4.0 out of 5 stars
Chance Fortune makes his own luck, October 2, 2010
CHANCE FORTUNE AND THE OUTLAWS is a fun, simple read; don't make more of it than that. Shane Berryhill's debut novel is ideally suitable for the pre-teen audience, and comic book fans will get a kick out of this as well. I really got into the premise which centers around a gutsy fourteen-year-old who doesn't possess super powers but fabricates one in order to be accepted into the prestigious Burlington Academy for the Superhuman. If you're the kind of person who'd rather root for Batman than for Superman, you'll soak in the prevailing underdog theme.
There's a quote from a Roman philosopher which opens the book and basically sums up what makes Joshua Blevins tick: "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." In Littleton, Tennessee, young Joshua Blevins has spent arduous years of training under the tutelage of Captain Fearless, an old (and non-superpowered) adventurer from the Golden Age era. Joshua thinks he's ready and applies to the Burlington Academy... and promptly gets rejected because of his lack of super powers. So what does he do? He fakes a super power, the super power of impossible luck. He changes his name to Chance Fortune. And he gains admittance.
The best moments in the book, far as I'm concerned, all have to do with Chance applying his wits and training to overcome the odds, all the while keeping up his pretense of being really fortuitous. I guess I'm gonna keep going to the Batman well, because Chance reminds me quite a bit of him in terms of maximizing his merely human talents and establishing himself as a presence in a community inhabited by demigods and formidable meta-humans. Kids will particularly relish diving into the fantastical world of Megalopolis and the Burlington Academy. If you've read the awesomeness that is Alan Moore's TOP TEN, there's a whiff of that zeitgeist (except more G-rated).
One downside to the book is that the writer tends to leap over hefty chunks of time; weeks and months are sometimes glossed over perfunctorily, and so there's an abbreviated feel to the story. He also eschews other aspects of Chance's freshman year in favor of his combat training and his inter-team competitions. Students of Burlington Academy are assigned on seven man teams that regularly compete against each other in mock superhero battles with an eye towards the term-ending championship battle. Chance finds himself on a ragtag team called the Outlaws and there are immediate personality clashes. The squabbling teammates - it's a plot device that never gets old, yeah? Still, I wish there would've been more focus on Chance's other classes. As it is, I don't feel that the book delivers a truly well-rounded experience on what life is like at the Academy.
There are quite a number of in-jokes referencing well-known comic book creators (the McFarlane Cafeteria, the Kirby Coliseum, the Buscema Dormitory, etc.). If you go back a few decades, you might get the reference to an alien named Orson from the planet Shazzbot. And the name of the Academy itself - after "Edgar Rice Burlington" - is a direct homage to that master of pulp adventure, Edgar Rice Burroughs, one of my all-time favorite writers.
What the book lacks in depth and sophistication, it makes up for in vividly conveyed combat scenes and a likable cast of characters (one of the faculty members, the spooky Boogeyman, is NOT likable, but he's intriguing as heck). Chance Fortune himself is a great character. Chance's enmity with his archnemesis Superion is established early in the book, and maybe Chance bit off more than he can chew. Superion is pretty much Megalopolis' version of Superboy, except that he's an asshat. He's also the leader of the Invincibles, unanimously considered as the team to beat. You can anticipate the inevitable collision course between the underdog Outlaws and the mighty Invincibles, and the more personal confrontation between Chance and Superion. Shades of Batman taking on Superman! And, again, this leads back to my favorite bits in the book, which is Chance overcoming obstacles by virtue of his wits, his training, and, here and there, a trick up his sleeve. He even finds time to help thwart a malevolent presence which had infiltrated the Academy's hallowed halls. So, really, who needs super powers? Chance Fortune makes his own luck.
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