am hesitant to criticize, but I cannot leave this matter half finished. The best term I can think of to describe Grossman's style, once I've dispensed with incomprehensible, awkward, thick, and failing, is immature. I mean this in the sense that he seems the immature writer, still at the start of his craft.
The book alternates between the two main characters, one a hero, the other a villain. Generally speaking, you can tell which is which because you'll read dialogue where someone addresses the person by their proper superhero/villain name. Beyond that, there's basically nothing to indicate that either character is a different person. Add to this the fact that every character in the book not only exemplifies a stereotype, but in some cases proudly trumpets that fact.
This is not a good book, and you should not read it. It mystifies me how this book gets good reviews from anyone. And keep in mind that I say this as a reader, not as a comic book fan. This goes beyond what the author does to the genre, into basic errors of literature. Please, do someone some good and help them avoid this book.
If you need further coaxing, here, listen to my friend Charon:
“It hurt me in my brain-head, and I have only the one.”
This book is that bad. Really.
It's so bad, I wonder what's wrong with someone that they could actually like this book. I know, that's a really mean thing to say, but if you read this book and it doesn't make you feel like the world just got a little darker and more dreary, I challenge that you aren't actually a human being, but probably some sort of text scanning utility maintained by a Belarusian literature pirate.
My first complaint is with the book's form. While Grossman's and his editor removed all traces of typos and other rudimentary grammatical errors, they left intact all of the awkward and flailing writing that seems to form the backbone of Grossman's style. In most basic terms, this book was not edited. Writing should be clear or at least intentionally obfuscated; neither is the case here. Whole sections requiring rereading not because of their complexity, but because of their incomprehensibility.
At one point I had to stop reading to go watch TV when the author wrote “Give me where to stand, said Archimedes, and I will move the world.” That one sentence condenses everything that’s wrong with the author’s incomprehensible, cluttered style. Not enough pickled ginger in the world to scrub that out of my skull.
Beyond matters of form, we have issues of style. In this, I am hesitant to criticize, but I cannot leave this matter half finished. The best term I can think of to describe Grossman's style, once I've dispensed with incomprehensible, awkward, thick, and failing, is immature. I mean this in the sense that he seems the immature writer, still at the start of his craft.
The book alternates between the two main characters, one a hero, the other a villain. Generally speaking, you can tell which is which because you'll read dialogue where someone addresses the person by their proper superhero/villain name. Beyond that, there's basically nothing to indicate that either character is a different person. Add to this the fact that every character in the book not only exemplifies a stereotype, but in some cases proudly trumpets that fact.
This is not a good book, and you should not read it. It mystifies me how this book gets good reviews from anyone. And keep in mind that I say this as a reader, not as a comic book fan. This goes beyond what the author does to the genre, into basic errors of literature. Please, do someone some good and help them avoid this book.
If you need further coaxing, here, listen to my friend Charon:
“It hurt me in my brain-head, and I have only the one.”
January 12, 2012
First off, I loved the idea of this novel. And even after the disappointment of actually reading Soon I Will Be Invincible, I can still honestly say that I love the idea of it. It's just the novel itself I've got a problem with.
When I first saw this on the shelf, my mind raced frantically back to the long cardboard boxes of comic books that I still keep stored up in the attic, each comic tucked safely away into a plastic sleeve to protect its "value"--a concept that my incredulous wife mockingly insists will someday be reduced--if I'm lucky--to a pitiful amount of actual legal tender. Ha!, I say.
Anyway, back to the book. One of the things I found most interesting about this novel right off the bat is that, through and through, it's a pairing of opposites. Just look at where its bright blue and pink cover shows up in the bookstore, somehow sitting in the "G" section as if it actually belongs mere inches away from one of my all-time favorites, Ernest J. Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying (except at Borders, of course, which is a different story altogether) (and by the way, A Lesson Before Dying should be stored on a throne far, far away from Mr. Grossman's awkward debut). But my point is that this thing has the heart of a comic trapped inside the body of a novel--a wedding of two mediums that have probably never thought all that much of each other. So if someone could pull that off, what a beautiful thing it would be.
But the novel does more than just pair the two opposing mediums--the story's unique touch (well, others have done it better, but still) is that it burdens near-invincible superheroes and villains with the banality of everyday modern life. Another interesting combination of opposites, and it's funny at first to think of these superheroes having to struggle through the same trivial obstacles we all go through, treasuring the same little hopes, harboring the same frustrations. In the first few pages, one of the supervillains describes being locked up in jail: "I'm the smartest man in the world. Once I wore a cape in public, and fought battles against men who could fly, who had metal skin, who could kill you with their eyes... Now I have to shuffle through a cafeteria line with men who tried to pass bad checks. Now I have to wonder if there will be chocolate milk in the dispenser."
Something about that contrast excites me, and I guess it's hard to describe--that in transforming into a novel, in moving from the shelf with all the exciting color drawings to the section with all the hefty works of literature, this comic shifted its focus from the super to the ordinary... And there was a chance that in shedding its comic-styled lettering for pages and pages of pictureless prose, this could have taken on the best of both worlds. If the author had pulled that off, if he had found a way to blend all that together and bury some actual substance inside of it, this would have been something special. Unfortunately, he didn't. And it isn't. Really, when you get right down to it, this thing is mediocre at best, whether you measure it as a comic or a novel.
As far as the comics side of it goes, the actual story itself is terrible. Maybe it's purposeful, I guess it probably is, but the whole novel centers around a plot that's cliche, predictable, and boring. I can see fans of the novel already saying, "But that's the whole point!" Well, I don't know. I guess so. But I don't get that, and anyway, it doesn't seem special to me, just tedious. There are plenty of comics that have brilliantly original and engaging plotlines, and I would have much rather spent my time reading one of them. Or if the author wanted to have a cliche storyline, he could have gone way overboard, having fun with it and actually being creative (Superhero League of Hoboken? anyone?). But this doesn't do that; instead, it takes its cliche a little too seriously, and that gets uncomfortably boring real fast. If you want a comic with an actual heart, better stick with Watchmen, or Sin City, or Stray Bullets, or Dark Knight, or Jimmy Corrigan, or Astro City, or any of a thousand better, more creative stories than this one.
And if you were thinking that maybe the novel side of things would save the day, not so much. I'll admit that the writing is exciting and sharp for the first few pages, but after that it takes a pretty ugly nosedive. There are actually a few long patches when this $14.95 paperback (choke!) feels more like a rough draft. At times, the author seems so afraid of describing something wrong or making a bad transition that he just skips it altogether. Whenever I hit one of those confusing, disjointed patches, I learned simply to plow ahead and either I'd figure it out later or it would turn out to be not important in the first place, so no big loss either way.
Another problem is that the writing style is so inconsistent it's distracting, almost as if a few different people (high-schoolers, maybe?) took turns hacking away mercilessly at this poor thing. One thing that is consistent, however, is that the author uses the exact same descriptions for a few things repeatedly throughout the novel (each time trying to pass them off as if they're new), so at least he knows how to cut and paste. At first, when I read one of those repeat descriptions, it sent me into a sort of deja-vu vertigo--Wait, did I read that before?--until finally I adopted the zen mindset that it takes to get through this book and just stopped caring. And I am not exaggerating when I say that there are sentences in this book that do not make sense. I'm not kidding, they don't make sense. But again, zen mindset--just keep reading and soon the book will be finished.
So as far as the writing style goes, Mr. Grossman needs to fire his editor. Or hire one in the first place, I don't know. Either way, whatever he needs to do, it would've been a lot better if he'd done it before this book came out.
Despite all my bitter disappointment at everything this novel could have been but completely failed to become, it's still earned a place on my shelf for now, if only to remind me that: a) some day, someone is going to do this right, and when they do, it's going to blow my #$!*&ing mind; and b) I seriously need to renew my public library card.
2.0/5
When I first saw this on the shelf, my mind raced frantically back to the long cardboard boxes of comic books that I still keep stored up in the attic, each comic tucked safely away into a plastic sleeve to protect its "value"--a concept that my incredulous wife mockingly insists will someday be reduced--if I'm lucky--to a pitiful amount of actual legal tender. Ha!, I say.
Anyway, back to the book. One of the things I found most interesting about this novel right off the bat is that, through and through, it's a pairing of opposites. Just look at where its bright blue and pink cover shows up in the bookstore, somehow sitting in the "G" section as if it actually belongs mere inches away from one of my all-time favorites, Ernest J. Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying (except at Borders, of course, which is a different story altogether) (and by the way, A Lesson Before Dying should be stored on a throne far, far away from Mr. Grossman's awkward debut). But my point is that this thing has the heart of a comic trapped inside the body of a novel--a wedding of two mediums that have probably never thought all that much of each other. So if someone could pull that off, what a beautiful thing it would be.
But the novel does more than just pair the two opposing mediums--the story's unique touch (well, others have done it better, but still) is that it burdens near-invincible superheroes and villains with the banality of everyday modern life. Another interesting combination of opposites, and it's funny at first to think of these superheroes having to struggle through the same trivial obstacles we all go through, treasuring the same little hopes, harboring the same frustrations. In the first few pages, one of the supervillains describes being locked up in jail: "I'm the smartest man in the world. Once I wore a cape in public, and fought battles against men who could fly, who had metal skin, who could kill you with their eyes... Now I have to shuffle through a cafeteria line with men who tried to pass bad checks. Now I have to wonder if there will be chocolate milk in the dispenser."
Something about that contrast excites me, and I guess it's hard to describe--that in transforming into a novel, in moving from the shelf with all the exciting color drawings to the section with all the hefty works of literature, this comic shifted its focus from the super to the ordinary... And there was a chance that in shedding its comic-styled lettering for pages and pages of pictureless prose, this could have taken on the best of both worlds. If the author had pulled that off, if he had found a way to blend all that together and bury some actual substance inside of it, this would have been something special. Unfortunately, he didn't. And it isn't. Really, when you get right down to it, this thing is mediocre at best, whether you measure it as a comic or a novel.
As far as the comics side of it goes, the actual story itself is terrible. Maybe it's purposeful, I guess it probably is, but the whole novel centers around a plot that's cliche, predictable, and boring. I can see fans of the novel already saying, "But that's the whole point!" Well, I don't know. I guess so. But I don't get that, and anyway, it doesn't seem special to me, just tedious. There are plenty of comics that have brilliantly original and engaging plotlines, and I would have much rather spent my time reading one of them. Or if the author wanted to have a cliche storyline, he could have gone way overboard, having fun with it and actually being creative (Superhero League of Hoboken? anyone?). But this doesn't do that; instead, it takes its cliche a little too seriously, and that gets uncomfortably boring real fast. If you want a comic with an actual heart, better stick with Watchmen, or Sin City, or Stray Bullets, or Dark Knight, or Jimmy Corrigan, or Astro City, or any of a thousand better, more creative stories than this one.
And if you were thinking that maybe the novel side of things would save the day, not so much. I'll admit that the writing is exciting and sharp for the first few pages, but after that it takes a pretty ugly nosedive. There are actually a few long patches when this $14.95 paperback (choke!) feels more like a rough draft. At times, the author seems so afraid of describing something wrong or making a bad transition that he just skips it altogether. Whenever I hit one of those confusing, disjointed patches, I learned simply to plow ahead and either I'd figure it out later or it would turn out to be not important in the first place, so no big loss either way.
Another problem is that the writing style is so inconsistent it's distracting, almost as if a few different people (high-schoolers, maybe?) took turns hacking away mercilessly at this poor thing. One thing that is consistent, however, is that the author uses the exact same descriptions for a few things repeatedly throughout the novel (each time trying to pass them off as if they're new), so at least he knows how to cut and paste. At first, when I read one of those repeat descriptions, it sent me into a sort of deja-vu vertigo--Wait, did I read that before?--until finally I adopted the zen mindset that it takes to get through this book and just stopped caring. And I am not exaggerating when I say that there are sentences in this book that do not make sense. I'm not kidding, they don't make sense. But again, zen mindset--just keep reading and soon the book will be finished.
So as far as the writing style goes, Mr. Grossman needs to fire his editor. Or hire one in the first place, I don't know. Either way, whatever he needs to do, it would've been a lot better if he'd done it before this book came out.
Despite all my bitter disappointment at everything this novel could have been but completely failed to become, it's still earned a place on my shelf for now, if only to remind me that: a) some day, someone is going to do this right, and when they do, it's going to blow my #$!*&ing mind; and b) I seriously need to renew my public library card.
2.0/5
April 5, 2015
This was a surprisingly enjoyable read. It had all the craziness and humor you would expect from a novel about a super villain trying to take over the world, but was also surprisingly sad as Austin Grossman used the opportunity to touch on far more human subjects like growing old, celebrity, fading glory, loneliness, the struggle for acceptance, the issues people have trying to relate to one and other, and the desire to find ones place in life.
On the surface this reads like a classic comic book tale. It is packed full of larger than life heroes and villains. It is a tongue-in-cheek romp set in a world where the heroes always win and the villains cackle maniacally while trying to take over the world! It is the first person narrative that gives Grossman the opportunity to add some depth to the story.
This story was told from two different POV's. The super-villain Doctor Impossible and the rookie hero Fatale. We join the tale as the Champions, a famous superhero team, reform. The Champions are adding a few new members and Fatale is one of the chosen. Fatale is a cyborg, think a female Robocop, with little knowledge of her ordinary life. She is young and eager to prove herself and be accepted by her famous peers. Doctor Impossible is an experienced super villain. We join his story just as he breaks out of prison for the 12th time in order to launch his latest plot to take over the world.
Doctor Impossible carries the story. His "voice" is a fun one and he has some hilarious thoughts and insights along the way. Fatale's parts are not quite as exciting, but they are still interesting as they give us a glimpse of the superhero team interacting with each other in private rather than in public.
I caught a few review comparing this to darker comics like Watchmen, but I do not agree. This has some dark and sad moments, but they are balanced out by the action and humor. I liked that balance a lot.
The book had a few flaws and was far from perfect, I'd definitely have preferred a different ending, but on the whole this was a fun and worthwhile read packed with humor and action and with just enough melancholy and thoughtful moments to keep things interesting.
I wish there was a sequel.
Rating: 4.5 stars.
Audio Note: The Doctor Impossible parts were narrated by Paul Boehmer who gave an absolutely fantastic performance as the wry and over the top super-villain. He really seemed to understand the tone of the story. The Fatale parts were narrated by Coleen Marlo. She was overshadowed by Boehmer, but still did a decent job voicing the young and eager to impress Fatale.
On the surface this reads like a classic comic book tale. It is packed full of larger than life heroes and villains. It is a tongue-in-cheek romp set in a world where the heroes always win and the villains cackle maniacally while trying to take over the world! It is the first person narrative that gives Grossman the opportunity to add some depth to the story.
This story was told from two different POV's. The super-villain Doctor Impossible and the rookie hero Fatale. We join the tale as the Champions, a famous superhero team, reform. The Champions are adding a few new members and Fatale is one of the chosen. Fatale is a cyborg, think a female Robocop, with little knowledge of her ordinary life. She is young and eager to prove herself and be accepted by her famous peers. Doctor Impossible is an experienced super villain. We join his story just as he breaks out of prison for the 12th time in order to launch his latest plot to take over the world.
Doctor Impossible carries the story. His "voice" is a fun one and he has some hilarious thoughts and insights along the way. Fatale's parts are not quite as exciting, but they are still interesting as they give us a glimpse of the superhero team interacting with each other in private rather than in public.
I caught a few review comparing this to darker comics like Watchmen, but I do not agree. This has some dark and sad moments, but they are balanced out by the action and humor. I liked that balance a lot.
The book had a few flaws and was far from perfect, I'd definitely have preferred a different ending, but on the whole this was a fun and worthwhile read packed with humor and action and with just enough melancholy and thoughtful moments to keep things interesting.
I wish there was a sequel.
Rating: 4.5 stars.
Audio Note: The Doctor Impossible parts were narrated by Paul Boehmer who gave an absolutely fantastic performance as the wry and over the top super-villain. He really seemed to understand the tone of the story. The Fatale parts were narrated by Coleen Marlo. She was overshadowed by Boehmer, but still did a decent job voicing the young and eager to impress Fatale.
November 27, 2019
I found this book poorly written and generally rather boring. The characters were not all that interesting and the plot devices plodding at best. Not my cup of tea, sorry.
November 4, 2011
some surprisingly strong writing in this oddball offering from the most gutter of gutter sub-genres. meta playfulness with the iconic figures of superman/batman/wonder woman is to be expected in today's post-post-modern world, and the novel satisfies on that level. less expected is the charmingly wry writing, the novel's melancholy tone, and the nostalgia that suffuses the thoughts of both narrators. all of this more than helps to make this surprising novel stand out. overall, this may not be earth-shaking, but it is certainly a very happy surprise.
i was also surprised that this book was written by the twin brother of the author of The Magicians... the family snark was present, but none of the curdled, sour, wannabe Less Than Zero cynicism.
__________
Super Template Action!
* Superman: CoreFire
* Wonder Woman: Damsel
* Batman: Blackwolf
* Doctor Doom: Dr. Impossible (our hero!)
* Cyborg: Fatale (our heroine!)
* Doctor Strange or Zatara: Mr. Mystic
* Wildcat: Feral
* is there even a template for an invisible, invulnerable superwoman from the future?: Lily (love that name)
i was also surprised that this book was written by the twin brother of the author of The Magicians... the family snark was present, but none of the curdled, sour, wannabe Less Than Zero cynicism.
__________
Super Template Action!
* Superman: CoreFire
* Wonder Woman: Damsel
* Batman: Blackwolf
* Doctor Doom: Dr. Impossible (our hero!)
* Cyborg: Fatale (our heroine!)
* Doctor Strange or Zatara: Mr. Mystic
* Wildcat: Feral
* is there even a template for an invisible, invulnerable superwoman from the future?: Lily (love that name)
August 8, 2015
I have a difficult time describing this novel. On the surface it is a very humorous plot involving superheroes and supervillains portrayed as actual people - you get a look at how annoying it can be to have to save the world when one's marriage is breaking up, for instance. You grow to understand how embarrassing it is to be a supervillain genius putting up with a misguided colleague's cheesy catchphrases and general stupidity. Beneath that highly entertaining surface is, I think, an intelligently written satire of the entire comic book milieu. A comic book fan can read Soon I Will Be Invincible and immediately pick out who is supposed to be the Superman, the Wonder Woman, and so on, and can instantly recognize the ways in which the author paints such characters against the backdrop of our own ordinary reality.
Some comic book fans who have written reviews of this book love everything about it. Others complain about the relative dullness of the hero characters, or about the fact that it seems to be a generic amalgam of all classic comic book stories with almost nothing new or innovative. These reviewers are correct in their cursory descriptions of the book, but they are also completely missing the point. If a comic reader picks up this book expecting to read a cutting-edge original tale of heroes and villains, he or she will inevitably be disappointed. The imagination with which its fans credit this book lies not in the plot or the characters themselves, but in the way they are used to tell an entirely unwritten story. Grossman is using his unillustrated prose to poke fun at the genre with the fondness unique to a genuine fan. Frankly, if he had merely set out to write a brand new comic, I imagine he would have grounded it firmly in the industry by writing in the usual comic book format instead of taking a chance on the readers of general fiction.
The reason for my difficulty in writing this review is this - I am a complete comic book dunce. I've seen the movies. I read V for Vendetta because I wanted a few plot points cleared up, and apart from a few forays into Archie as a child, I don't think I've ever read any other comic books or graphic novels or anything of the kind. My comic-fan perspectives are only conclusions I have based on the words of those who know the genre. I wish to make this perfectly clear because it is the reason for my five-star rating - even though I have no interest in the world of comic books, even though I had to have the subtexts pointed out to me by my boyfriend after failing to notice them myself, I still quite thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It is a comic book in novel form that manages to be universally accessible and enjoyable. The satirical overtones naturally add to the experience, but even without them, you'll have a very good time.
Some comic book fans who have written reviews of this book love everything about it. Others complain about the relative dullness of the hero characters, or about the fact that it seems to be a generic amalgam of all classic comic book stories with almost nothing new or innovative. These reviewers are correct in their cursory descriptions of the book, but they are also completely missing the point. If a comic reader picks up this book expecting to read a cutting-edge original tale of heroes and villains, he or she will inevitably be disappointed. The imagination with which its fans credit this book lies not in the plot or the characters themselves, but in the way they are used to tell an entirely unwritten story. Grossman is using his unillustrated prose to poke fun at the genre with the fondness unique to a genuine fan. Frankly, if he had merely set out to write a brand new comic, I imagine he would have grounded it firmly in the industry by writing in the usual comic book format instead of taking a chance on the readers of general fiction.
The reason for my difficulty in writing this review is this - I am a complete comic book dunce. I've seen the movies. I read V for Vendetta because I wanted a few plot points cleared up, and apart from a few forays into Archie as a child, I don't think I've ever read any other comic books or graphic novels or anything of the kind. My comic-fan perspectives are only conclusions I have based on the words of those who know the genre. I wish to make this perfectly clear because it is the reason for my five-star rating - even though I have no interest in the world of comic books, even though I had to have the subtexts pointed out to me by my boyfriend after failing to notice them myself, I still quite thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It is a comic book in novel form that manages to be universally accessible and enjoyable. The satirical overtones naturally add to the experience, but even without them, you'll have a very good time.
June 22, 2007
(Full review can be found at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:].)
"This morning on planet Earth, there are 1,686 enhanced, gifted, or otherwise superpowered persons. 678 use their powers to fight crime, while 441 use their powers to commit them. 44 are currently confined in Special Containment Facilities for enhanced criminals. Of these last, it is interesting to note that an unusually high proportion have IQs of 300 or more -- eighteen to be exact. Including me. You really have to wonder why we all end up in jail."
Well, when a novel starts like this, how in a million years could I possibly pass it up? And indeed, just about everything at first about Bay-area author Austin Grossman's debut novel, Soon I Will Be Invincible, seemingly screams out "I am for you" to the random overeducated comics-loving geek who comes across it; the Chip Kidd cover, Grossman's nerdy credentials as a videogame consultant and PhD candidate in Victorian literature, Invincible's storyline concerning weary postmodern superheroes. But there's a big problem regarding reviewing this novel, in that there are two very different interpretations one can have as to what Grossman's point is, and that my feelings regarding the book change profoundly depending on which interpretation you adopt: of whether this is a light deconstructionist comedy about freaks in tights and what makes them do what they do; or maybe if this is instead an unironic gritty "Dark Age" drama about superheroism itself.
What to do, what to do? So I'm trying something unusual today; I'm writing two mini-reviews of Invincible instead, tackling my thoughts when it comes to each of these interpretations, since it's almost impossible to know which one Grossman meant for us to have unless directly asking him. If you end up reading the novel yourself, I'll be interested to see which of the two takes you adopt, and encourage you to leave a comment at the end sharing your own thoughts on the matter.
A. Soon I Will Be Invincible as deconstructionist superhero comedy. For those who don't know, there's a rising subgenre of superhero stories out there now for those who enjoy such things, which is the ironic self-aware superhero story; where the heroes and villains in question understand just how ridiculous their entire situation is, and end up winking at the audience the entire time they're performing their heroic or villainous stunts. Think of the most well-known example of the subgenre, the 1999 Ben Stiller comedy Mystery Men -- how the superheroes in that movie live and die by their corporate sponsorships and celebrity endorsements, how most of the superheroes in question turn out to be nerdy losers once the masks come off.
And indeed, there's a lot of the same kind of humor going on in Invincible, and it's undeniable that Grossman has a natural talent for these kinds of observational jokes, such as when the main villain (a Lex Luthor stand-in) starts ranting about the flying abilities of his superhero nemesis (clearly a blonde Superman): "He didn't even have the decency to work for it, to flap a pair of wings or at least glow a little. He seemed to do it purely out of a sense of entitlement." But there's a weakness that comes with this part of the book as well, or should I say two symbiotic weaknesses: that a lot of the novelty concerning this kind of humor has worn off by now, ten years after it first started becoming popular, and that Grossman ends up directly ripping off the concepts and jokes of a whole lot of other projects that have come before his, projects that are frankly better and funnier than his.
Perhaps he...
"This morning on planet Earth, there are 1,686 enhanced, gifted, or otherwise superpowered persons. 678 use their powers to fight crime, while 441 use their powers to commit them. 44 are currently confined in Special Containment Facilities for enhanced criminals. Of these last, it is interesting to note that an unusually high proportion have IQs of 300 or more -- eighteen to be exact. Including me. You really have to wonder why we all end up in jail."
Well, when a novel starts like this, how in a million years could I possibly pass it up? And indeed, just about everything at first about Bay-area author Austin Grossman's debut novel, Soon I Will Be Invincible, seemingly screams out "I am for you" to the random overeducated comics-loving geek who comes across it; the Chip Kidd cover, Grossman's nerdy credentials as a videogame consultant and PhD candidate in Victorian literature, Invincible's storyline concerning weary postmodern superheroes. But there's a big problem regarding reviewing this novel, in that there are two very different interpretations one can have as to what Grossman's point is, and that my feelings regarding the book change profoundly depending on which interpretation you adopt: of whether this is a light deconstructionist comedy about freaks in tights and what makes them do what they do; or maybe if this is instead an unironic gritty "Dark Age" drama about superheroism itself.
What to do, what to do? So I'm trying something unusual today; I'm writing two mini-reviews of Invincible instead, tackling my thoughts when it comes to each of these interpretations, since it's almost impossible to know which one Grossman meant for us to have unless directly asking him. If you end up reading the novel yourself, I'll be interested to see which of the two takes you adopt, and encourage you to leave a comment at the end sharing your own thoughts on the matter.
A. Soon I Will Be Invincible as deconstructionist superhero comedy. For those who don't know, there's a rising subgenre of superhero stories out there now for those who enjoy such things, which is the ironic self-aware superhero story; where the heroes and villains in question understand just how ridiculous their entire situation is, and end up winking at the audience the entire time they're performing their heroic or villainous stunts. Think of the most well-known example of the subgenre, the 1999 Ben Stiller comedy Mystery Men -- how the superheroes in that movie live and die by their corporate sponsorships and celebrity endorsements, how most of the superheroes in question turn out to be nerdy losers once the masks come off.
And indeed, there's a lot of the same kind of humor going on in Invincible, and it's undeniable that Grossman has a natural talent for these kinds of observational jokes, such as when the main villain (a Lex Luthor stand-in) starts ranting about the flying abilities of his superhero nemesis (clearly a blonde Superman): "He didn't even have the decency to work for it, to flap a pair of wings or at least glow a little. He seemed to do it purely out of a sense of entitlement." But there's a weakness that comes with this part of the book as well, or should I say two symbiotic weaknesses: that a lot of the novelty concerning this kind of humor has worn off by now, ten years after it first started becoming popular, and that Grossman ends up directly ripping off the concepts and jokes of a whole lot of other projects that have come before his, projects that are frankly better and funnier than his.
Perhaps he...
July 9, 2014
I have to preface my review by saying that I was accidentally given an Advance Reader's Edition, so the version that I read may be different than what ended up on store shelves.
Anyway, Soon I Will Be Invincible is a superhero story told from 2 perspectives. The first is of the villian, Doctor Impossible, who is hell bent on doing anything to make his existence matter to the world.
The other main character is not the villain's arch nemesis, but a new hero named Fatale; a cyborg who used to work for the NSA and now finds herself recruited into a super team.
Throughout the story there are various comic tropes and nods to other heroes. Blackwolf is a character that is obviously based on Batman, the only real difference is that Blackwolf's parents aren't dead but there is a mystery surrounding his siblings. And the MacGuffin of this book is even a magical hammer.
The weak points of the story were that there were a lot of info dumps that made the book a little dense to get through, along with a few spelling and grammatical errors. But the writing itself is wry and thoughtful. Plus, the secret base of the supervillian is on an island.
Anyway, Soon I Will Be Invincible is a superhero story told from 2 perspectives. The first is of the villian, Doctor Impossible, who is hell bent on doing anything to make his existence matter to the world.
The other main character is not the villain's arch nemesis, but a new hero named Fatale; a cyborg who used to work for the NSA and now finds herself recruited into a super team.
Throughout the story there are various comic tropes and nods to other heroes. Blackwolf is a character that is obviously based on Batman, the only real difference is that Blackwolf's parents aren't dead but there is a mystery surrounding his siblings. And the MacGuffin of this book is even a magical hammer.
The weak points of the story were that there were a lot of info dumps that made the book a little dense to get through, along with a few spelling and grammatical errors. But the writing itself is wry and thoughtful. Plus, the secret base of the supervillian is on an island.
November 1, 2007
Everything started out fun enough - hearing the story from an old super villain's point-of-view. It kinda made you think of Dr. Doom by way of The Monarch from Venture Brothers. Then the book gets into a routine of switching every other chapter between the villain and a rookie hero who just got invited to join the big super team. Again, all well and good. Grossman apparantly created and entire world, mythology, and history for all the heroes and villains. Problem was, he REALLY wanted to make sure the reader knew that history. Imagine having a book that follows some C-List villain like Dr. Polaris or The Trickster. Then imagine said book tries to cram the ENTIRE history of the DC Universe into it, all in under 300 pages. This is what Grossman did with his book.
I made it pretty far into this book. Ultimately, it was a chapter where the hero character sits down and watches a DVD history of the team she just joined that finished it for me. Maybe it paid off down the line, I don't know. That far into the book, though, there had been very little happening, and having to read about a character watching a history DVD in order to tell ME the history was enough.
I made it pretty far into this book. Ultimately, it was a chapter where the hero character sits down and watches a DVD history of the team she just joined that finished it for me. Maybe it paid off down the line, I don't know. That far into the book, though, there had been very little happening, and having to read about a character watching a history DVD in order to tell ME the history was enough.
December 23, 2015
This is one for the re-read shelf. I absolutely love Dr. Impossible. I will never share his secret identity. I love his voice in my head. He made me laugh. He did say he had a good sense of humor at one point....Does he want to be Invincible? Well duh, that is what super villains do. But Doctor Impossible is not your usual super villain. He is more. He has depth.He has feelings. And maybe...just maybe, well I will keep that thought to myself. I will say that he makes perfect sense. He is the smartest man on Earth.
Oh, but we also has Fatale's story. A new superhero. And we get to be the fly on the wall in the Super Hero hall of Fame. We get to see their dysfunction. Their humanity. They really are not so different.
Maybe I will run off and find a vat of some goo and jump in and see; would I be a super hero or a super villain? One just doesn't know these thing until you make that giant leap.
Anyone should read this. Really. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed these 316 pages. It was a blast.
Oh, but we also has Fatale's story. A new superhero. And we get to be the fly on the wall in the Super Hero hall of Fame. We get to see their dysfunction. Their humanity. They really are not so different.
Maybe I will run off and find a vat of some goo and jump in and see; would I be a super hero or a super villain? One just doesn't know these thing until you make that giant leap.
Anyone should read this. Really. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed these 316 pages. It was a blast.
February 1, 2011
When I was quite a bit younger, I used to run around the apartment in my underwear, a He-Man sword stuffed down the back of my shirt. I used to try to ride the dog like he was Cringer and pretend he was Battle Cat. Later, I concocted plans to become a vigilante like Batman if I were to ever come into money, like winning the lottery. Early on in puberty, I hoped to develop mutant abilities like the X-Men. Instead of becoming any of these things, I now worship barbarians, read history of barbaric hordes, study philosophy in regard to vigilantism, and have sharpened my skills of observation to a razor edge. I realized that fantasy was not reality, but that I could try hard to become an aristotelian superhero if nothing else. And all that reading and watching and daydreaming has done wonders for my imagination. Fantasy was a large part of my childhood, because the reality of it was grim. Poverty and abuse permeated most of it. And so it was a form of escapism that helped form the person I am today- not an escapist, but a very grounded young man.
Now, I don't think that Austin Grossman ever ran around with a plastic sword stuffed down his shirt. Nor do I think that he ever plotted and schemed to become Batman. Or even wish for mutant superpowers during puberty. I don't think he has much of an imagination, to be honest. Because this book was devoid of any sort or form of originality and there is about as much use of imagination here as an archaeological dig.
What he has done here, instead of using his imagination, is practically steal from comic book characters throughout the ages and put them in this book- which reads more like a technical manual than it does any sort of humorous lampoon or loving homage.
The writing is dry and focuses far too much on descriptions of costumes or certain pieces of background information or poers and abilities. It has no heart, no soul, and doesn't observe as it should, doesn't give us anything to hold onto. There is no humanizing part of this book, nothing that helps endear these characters to the reader. It becomes like reading the outline for a proposal of a new comic book. It's a bore without redeeming value, and without any sort of imagination. The characters are all bits and pieces of Avengers and Justice League characters, of Lex Luthor and so on. I spent more time rolling my eyes than I did actual reading.
Anyone looking for a comic book that is full of humor and imagination and pokes fun at itself and the genre should instead look into reading Mystery Men.
Now, I don't think that Austin Grossman ever ran around with a plastic sword stuffed down his shirt. Nor do I think that he ever plotted and schemed to become Batman. Or even wish for mutant superpowers during puberty. I don't think he has much of an imagination, to be honest. Because this book was devoid of any sort or form of originality and there is about as much use of imagination here as an archaeological dig.
What he has done here, instead of using his imagination, is practically steal from comic book characters throughout the ages and put them in this book- which reads more like a technical manual than it does any sort of humorous lampoon or loving homage.
The writing is dry and focuses far too much on descriptions of costumes or certain pieces of background information or poers and abilities. It has no heart, no soul, and doesn't observe as it should, doesn't give us anything to hold onto. There is no humanizing part of this book, nothing that helps endear these characters to the reader. It becomes like reading the outline for a proposal of a new comic book. It's a bore without redeeming value, and without any sort of imagination. The characters are all bits and pieces of Avengers and Justice League characters, of Lex Luthor and so on. I spent more time rolling my eyes than I did actual reading.
Anyone looking for a comic book that is full of humor and imagination and pokes fun at itself and the genre should instead look into reading Mystery Men.
October 20, 2008
I've got to say, I really enjoyed this book. Not being a comic book geek, or even a superhero buff, I picked this up on a whim at the library. My review was probably helped in that I started reading this the day after I saw "Hancock" with Will Smith.
Anyhoo, mix a bit of Hancock, and some of Disney's Sky High Academy, with a *big* helping of Mike Myers' Dr Evil and you've got some idea of the fun of this book. I'll leave the plot synopsis to others, but I really enjoyed the viewpoint of the main character - the supervillain. From growing up misunderstood and working for recognition of his huge intellect (and of course to rule the world), this is a wonderful look into the world of the supervillain.
I love how calm, cool and collected he is, through all his failed and foiled plots. The author does a great job of keeping his tone even, he could so easily degenerate into whininess, but thankfully doesn't. Near the end, you almost see him figuring out to turn into a force for good, but nope, he is just too smart for that. = )
Definitely a fun and quick read, think I had it done in 2 or 3 days.
Anyhoo, mix a bit of Hancock, and some of Disney's Sky High Academy, with a *big* helping of Mike Myers' Dr Evil and you've got some idea of the fun of this book. I'll leave the plot synopsis to others, but I really enjoyed the viewpoint of the main character - the supervillain. From growing up misunderstood and working for recognition of his huge intellect (and of course to rule the world), this is a wonderful look into the world of the supervillain.
I love how calm, cool and collected he is, through all his failed and foiled plots. The author does a great job of keeping his tone even, he could so easily degenerate into whininess, but thankfully doesn't. Near the end, you almost see him figuring out to turn into a force for good, but nope, he is just too smart for that. = )
Definitely a fun and quick read, think I had it done in 2 or 3 days.
April 28, 2019
A humorous book about superheroes sounds like a promising idea. Too bad someone hit this one with humor-Kryptonite and destroyed all the funny parts. There might be a chuckle or a smirk left, but nothing truly funny or even close. Just watch the Incredibles again; you'll thank me later.
June 24, 2010
2.5 stars. Great concept, decent execution. As a superhero fan, I was hoping for a rich, detailed plot involving superheroes that would allow the author to explore the characters more than they can when limited to the simple comic book (or graphic novel form). This book, while decent, was not what I was hoping for. If you are looking for good superhero story, I would suggest something like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns or Watchmen to name just two of the better ones.
May 9, 2023
4.5/5
I had a lot of fun listening to this book. It's top-tier entertainment in which the villain is more likable and interesting than the heroes. Not uncommon in superhero fiction :)
Meet Dr. Impossible - the evil genius currently rotting in a federal prison. Throughout his career, he has tried many methods to conquer the world through the use of various doomsday devices (nuclear, thermonuclear, nontechnological ) and mass mind control. He has even traveled to the past to change history and to the future to escape it. All in vain.
Meanwhile, Fatale, a cyborg with memory loss, has joined the world's most famous super team, the Champions. It's her first day, and she's eager to prove herself.
As expected, their paths cross.
The chapters alternate between their first-person perspectives. Dr. Impossible chapters are a pure delight - he's a megalomaniac with a lot of charisma and some laugh-out-loud moments full of social commentary and self-reflection. He's broken, but also incredibly likable. The heroes, on the other hand, are mostly unsympathetic and indifferent to the concerns of ordinary people. You'll quickly notice that many of the main characters are basically comic book icons in disguise. Corefire is essentially Superman, Black Wolf is Batman and Damsel is Wonder Woman. This isn't a bad thing, quite the contrary, especially if you're interested in superheroes and their history.
As the plot unfolds, we learn that each character has their own secrets and that their origins are intertwined in mostly predictable ways. But that doesn't stop the book from being an exciting journey. Thanks to its playful, tongue-in-cheek tone, it strikes the perfect balance between seriousness and silliness. At times it reads like a comic book, at others like a witty parody of the entire superhero/super villain genre.
As much as I enjoyed the ride, I'd have liked the climax to be more daring. We all know the tropes of superhero fiction tropes and the limitations of the genre itself. I'd love to see the villain emerge victorious (which isn't uncommon in modern comic book deconstructions) but I guess the show must go on.
Soon I Will Be Invincible is one of the highlights of my 2023 reading. It's immersive, intelligent, has great humor and a brisk pace. I had a lot of fun listening to it and highly recommend it to all readers who are in the mood for good superhero entertainment.
I had a lot of fun listening to this book. It's top-tier entertainment in which the villain is more likable and interesting than the heroes. Not uncommon in superhero fiction :)
Meet Dr. Impossible - the evil genius currently rotting in a federal prison. Throughout his career, he has tried many methods to conquer the world through the use of various doomsday devices (nuclear, thermonuclear, nontechnological ) and mass mind control. He has even traveled to the past to change history and to the future to escape it. All in vain.
Meanwhile, Fatale, a cyborg with memory loss, has joined the world's most famous super team, the Champions. It's her first day, and she's eager to prove herself.
As expected, their paths cross.
The chapters alternate between their first-person perspectives. Dr. Impossible chapters are a pure delight - he's a megalomaniac with a lot of charisma and some laugh-out-loud moments full of social commentary and self-reflection. He's broken, but also incredibly likable. The heroes, on the other hand, are mostly unsympathetic and indifferent to the concerns of ordinary people. You'll quickly notice that many of the main characters are basically comic book icons in disguise. Corefire is essentially Superman, Black Wolf is Batman and Damsel is Wonder Woman. This isn't a bad thing, quite the contrary, especially if you're interested in superheroes and their history.
As the plot unfolds, we learn that each character has their own secrets and that their origins are intertwined in mostly predictable ways. But that doesn't stop the book from being an exciting journey. Thanks to its playful, tongue-in-cheek tone, it strikes the perfect balance between seriousness and silliness. At times it reads like a comic book, at others like a witty parody of the entire superhero/super villain genre.
As much as I enjoyed the ride, I'd have liked the climax to be more daring. We all know the tropes of superhero fiction tropes and the limitations of the genre itself. I'd love to see the villain emerge victorious (which isn't uncommon in modern comic book deconstructions) but I guess the show must go on.
Soon I Will Be Invincible is one of the highlights of my 2023 reading. It's immersive, intelligent, has great humor and a brisk pace. I had a lot of fun listening to it and highly recommend it to all readers who are in the mood for good superhero entertainment.
July 6, 2015
I liked this, didn’t love it. I think Austin Grossman and I just don’t blend well as reader/writer. And it all started out so well!
The book begins from the point of view of Dr. Impossible as he reflects from prison on his life and career as a supervillain. He has been arrested twelve times now, after having almost destroyed the world and/or conquered it, also twelve times. His nemesis is CoreFire, leader of a group of superheroes not unlike the Avengers. The world they live in is chockablock full of heroes and villains, to the point where the book almost reads like realism at points, the characters accepting the wonders around them with all the excitement of somebody dulled up on meds, about to have a root canal.
Dr. Impossible escapes prison for the twelfth time and the story goes from there. His nemesis has disappeared, and the fake Avengers have reunited to track him down. Among that group is Fatale, the book’s other narrator, one of the “heroes,” a cyborg who became a cyborg after a should-have-been-fatal car accident decimated half her body. Fatale was definitely not as interesting a POV character as Dr. Impossible. She seemed really passive and emotionless, despite everything that was going on in her life. In fact, this whole book felt that way, which is especially aggravating after the first couple pages led me to believe it was going to be a clever, tongue-in-cheek sort of book with a more upbeat (yet still dark) tone. It was mostly just bleak and, like the other book I’ve read by Grossman, You, so concerned with trying to Say Something that it stops being fun.
Of course it doesn’t help that some of the themes the novel is concerned with just don’t interest me in the slightest, the biggest of which being Dr. Impossible’s ego-driven actions. I don’t respond well to characters (or authors, or people in real life) whose main concern is whether other people think they’re the smartest person in the room. Slash the world. Slash the universe. Slash all the universes and timelines.
Basically, I wanted this book to be fun, and it wasn’t.
I probably won’t try any more of Grossman’s books, unless one happens to have a particularly interesting premise. But even then, I’m going to think really hard about it before I dive in.
The book begins from the point of view of Dr. Impossible as he reflects from prison on his life and career as a supervillain. He has been arrested twelve times now, after having almost destroyed the world and/or conquered it, also twelve times. His nemesis is CoreFire, leader of a group of superheroes not unlike the Avengers. The world they live in is chockablock full of heroes and villains, to the point where the book almost reads like realism at points, the characters accepting the wonders around them with all the excitement of somebody dulled up on meds, about to have a root canal.
Dr. Impossible escapes prison for the twelfth time and the story goes from there. His nemesis has disappeared, and the fake Avengers have reunited to track him down. Among that group is Fatale, the book’s other narrator, one of the “heroes,” a cyborg who became a cyborg after a should-have-been-fatal car accident decimated half her body. Fatale was definitely not as interesting a POV character as Dr. Impossible. She seemed really passive and emotionless, despite everything that was going on in her life. In fact, this whole book felt that way, which is especially aggravating after the first couple pages led me to believe it was going to be a clever, tongue-in-cheek sort of book with a more upbeat (yet still dark) tone. It was mostly just bleak and, like the other book I’ve read by Grossman, You, so concerned with trying to Say Something that it stops being fun.
Of course it doesn’t help that some of the themes the novel is concerned with just don’t interest me in the slightest, the biggest of which being Dr. Impossible’s ego-driven actions. I don’t respond well to characters (or authors, or people in real life) whose main concern is whether other people think they’re the smartest person in the room. Slash the world. Slash the universe. Slash all the universes and timelines.
Basically, I wanted this book to be fun, and it wasn’t.
I probably won’t try any more of Grossman’s books, unless one happens to have a particularly interesting premise. But even then, I’m going to think really hard about it before I dive in.
March 27, 2013
This novel had such a great concept as a base that I expected a lot from it. Ultimately, I was disappointed. It seemed like it would have a lot of action and tension and clashing of strong characters, but everything in the narrative that would fit those descriptors essentially happens “off-screen” and is recounted after the fact. Dr. Impossible and Fatale spend more time wallowing in their respective uncertainties and depressions than going through things in the present. I’m all for introspective characters, but even for me it seemed excessive. On top of this, there are too many forays into backstories/origin stories. It was well and good for the dozen or so characters that are relevant to the current events in the book, but basically every hero or villain that’s mentioned for any reason gets a dedicated origin story, and the number of superhumans in the book probably totals in the forties. As if that weren’t enough, these origin stories are often told twice, once from each narrator’s perspective, yet the information revealed by each narrator is nearly identical. Even during the climax, there are long sections that revert into backstory rather than staying in what should be very exciting events in the present. Ultimately, the impression I took away is that the writer had imagined a series of heroes and villains and wanted to put them forth somehow, but didn’t have as clear an idea of an actual narrative in which to place them. This impression was definitely underscored by the seven page appendix at the end of the book cataloguing every hero and villain (as if this hadn’t been done sufficiently in the narrative itself) as well as a superhuman events timeline. Without an engaging story in the present of the book, or even any of the dark and witty humor/tone the book jacket seemed to imply would be present, I found little in this novel to latch onto.
October 23, 2014
Very well read comic book from two points of view that of Dr. Impossible, the super villain, & a young super hero in alternate chapters. The voice of Dr. Impossible is especially good. Instead of avoiding tropes, this book embraces them all, gives us the origins & motivations of each with a fairly twisty ending including a real shocker, but one that made sense. It was a lot of fun & perfect in this format. I don't think it would have read as well in paper, even graphic format, for me.
December 29, 2008
This world is fascinating but the writing is really unfocused -- I'm having a hard time following the passage of time, and we're really thrown into both the characters and the action. Too much of the world building is retroactive. I'm about 1/3rd of the way in, we'll see if the storytelling settles down.
Update upon finishing: I really wanted to like this book, but it never gelled for me. Too much jumping around from flashback to current timeline to hints dropped about the future, and the characters felt more like sketches than people. Superheroes or no, characterization should be internally consistent. It's a great world, though; I'd love to see some better stories set there.
Update upon finishing: I really wanted to like this book, but it never gelled for me. Too much jumping around from flashback to current timeline to hints dropped about the future, and the characters felt more like sketches than people. Superheroes or no, characterization should be internally consistent. It's a great world, though; I'd love to see some better stories set there.
August 5, 2008
full review to follow. supervillian 4 stars. super heroes three stars. overall 3 and a half stars. a fun read--do not regret it, just wish it was better--when you hold the making of something great in your hands, and half of it falls way short of the mark, it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
March 12, 2009
I picked up this book (luckily from the library) based on a review from another website. This is not a good book, however. No ifs, ands or buts about it.
Perhaps the problem lies in reading this just after seeing the Watchmen movie. While I rather heretically think the plot for Watchmen is pretty stupid, at least there is some attempt to explain the motivations of some of the characters in a vaguely believable fashion. Soon I Will Be Invincible does not. Explanation=cliche in this book.
The book is organized with chapters providing alternating viewpoints, telling the story from the perpective of the villain Doctor Impossible and one of a new crew of heroes named Fatale. They both come across as annoying whiners rather than actual people transforming negative pasts into something more and more mythic in the present.
Actual lines of dialogue:
Doctor Impossible: "I'm taking over the world, and you're going to watch...Hahahaha...ahahahahahahaha!" (p.261)
I believe this is meant seriously.
When Doctor Impossible is questioned on his latest and greatest (but not completely original) plot to destroy the Earth, his response:
Doctor Impossible: "Shut up! It's the Ice Empire, and it's totally going to work." (p. 264)
I can't even begin with Fatale - all she is ridiculously insecure and seems to be concerned with nothing more than the fact that she's not attractive to men anymore because she's a cyborg. I am well aware that the large majority of female characters in science fiction have no other role than to have sex with/get rescued by the main male characters, but this was too over the top.
Combining the uninteresting characters with the attempt at making interesting references by giving chapters nifty titles ripped from catchphrases from Snidely Whiplash, the Joker, Sherlock Holmes and the Avengers comics, the book ended up quite disappointing.
Perhaps the problem lies in reading this just after seeing the Watchmen movie. While I rather heretically think the plot for Watchmen is pretty stupid, at least there is some attempt to explain the motivations of some of the characters in a vaguely believable fashion. Soon I Will Be Invincible does not. Explanation=cliche in this book.
The book is organized with chapters providing alternating viewpoints, telling the story from the perpective of the villain Doctor Impossible and one of a new crew of heroes named Fatale. They both come across as annoying whiners rather than actual people transforming negative pasts into something more and more mythic in the present.
Actual lines of dialogue:
Doctor Impossible: "I'm taking over the world, and you're going to watch...Hahahaha...ahahahahahahaha!" (p.261)
I believe this is meant seriously.
When Doctor Impossible is questioned on his latest and greatest (but not completely original) plot to destroy the Earth, his response:
Doctor Impossible: "Shut up! It's the Ice Empire, and it's totally going to work." (p. 264)
I can't even begin with Fatale - all she is ridiculously insecure and seems to be concerned with nothing more than the fact that she's not attractive to men anymore because she's a cyborg. I am well aware that the large majority of female characters in science fiction have no other role than to have sex with/get rescued by the main male characters, but this was too over the top.
Combining the uninteresting characters with the attempt at making interesting references by giving chapters nifty titles ripped from catchphrases from Snidely Whiplash, the Joker, Sherlock Holmes and the Avengers comics, the book ended up quite disappointing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 9, 2008
A fun, rather endearing little novel by Austin Grossman (his first), Soon I Will Be Invincible offers us a "generic" superhero milieu that honors just as much as it satirizes its comic book forebears. Grossman gives us a real loser of an evil genius (Doctor Impossible, suffering from "malign hypercognition disorder") that is every inch the protagonist this story needs -- considering that he's the villain being chased by the cattiest, bitchiest bunch of superheroes that ever seemed patrol the wild blue yonder.
There seems to be two themes at work here.
The first is a question of origins: where are you from? how did you get here? where to next? and why not the other way? Grossman's characters flirt with this throughout the text. Doctor Impossible seems to be perpetually questioning his motives; Blackwolf seems little better than a bullying thug with some government sanctioning; and all of the superhero secret identities and weaknesses fanfare. It's the discourse we've always suspected (known?) was taking place in the whitespace between comic book frames. Only Grossman brings it out in its full banality: a supervillain taking a bus to a Roy Rogers to then hike a few more blocks to beg favors of other supervillains in an abandoned shopping mall only to be laughed at -- what better example do you need?
The second seems to be isolation -- but more loneliness than solipsism. This second theme seems to reinforce and inform the first rather strongly. The question goes around in the text about being alone and how much of that is bearable or desirable. While on the one hand this could quickly slip its threads and go skittering off into an adolescent existentialism, Grossman finds a way of keeping it mature. (Well, mostly mature. And even when it slips, there is that sense of humor to rescue it.)
Grossman's stylish and witty prose earns him high marks here. The Doctor Impossible parts of the story come damn close to a perfect score from me. The Fatale bits ran a bit thin at times. Still one hell of a novel though.
There seems to be two themes at work here.
The first is a question of origins: where are you from? how did you get here? where to next? and why not the other way? Grossman's characters flirt with this throughout the text. Doctor Impossible seems to be perpetually questioning his motives; Blackwolf seems little better than a bullying thug with some government sanctioning; and all of the superhero secret identities and weaknesses fanfare. It's the discourse we've always suspected (known?) was taking place in the whitespace between comic book frames. Only Grossman brings it out in its full banality: a supervillain taking a bus to a Roy Rogers to then hike a few more blocks to beg favors of other supervillains in an abandoned shopping mall only to be laughed at -- what better example do you need?
The second seems to be isolation -- but more loneliness than solipsism. This second theme seems to reinforce and inform the first rather strongly. The question goes around in the text about being alone and how much of that is bearable or desirable. While on the one hand this could quickly slip its threads and go skittering off into an adolescent existentialism, Grossman finds a way of keeping it mature. (Well, mostly mature. And even when it slips, there is that sense of humor to rescue it.)
Grossman's stylish and witty prose earns him high marks here. The Doctor Impossible parts of the story come damn close to a perfect score from me. The Fatale bits ran a bit thin at times. Still one hell of a novel though.
June 13, 2015
I got problems with this, but first, what I liked...
The larger-than-life characters, and so many of them, that Grossman was able to create and breathe into life. His imagination must have run riot at time as he spins character after character into his storyline about a villainous superhero, Dr. Impossible, who wants to, quite literally, rule the world. (He really does, regardless of the fact that he's tried and failed to do this umpteen times before.) The writing is crisp and distinct. Dialogue, description, narration - I had no problems with any of it. It's funny; it's clever; it's even beguiling. So where's the problem?
The constant flashbacks - when we were in school; when I talked to her; when she and I had lunch together; what he remembers; what she regrets. Though written in present tense so much of this book happens in the past. One can hardly read a few pages and either Impossible - or the alternate POV, Fatale - is telling us how he or she did this, or that, and how they became who they are. At times it's a story written backwards, and though there is a solid plot, it's one burdened with the weight of the past.
I wanted the story to move forward more than it did. Things would be heating up and then someone, usually Impossible, would pause to reflect on an old relationship, or start thinking about back when he was at school being tormented by other up-and-coming superheroes. That part got to be too much. An editor should have said, enough already! Move the darn story ahead! Too much reminiscing, too many flashbacks. (What did Tony Soprano say about the lowest form of conversation? Reminiscing. It's the same for novel-writing, too.)
I still give it four stars for sheer enjoyment, a fun read, original idea and a host of unique superheroes. Many of the back stories mentioned in the book could give rise to their own book. I'd love to see one about Galatea.
The larger-than-life characters, and so many of them, that Grossman was able to create and breathe into life. His imagination must have run riot at time as he spins character after character into his storyline about a villainous superhero, Dr. Impossible, who wants to, quite literally, rule the world. (He really does, regardless of the fact that he's tried and failed to do this umpteen times before.) The writing is crisp and distinct. Dialogue, description, narration - I had no problems with any of it. It's funny; it's clever; it's even beguiling. So where's the problem?
The constant flashbacks - when we were in school; when I talked to her; when she and I had lunch together; what he remembers; what she regrets. Though written in present tense so much of this book happens in the past. One can hardly read a few pages and either Impossible - or the alternate POV, Fatale - is telling us how he or she did this, or that, and how they became who they are. At times it's a story written backwards, and though there is a solid plot, it's one burdened with the weight of the past.
I wanted the story to move forward more than it did. Things would be heating up and then someone, usually Impossible, would pause to reflect on an old relationship, or start thinking about back when he was at school being tormented by other up-and-coming superheroes. That part got to be too much. An editor should have said, enough already! Move the darn story ahead! Too much reminiscing, too many flashbacks. (What did Tony Soprano say about the lowest form of conversation? Reminiscing. It's the same for novel-writing, too.)
I still give it four stars for sheer enjoyment, a fun read, original idea and a host of unique superheroes. Many of the back stories mentioned in the book could give rise to their own book. I'd love to see one about Galatea.
March 12, 2013
I'm not sure why I've rated this three stars (probably closer to 3.5) because there was a lot I liked about it. I'm very fond of superhero stories, particularly ones like this, and I actually liked that the villain's perspective alternated with the hero's perspective. Actually, that's misleading; the "villain" has some sympathetic traits, and the "hero" is a newbie who's just been invited to join the number one super-group in the world. Both of them have doubts about what they're doing, but not in the sense of questioning whether they're right--they simply don't know how they fit into the world.
Grossman has some interesting and clever ideas about supervillains: why are so many of them super-geniuses? Why do they want to take over the world, anyway? which he answers by creating a mental disorder that drives them toward evil, or at any rate a desperate need for control. His heroine, Fatale, is a cyborg who began as an ordinary woman who suffered a hideous accident and was saved only by the process that made her the super tall, super strong, super fast cyborg she is now. Grossman put a lot of thought into what it would be like to recover from such a process, and as I was reading Keeping It Real at the same time, I kept forgetting which cyborg was which--both Robson and Grossman were on the same wavelength, I guess.
It's a good book. It just didn't pull me in the way I thought it should. For all it's an action book, it's also sort of slow--should it be read as a science fiction novel, or a form of literary fiction (of which it has many hallmarks), or something in between? I think I can recommend it to fans of both--i.e. fans who like both science fiction and a more literary style--because I feel it has a lot to offer to the right reader.
Grossman has some interesting and clever ideas about supervillains: why are so many of them super-geniuses? Why do they want to take over the world, anyway? which he answers by creating a mental disorder that drives them toward evil, or at any rate a desperate need for control. His heroine, Fatale, is a cyborg who began as an ordinary woman who suffered a hideous accident and was saved only by the process that made her the super tall, super strong, super fast cyborg she is now. Grossman put a lot of thought into what it would be like to recover from such a process, and as I was reading Keeping It Real at the same time, I kept forgetting which cyborg was which--both Robson and Grossman were on the same wavelength, I guess.
It's a good book. It just didn't pull me in the way I thought it should. For all it's an action book, it's also sort of slow--should it be read as a science fiction novel, or a form of literary fiction (of which it has many hallmarks), or something in between? I think I can recommend it to fans of both--i.e. fans who like both science fiction and a more literary style--because I feel it has a lot to offer to the right reader.
February 3, 2017
"Muy pronto seré invencible" me ha dejado una sensación agridulce al terminarlo. Por una parte, es innegable que Grossman tiene talento a la hora de crear una narración atractiva, ágil y que no apetece dejar en ningún momento. Esto es algo que, personalmente, valoro muchísimo.
En añadidura, el puntito de realidad que aporta a las escenas que nos muestra, o a los problemas cotidianos o inquietudes de los superhéroes, lo dotan de una gracia y un humor muy bien llevado. Ha habido más de una vez que he lanzado una carcajada como cuando, por ejemplo:
[Ojo, MINISPOILER ALERT]
El genio del mal se cuela en el cuartel general del supergrupo de turno y comenta:
“Eso sí, debo reconocer que tienen unas sillas de despacho fenomenales. Además, hay un ventanal con vistas fabulosas al centro de la ciudad, y el feng sui es inmejorable”.
[END OF MINISPOILER]
La trama se desarrolla a través de dos narraciones complementarias en primera persona: por una parte la del genio del mal y por otra la de una superheroína considerada de segunda categoría. El problema es que la novela nos hace pensar que siempre está a punto de pasar algo. Siempre da la impresión de que estamos a las puertas de una revelación, a punto de… algo más que no acaba de llegar nunca. Ni siquiera el supuesto final sorprendente lo es tanto. La mayor parte del relato son una sucesión de reflexiones o de actos cotidianos que al principio generan interés y simpatía, pero que, al cabo de un tiempo, terminan por aniquilar la tensión que debería existir ante lo que se supone que se está gestando.
No obstante, hay que reconocer que se trata de un gran intento por construir un mundo de superhéroes desde un punto de vista creíble y cercano, alejado de los clichés más habituales, algo que, sinceramente, siempre se agradece un montón.
En añadidura, el puntito de realidad que aporta a las escenas que nos muestra, o a los problemas cotidianos o inquietudes de los superhéroes, lo dotan de una gracia y un humor muy bien llevado. Ha habido más de una vez que he lanzado una carcajada como cuando, por ejemplo:
[Ojo, MINISPOILER ALERT]
El genio del mal se cuela en el cuartel general del supergrupo de turno y comenta:
“Eso sí, debo reconocer que tienen unas sillas de despacho fenomenales. Además, hay un ventanal con vistas fabulosas al centro de la ciudad, y el feng sui es inmejorable”.
[END OF MINISPOILER]
La trama se desarrolla a través de dos narraciones complementarias en primera persona: por una parte la del genio del mal y por otra la de una superheroína considerada de segunda categoría. El problema es que la novela nos hace pensar que siempre está a punto de pasar algo. Siempre da la impresión de que estamos a las puertas de una revelación, a punto de… algo más que no acaba de llegar nunca. Ni siquiera el supuesto final sorprendente lo es tanto. La mayor parte del relato son una sucesión de reflexiones o de actos cotidianos que al principio generan interés y simpatía, pero que, al cabo de un tiempo, terminan por aniquilar la tensión que debería existir ante lo que se supone que se está gestando.
No obstante, hay que reconocer que se trata de un gran intento por construir un mundo de superhéroes desde un punto de vista creíble y cercano, alejado de los clichés más habituales, algo que, sinceramente, siempre se agradece un montón.
October 23, 2007
Picked up this book because Jackson Publick, creator/writer of the Venture Bros. series recommended it on his blog.
A superhero novel that switches narrative viewpoints b/w supervillain and new superhero. It is more melancholy and internal than comic/action-packed, though all those aspects are present.
Had following emotional reaction
15% - admiration for Grossman's approach to these old themes
15% - amusement at cleverness
15% - outright snickering
20% - sadness
25% - not reacting because nothing too emotional is happening
10% - not liking something
Quotes I liked:
"Blackwolf's [Batman equivalent] neck is in a simple collar welded to the wall. No lock to pick, or chain to break. He can't even sit down. It's like Doctor Impossible is making fun of his lack of powers. Any of the rest of us could have broken it in a second...
Blackwolf strains at the collar for a second, then gives up. 'That's it. Now I'll never avenge my brother and sister. Fuck!" (240)
Doctor Impossible (super villain): "Even if I turned myself in, it wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't make me one of them. I knew that when I got my powers, but really I knew it before then. I learned it as a child on my first day of school, on the warm rainy streets of Bangkok, and in college. If you're different you always know it, and you can't fix it even if you want to. What do you do when you find out your heart is the wrong kind? You take what you're given, and be the hero you can be. Hero to your own cold, inverted heart." (74)
A superhero novel that switches narrative viewpoints b/w supervillain and new superhero. It is more melancholy and internal than comic/action-packed, though all those aspects are present.
Had following emotional reaction
15% - admiration for Grossman's approach to these old themes
15% - amusement at cleverness
15% - outright snickering
20% - sadness
25% - not reacting because nothing too emotional is happening
10% - not liking something
Quotes I liked:
"Blackwolf's [Batman equivalent] neck is in a simple collar welded to the wall. No lock to pick, or chain to break. He can't even sit down. It's like Doctor Impossible is making fun of his lack of powers. Any of the rest of us could have broken it in a second...
Blackwolf strains at the collar for a second, then gives up. 'That's it. Now I'll never avenge my brother and sister. Fuck!" (240)
Doctor Impossible (super villain): "Even if I turned myself in, it wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't make me one of them. I knew that when I got my powers, but really I knew it before then. I learned it as a child on my first day of school, on the warm rainy streets of Bangkok, and in college. If you're different you always know it, and you can't fix it even if you want to. What do you do when you find out your heart is the wrong kind? You take what you're given, and be the hero you can be. Hero to your own cold, inverted heart." (74)
September 4, 2013
-Caminando en el filo entre lo tradicional y lo especial.-
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. El Doctor Imposible, supervillano actualmente en la cárcel, reflexiona sobre su vida entre rejas, sobre la visión que de él tienen los demás y sobre la propia, echando la vista atrás a sus años de niñez y juventud. Fatale, una superheroína producto de la ciencia y la técnica cibernética que durante un tiempo trabajó para el gobierno y que no recuerda muy bien su pasado, afronta su primer día como miembro a prueba de los Campeones, supergrupo que recientemente ha tenido dos bajas por diferentes razones.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. El Doctor Imposible, supervillano actualmente en la cárcel, reflexiona sobre su vida entre rejas, sobre la visión que de él tienen los demás y sobre la propia, echando la vista atrás a sus años de niñez y juventud. Fatale, una superheroína producto de la ciencia y la técnica cibernética que durante un tiempo trabajó para el gobierno y que no recuerda muy bien su pasado, afronta su primer día como miembro a prueba de los Campeones, supergrupo que recientemente ha tenido dos bajas por diferentes razones.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
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