“An outlandish, outrageous tour de force by the most innovative prose stylist in the field.” –Robert J. Sawyer, author of Hominids
They’re Earth’s mightiest superteam–and dysfunctional as hell.
OMNIPOTENT MAN–a body with the density of steel, and a brain to match
THE FLYING SQUIRREL–aging playboy industrialist by day, avenging krypto-fascist by night
IRON LASS–mythology’s greatest warrior–but the world might be safer if she had a husband
X-MAN–formerly of the League of Angry Blackmen . . . but not formerly enough
THE BROTHERFLY–radioactively fly
POWER GRRRL–perpetually deciding between fighting crime or promoting her latest album, clothing line, or sex scandal
Having finally defeated all archenemies, the members of the Fantastic Order of Justice are reduced to engaging in toxic office politics that could very well lead to a superpowered civil war. Only one woman can save them from themselves: Dr. Eva Brain-Silverman, aka Dr. Brain, the world’s leading therapist for the extraordinarily abled.
“Faust has pretty much invented his own genre. He’s totally original, full of surprises.” –Richard K. Morgan, author of Altered Carbon
“Samuel Delany, Harlan Ellison, and Ishmael Reed all rolled into one. Faust’s writing is biting, insightful, and hugely entertaining.” –Ernest Dickerson, director
Minister Faust is a long-time community activist, writer, journalist, broadcaster, public speaker and martial artist in several disciplines.
A lifelong fan of science fiction, his earliest memories of the genre were watching Star Trek: The Original Series in black & white and having his mother read to him from Robert Heinlein's Red Planet.
After deciding to become a comic book writer and artist when he was ten, he secretly changed his ambition to science fiction novelist after glancing through the glossary to Frank Herbert's Dune. He'd planned to become an ecologist so as to gain Herbert's ecological depth, but before his first university class switched his entire enrollment to English Literature, having concluded that learning to write was more relevant to the career of a writer, and that going to endless lab classes at 7 am for four years would likely suck.
As a member of E-Town's anti-fascist movement in 1990, he and other youth marched on a Nazi skinhead gang house, the hub at that time of a series of violent assaults. Confronted there by skinheads with guns, Minister Faust held them back with nothing but the power of his words. Thus began a speaking career that has taken him across Canada and before of crowds in the tens of thousands.
Minister Faust taught English Literature in E-Town junior high and high schools for a decade, and later worked a mentor and trainer for the Keshotu Leadership Academy, an Africentric organisation whose manual he wrote.
A radio broadcaster since 1989, he hosts Africentric Radio (formerly The Terrordome), for which he's interviewed luminaries such as Tariq Ali, Molefi Kete Asante, Martin Bernal, Noam Chomsky, Chuck D., Austin Clarke, Angela Davis, Karl Evanzz, Tom Fontana, Glen Ford, Nalo Hopkinson, Reginald Hudlin, Ice-T, Janine Jackson, Michael Parenti, Ishmael Reed, Gil Scott-Heron, Vandana Shiva, David Simon, Scott Taylor, and many more.
As a radio and print journalist, he's gone as far as the 1995 Million Man March in Washington, DC, and to the Ain-al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, to collect stories and hear directly from people living and making history.
A maverick novelist increasingly described as one of the finest voices of his generation, Minister Faust is the author of the critically acclaimed The Coyote Kings, Book One: Space-Age Bachelor Pad, and the Kindred Award-winning Shrinking the Heroes. His latest is The Alchemists of Kush, which writers and readers alike have already hailed as superb; novelist Sparkle Hayter calls the book "brilliant."
Minister Faust refers to his sub-genre of writing as Imhotep-Hop--an Africentric literature that draws from myriad ancient African civilisations, explores present realities, and imagines a future in which people struggle not only for justice, but for the stars.
He lives in Edmonton with his wife and daughters, where he also runs Canada's top bean pie bakery, Desserts of Kush.
This review is from: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (Paperback)
Minister Faust is dealing with a host of serious issues -- race relations, societal structures, psychotheraphy, individual responsibility vs. societal forces -- in the clever guise of a superhero novel. His satire of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man are dead on, and he broadly hints that we're not supposed to take our narrator, the analyst Dr. Brain, at her word. The character of X Man, one of the deepest and most literate I've encountered in urban fantasy, is a genuine hero, combatting his own past and the forces he perceives are against him at the same time. What we get is a multi-layered and ultimately disturbing narrative that makes political points while humanizing these superhuman beings. And Faust keeps the action coming, too. Indeed, the personal is the political, although you won't get that from Dr. Brain.
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This review is from: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (Paperback)
I won't comment on the story line, since you will (I hope) find out for yourself. Instead let me talk about the book's character.
The book is wonderfully complicated.
The characters are horribly disfunctional in so many believable ways.
There are tens of subtle jokes per page. No, I mean per paragraph. No, per sentence.
This author is awesome in his use of language. He is awesome in the breadth of subject matter he touches on. He is beyond awesome in humor.
I haven't been captivated by brilliant language, stunning depth, and engrossing story line in any book since The Big U, by Neal Stephenson, came out more than 20 years ago.
(Before I go on, no I am not related to Grand Minister Faust.)
This SF story is completely ridiculous and impossible.
You will find that you are living it today. In reading this, you will gain insights which you can use (if only to laugh about) in your life tomorrow.
This is the book you will read, then buy more copies of to loan to your friends.
Its a blast. Now I am going to turn back to page 1 and read it again.
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This review is from: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (Paperback)
... why hasn't somebody in comic books done this this well?
This is a book within a book, with a psychiatrist trying to get into the heads of some increasingly anti-social superheroes. Their histories slowly unfold over the course of the tale and involve cataclysms, family drama, and personal vendettas on a par with the classic _The Watchmen_. Awesome read for comic-book fans.
Especially clever are the deliciously exaggerated metaphors and similes Dr. Brain uses, courtesy of our author, Faust. Having read my number of self-help and psychology books, they're true parody gold.
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