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I live in Hillsborough, NC with my wife Cheryl. My work is known for fast paced action and humor, with each story built around a large moral question.
My works to date are:
His superhero novels: Nobody Gets the Girl (2003): A tale on an invisible man and the women who dig him. Burn Baby Burn (2011): A love story about two supervillians on a crime spree. Coming in 2013: The Confessions of Cut-Up Girl!: A young girl with the power to create duplicates of herself by cutting off body parts gets swept up into a war between the Lawful Legion (the only superhero team authorized by the government) and Red Line, a team of super-powered vigilantes fighting to save a world that fears them.
My Dragon Age novels: Bitterwood (2007): In a world where dragons rule over men, the mysterious hunter Bitterwood wages war against the beasts from the shadows. Dragonforge (2008): When all out war breaks out between dragons and men, the human forces stage a daring attack on the heart of the dragons' military might--the fortress town of Dragon Forge. Dragonseed (2009): As war takes its toll on both mankind and the dragons, disease and famine threaten to sweep the land. Does salvation lie in the talons of dragon claiming mystical healing powers, who feeds his followers the miraculous dragonseed? Coming in 2013: The Complete Bitterwood. An ebook collection that collects the three core Dragon Age novels, plus the prequel short story "Tornado of Sparks," plus the previously unpublished novel "Empire of Angels," the book that laid the blueprint for the published novels that followed.
My Dragon Apocalypse novels: A more lighthearted take on fantasy than my Dragon Age novels, the Dragon Apocalypse novels blend my love of epic fantasy and my love of superheroes. In each book, superpowered adventurers pit themselves against the primal dragons, elemental beings who are manifestations of aspects of nature. Greatshadow (2012): Twelve superpowered adventurers band together to slay Greatshadow, the primal dragon of fire. But, before they fight the beast, can they first survive each other? Hush (2012): When the warrior woman known as Infidel journeys to the frozen north in order to fulfil a promise made to a dying friend, she winds up swept into a plot by Hush, the primal dragon of cold, who plans to murder the sun and plunge the world into permanent winter. Witchbreaker (2012): Centuries ago, the knight known as the Witchbreaker nearly wiped out the cult of witches. Now, a young witch named Sorrow seeks to launch a new golden age of witchcraft by seeking out the legendary queen of witches, Avaris. She's joined on her quest by an amnesiatic warrior who seems to have come from a different time. Could her new closest ally secretly be the long lost Witchbreaker? Coming (hopefully) in 2014: Soulless, the sequel to Witchbreaker.
Short story collections: There is No Wheel (2011): Ten critically acclaimed short stories collected from the pages of Asimov's, Intergalactic Medicine Show, and various anthologies. Dark, weird, funny, and truthful.
...I'm thrilled to finally find a superhero novel that is a great read from cover to cover. Nobody Gets the Girl is the best superhero novel ever. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it is a huge hit and will spawn imitators half this good.
It a tough novel to talk about without giving away the plot. There are surprises in every chapter. It's also a tough book to put down. I read the whole book in a weekend and was never bored for a second.
The biggest surprise for me was how funny the book was. The dialogue is sharp and clever. It's the sort of book I keep quoting passages from to my friends.
The only thing that I worried about in the plot is that early on the bad guys are this group of international terrorists. I kind of rolled my eyes at this use of the current pop culture boogey man. But, later in the book the master terrorist get center stage for a couple of chapters and it's one of the biggest surprises of the book that his character is so three dimensional and thought out. These aren't typical cardboard bad guys. The whole book winds up being a kind of critique of the current war on terrorism. The good guys go to such extremes to stop their enemies that it gets difficult to tell whether or not they might be a bigger [danger] than the bad guys.
This book is thought-provoking, action packed, and funny. Highly recommended.
James Maxey paints a colorful, imaginative portrait of an unwilling superhero amid other heroes who have serious issues.
The plot was engaging, the characters interesting if not always likeable, and the moral themes were complex. Don't let the broad heroic strokes fool you - this story has a lot of layers.
There were, however, a few glitches: there's a romantic situation which seems to spring from nowhere, and as a result I really couldn't buy it. Since the romantic situation is closely tied to the overall plot, this created a bit of a problem for me. I also felt the protagonist needed a bit more fleshing out - I felt that some of his actions were out-of-how-I-perceived-his-character; in retrospect I have the feeling that Maxey simply did some mental shorthand that not all readers will grasp.
But don't let those put you off buying the novel - it's a lot of fun, and it'll make you think. I'm looking forward to more of Maxey's work.
This is an incredible first novel. I can see why it's being billed as "A Comic Book Novel," but I wouldn't want that to put anyone off. Even people who don't read comic books should find this book impossible to put down. The characters are well thought out, both believable and quirky. The action is non-stop. The humor is pervasive. And underneath it all, it's thought-provoking. Get it, and tell your friends about it.
NOTE TO COLLECTORS: This is the first edition of a first novel by a previously unknown but obviously talented author. Need I say more?
