Customer Reviews

Soon I Will Be Invincible

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(57)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

It's pretty clear that Austin Grossman has spent a lot of time reading comic books. Only someone who has spent countless hours reading Miller, Moore, Byrne, Stern, Gaiman, et. al. would be able to take comic book conventions and turn them into a great piece of literary fiction. Fortunately for all of us, Soon I Will Be Invincible is proof that Grossman spent his time, and learned his lessons, well.

The best decision that Grossman made was to focus the story on one super villain and one superhero. By focusing the story so narrowly, Grossman is able to infuse a humanity into these characters that one wouldn't typically associate with archetypes. Narrowing the story also gives Grossman the freedom to explore and poke fun at some of the more hallowed "sacred cows" in comic book storylines, like why do super villains always lose to superheroes, no matter how smart/strong/prepared they are?

While he's certainly willing to overturn the medium's conventions, Grossman clearly has a fondness for the genre. As a result, the skewering never morphs into cynical satire; but, retains an enthusiasm that's completely appropriate for the style. That enthusiasm infects the writing with a playfulness and humor that makes reading Soon I Will Be Invincible a pleasure.

Soon I Will Be Invincible reads so well that it's easy to forget that writing a semi-serious book about a subject as caricatured as superheroes is not an easy task. Consequently, Grossman deserves a lot of credit for creating a wonderful homage to comic books that retains the wide-eyed innocence of the medium while incorporating the humanistic touches of the genre's current writers.

I'm amazed by the negative reviews, and glad to see them in the minority. I found this book a delight, and was amazed to see it was a first novel. The book consists of two intertwined stories - one told by a super-villian, the other by a new super-hero. I found the super-villian chapters a total delight, a real joy - the super-hero chapters are interesting, but much less so - that's why i give 4 stars instead of 5. Overall definitely a very good and fun read.

As any comic fan can tell you, PART of what made the original Watchmen series so enjoyable is that it brought superheroes down to our level. It gave them human emotions, motivations and neurosis similar to what most normal people encounter every day. A man who dons a mask and fights crime to avenge the death of a loved one is something we might aspire to. A man who dons a mask because it's the only place he feels safe is something we can understand.

In that way 'Soon I Will Be Invincible' does what Watchmen succeeded to spectacularly at...albeit in a much lighter way.

The book's approach to the world of superheroes is to mix 2 parts conventional superhero story with one part US Weekly. The characters are all stand-ins for other...copyrighted...characters you'll quickly recognize. They depart from their comic book alter egos with the more human portrayals they receive. They are the insecure, impatient, entitled people...all hiding behind agents and publicists...that they would be if they existed in the real world. The main character, Fatale, is an appropriate stand in for us. She never seems to get in the way of the plot and asks all the same questions we might ask if we were in her role.

Her counterpart, Dr. Impossible, is like a cross between Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom and Hannibal Lector. His goals and means are absurd but his motivations are ones that anyone who's been bullied on a playground can understand.

This probably isn't a book for everybody...but then what is? If you've ever sort of wondered if Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman act like a bunch of jerks after the credits roll on an episode of Super Friends then this might be a book for you.

Look, I'm not going to spend a lot of time telling you why you should read this book. Here's how it starts:

"This morning on planet Earth, there are one thousand, six hundred, and eighty-six enhanced, gifted, or otherwise superpowered persons. Of these, one hundred and twenty-six are civilians leading normal lives. Thirty-eight are kept in research facilities funded by the Department of Defense, or foreign equivalents. Two hundred and twenty-six are aquatic, confined to the oceans. Twenty-nine are strictly localized--powerful trees and genii loci, the Great Sphinx, and the Pyramid of Giza. Twenty-five are microscopic (including the Infinitesimal Seven). Three are dogs; four are cats; one is a bird. Six are made of gas. One is a mobile electrical effect, more of a weather pattern than a person. Seventy-seven are alien visitors. Thirty-eight are missing. Forty-one are off-continuity, permanent emigres to Earth's alternate realities and branching timestreams.

"Six hundred and seventy-eight use their powers to fight crime, while four hundred and forty-one use their powers to commit them. Forty four 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.

"I don't know why it makes you evil. It's just what you find at the extreme right edge of the bell curve, the one you'd get if six billion minds took an intelligence test and you looked at the dozen highest scores. Picture yourself on that graph, sliding rightward and downslope toward the very brightest, down that gradually gentler hill, out over the top million, the top ten thousand--all far smarter than anyone most people ever meet--out to the top thousand--and now things are getting sparser--the last hundred, and it's not a slope at all now, just a dot every once in a while. Go out to the last few grains of sand, the smartest of the smartest of the smartest, times a thousand. It makes sense that people would be a little odd out here. But you really have to wonder why we all end up in jail."

You can probably tell from these opening paragraphs whether or not this book will be your cup of tea. It was, very much, mine.

I'm not really much of a comic book reader, so most of my superhero experience comes from "Superfriends" reruns, video games, and the vast array of movies in the last decade. Because of that I probably missed a few in-jokes in this book. I'm just saying.

Anyway, the story for "Soon I Will Be Invincible" is pretty much a comic book without the pictures. Though actually it's simpler than some of the big comic book story arcs I've read about in recent years. I mean there's no time traveling or dimension hopping or any of that, though those things are referenced as having happened at one point.

When it begins, Doctor Impossible (the resident Dr. Doom of this universe) is imprisoned for the twelfth or more time. Meanwhile, Earth's mightiest hero CoreFire (based on Superman) has gone missing. Fatale, a cyborg who used to work for the government, is brought in as part of a new superteam known as the New Champions to find out what became of CoreFire.

Part of that involves interviewing Dr. Impossible. He uses this as a chance to escape and begin with his master plan for finally taking over the world. Fatale and the rest of the Champions--Damsel, daughter of a former hero and an alien princess; Blackwolf (based on Batman); Elphin (an elf warrior); Rainbow Fire, a teenage cyborg; Feral, a mutant cat; and Mr. Mystic (based on Dr. Strange)--go chasing after Dr. Impossible but in true superhero fashion are always one step behind.

Interspersed in the Dr. Impossible parts of the narration are flashbacks to his origins, although we never learn his entire real name. There's also some stuff about some of his previous schemes and battles with superheroes.

The whole thing plays out pretty straight. There's no real attempt to base the story in a realistic world like the recent Batman movies. There are no social concerns like "Watchmen". There's violence but it's not over-the-top without much in the way of gore. Not really any sex either. So basically it's a little more introspective Saturday morning cartoon.

Yet I have to say I was really curious to find out what Dr. Impossible was going to do and if he was finally going to succeed.

So overall it's fun light reading, especially if you like superheroes. And in terms of plot it's a cut above the more recent "After the Golden Age" I read.

That is all.

I got about half way through the book, and the whole thing just struck me as odd. Parts of the book seemed unedited, there were more than a few misspelled words, or even worse: whole sentences seemed as if that made no sense at all or they were somehow supposed to get an inside joke that we hadn't had the chance to get in on.

Above all, it was a good concept with less than rocketing prose.

However, I checked the credits page and saw that somehow I ended up with an unedited proof, not for sale. How exactly, I do not know. In retrospect, I would probably love the edited version. I wonder how many negative reviews were based on the same unedited proof....

This was one of the most fun books I have read in years. If you grew up reading comics like Superman, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, etc. you will love this book. The author masterfully crafts a world of heroes and villains. Great mini-backstories and nods to daring deeds and diabolical attempts to take over the world. This is a rich landscape you want to sink deeply into.

Perfect as a summer read. Not in the noir space, but set as a whimsical journey as told from the points of view of one hero and one villain.

If you liked The Incredibles movie, you will have no problem liking this book.

My only complaint is that it eventually had to end. Can't wait for the sequel.

I'm not much of a fiction reader, but the author has a good concept at work that keeps the reader interested. He switches back and forth between two characters, a rookie superhero and a old hat supervillain, each taking the lead narrator position every other chapter. So, once you might start getting board with the superhero type, you get to suddenly get back into the mind of the book's supervillain.

The story is indeed a comic book story, but it also parodies and brings out the inherent realities that would arise if superheroes were indeed real. So, you get to find out the superman-like character is not loved by everyone because he can be kind of a self-obsessed jerk and the League of superheroes in the book have a pr department and book deals and the like.

The story is pretty simple and straightforward, which works in context of the book, because the lack of intricacy of the plot is made up for by looking at a straightforward series of events from two different and opposing points of view. This method of storytelling allows the reader to have fun being in on all the in-jokes about comic book heroes as well as still making you wish you were a superhero. The author does an exceptional job at making you feel bad for the villain and yet completely realize he's self-sabotaging.

My only problem with this book is it makes me yearn for a sequel (something I'm not sure I've ever actually read in fiction). And I worry that Austin will simply move onto other things. Oh well, it was still loads of fun.

The title and premise sounded fascinating, but this book simply didn't live up to its promise. Grossman's novel follows the adventures of experienced, hyperintelligent supervillian Dr. Impossible and newbie superhero Fatale.

Following the disappearance of the world's greatest hero Corefire, Dr. Impossible breaks out of prison and prepares his latest in a series of bids for world domination. Following these events from the other team is Fatale, a cyborg newly initiated into the Champions super-team.

The Champions include Black Wolf (bearing a strong resemblance to a certain wealthy resident of Gotham), Damsel, Elphin (a holdover from faerie, the last elfish warrior), Feral (the mind of a man, the strength, agility and aggression of a tiger), Mr. Mystic, Rainbow Triumph, and Lilly (an apparently reformed supervillian--transluscent, amazingly strong and nearly impervious to harm).

The book explores the dynamics of a superhero team and the resentful inferiority complex motivating men (and supermen) such as Dr. Impossible, as well as how superheroes and supervillians may be more closely linked than we are often aware. But there seems little real reflection on the genre here and very little that comic books haven't done already. Even the surprise twist at the end (which I won't ruin for you) doesn't change the way I read the characters and situation.

Soon I Will Be Invincible is occasionally humorous, but merely taking the perspective of a bad guy is no longer an innovation, and Grossman doesn't add much to the basics of the genre. A much more interesting book along similar lines is Nobody Gets the Girl by James Maxey. If you're interested in other media, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is wonderfully weird.

Overall, I won't say this book is bad, but it's just not that good either.

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 Marvel's least inspired 80s B-list comics.

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.