Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You've Never Read Of Heroes Like These - And You'll Want More!, August 2, 2008
PERSPECTIVE: sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book fan
This, Mur Lafferty's first published novel, takes the tropes of comic book-style superheroes and villains, and brilliantly upends them to explore what lies underneath. The world of Playing for Keeps not only contains the previously mentioned costumed characters, but also a group of relatively normal folk - "third wavers" - who have special abilities too esoteric and underpowered to be useful for daring or mischief... or so it seems. What follows is a story that explores the complexities behind what it truly means to be a "hero," even when society has deemed that you are not.
Playing for Keeps is at turns epic and human, with everyday, flawed characters that are forced to contend with extraordinary challenges in which there is often no "right answer." Mur's prose is deft and evocative, making this a compelling, engrossing read to the very end.
FINAL WORD: A HIGH five of five stars, and a must read not only for fans of genre fiction, but anyone who enjoys an excellent tale. Highest recommendation.
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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What's it really mean to be a hero?, August 3, 2008
What makes someone a hero? What are a hero's responsibilities? Heroes are good, right? Who decides who gets to be a hero and who has to stand on the sidelines? Why do they always have super cool powers? Or do they? What do you do when you find yourself on the wrong side of the law? You'll ask yourself these questions and more.
I used the podcast version of Playing for Keeps with my Advance English Language Conversation class at a women's university in Seoul, Korea. My students loved the story and found themselves questioning their assumptions about what makes a hero.
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Prose, powers and protagonists: all play for keeps in this book, August 3, 2008
"Playing for Keeps" celebrates the superhero genre with its mighty chisel-chinned heroes and diabolical villains -- and then tosses the most-familiar elements of that setup on its head. The result is a delightful salute (and send up) to comic books; a world in which the good guys aren't as good as their propaganda posters proclaim ... and the villains' mission garners more sympathy than you might expect.
The book's Seventh City setting brims with super-folk, many of whom are like Keepsie, the story's lead protagonist. Sporting a power deemed too "passive" to be useful for official crimefighting by the local hero academy, Keepsie is mostly content to run her pub and scowl at the sycophantic TV reports about the city's caped crusaders. But when Seventh City's villains target her as the linchpin in a new conspiracy, Keepsie finds herself in an ethical quandary: she must either help the heroes who rejected her, or cave to the villains' whims...
...or does she? Keepsie and her pals create a third option, which forces them to stick together, stand against heroes and villains, and scrap for their lives.
It's a fun, funny and exciting romp, and author Lafferty executes the story brilliantly, crafting a city and denizens so well-defined, you'd think they were pulled from a top-selling four-color comic. Lafferty also deftly explores the ethics of superheroing, and the interpersonal conflicts that arise when blessed with such powers.
Perhaps best of all, "Playing for Keeps" reminds us that we can all be heroes -- a relevant and hopeful message for not just fans of the genre, but any reader. Highly recommended.
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