Customer Reviews

Superpowers: A Novel

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Let me start off by saying that this was an entertaining read. The characters (while neither very developed nor very interesting) are pretty plausible, the premise of the story is interesting enough, and the editorial intervention of observer Marcus Hatch is priceless.

There are some major structural problems with the story. My biggest problem is that the characters are too similar for the reader to be able to easily differentiate them. No sooner do we get introduced to the characters does Schwartz start jumping around (each character has their own third person narrative) and it often becomes extremely difficult to tell who's doing what and why. Too many names thrown around, too few differences or idiosyncrasies.

Dialogue also sometimes seems contrived in a television serial sort of way-- somewhat unnatural, unproductive filler. I'm not sure what the characters are trying to achieve.

The story develops nicely. Essentially, the All-Stars, the superpower-endowed heroes (or antiheroes?) find they have neither a know-how for being superheroes, nor a society which can afford to let them roam free. Schwartz effectively develops this quandary through the climax, an extremely confusing combination of events with dozens of different characters in which the All-Stars finally come to terms with the fact that neither they nor their society can handle their superpowers.

[POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING] The concluding chapter(s) of the book is interesting, though, because it makes us wonder about the nature of truth. Who knows what is real and what isn't real? The escapades of the All-Stars are plausible and enjoyable from an entertainment standpoint, but the concluding editorial section makes us think twice-- perhaps about the whole story. In some ways I think this ending makes the book, but then again, I feel bad that we have to wait through a hundred and fifty pages before we get there.

Solid entertainment, but too scattered and loose to be a great masterpiece of literature.

This is one of those books that makes me wish I could put in half-star ratings. I am not ready to go 5 stars (it was amazing!) with this book, but it's definitely superior to other books I'd consider four stars.

I recently read and reviewed Soon I Will Be Invincible, another superhero novel. Superpowers is almost the conceptual inverse of that book.

This novel dealt in a sober and realistic way with what would happen to a group of friends who suddenly developed superpowers. There are no supervillains, no secret pacts with the police commissioner, no mighty halls of justice. Just five friends, lost, confused, and trying to deal with something they don't understand. The group decides to do what they can to help their city, but they're just as human as the rest of us, and their actions end up with real consequences.

The author doesn't reject comic book convention so much as he ignores it completely. Despite the fact that the world as described is clearly impacted by comics (Several well known DC and Marvel properties are mentioned in character discussions), I never felt like there was a list of comic book tropes to be trashed or followed. The story seemed like a logical progression of events as they would unfold. Assuming, of course, that they possessors of these powers decided to help people rather than rob banks or get rich on the talk show circuit. :)

The book's climax was gripping, moving, upsetting, and wonderful.

This is a genre I usually enjoy and I wanted to love this book but reading it left me cold. The story meanders around for a few hundred pages and then sort of fizzles out with no real conflict ever introduced or resolution achieved. In the absence of a compelling story arc I'd expect to see a strong focus on characterization and dialog but the novel falls even flatter on that front. The multitude of characters are one-dimensional with few distinctions. I found it difficult to keep track of who was who. They experience no growth over the plot arc and the dialog is adolescent and shallow. Quick read, and had its high points, but on the whole I found it lacking.

Superpowers is a different book about super powers. What do ordinary people do with superpowers? If you decide to use them for good, what if you fail? Are there consequences to gaining these new abilities? And what if you new superpowers don't help?
The tone of the book is very real. These are 5 college students that wake up with superpowers. But their concerns ar those of everyother college student. Grades, money, relationships, the next party , family. Parts of the book are funny, parts of it are sweet. There are echoes and references to all the superhero journeys. And because it begins in May of 2001, there is a little dread.

The best thing about this book is that it keeps me thinking. I read it about a week ago and the characters and events keep swimming around in my brain. Well worth a read, and a reread.

These are not your average comic book super heroes. Superpowers is a novel describing what happens when five young people wake up one morning to discover they have superpowers. Charlie can read minds while Jack is super fast. Harriet can become invisible; Caroline flies, and Mary Beth is super strong. Life is far from simple for these newly minted superheroes. It takes them a while to learn to control their powers, and longer to decide whether they should be using their powers to make their community safer.

Once they embark on their career as the All-Stars, Madison is polarized between the people who think the new vigilante group is great and those who want to track them down and stop them. The All-Stars also learn that life is far from simple even for super heroes. Their actions have unexpected consequences, and their powers exact a price.

David Schwartz gives us a glimpse of what might happen if ordinary people suddenly gained extraordinary powers. The book is told by a narrator, who also appears as a minor character in the story. It is a device that works very well. Schwartz is able to hint at coming problems without being too heavy handed. The characters of the five heroes are well developed and their life situations are realistic. As in all the best stories, you will find both humor and tragedy in this novel. The ending shows that the powers of super heroes have limits, but that ordinary people may be able to move past those limits.

David Schwartz has penned a fable for our time. Even the best of intentions may go awry, and nobody can control their own destiny completely. He shows both the fear and the strength of our society. Superpowers or not, he challenges us to take responsibility for our lives and our actions.

I found Superpowers to be a fun and satisfying read.

Armchair Interviews says: A most-interesting novel.

If you're expecting comic book heroes in an out to save the world cardboard plot, you're in for a wonderful surprise. David Schwartz' characters are real people you've met before, at school, at work, in your own family. Despite their sudden superpowers, they have the same hopes and fears we all face growing up, the hope that they can do something to make a difference in the world, and the fear that they never will. Like a diamond, this novel may have a few uncut edges at first, but ultimately it has a heart with facets and insights that shine. I look forward to reading more of his work.

I don't read for sadness, or depth. I read FANTASY, because I like to escape. This book provided that escape, until the end. I didn't mind the conflict that each "hero" had throughout, but I did mind the sad, depressing closure of it all. The fact that there was a "maybe" at the end, didn't help. It was a sad ending, which I abhor. I know, plenty of people like that stuff in their "literature", but I'm not one of them.

I liked how the author skipped the typical origins story, and just gave them their powers, and moved on, with the least possible explanation he could get away with. I liked how each individual enjoyed having their powers, and their own personal dilemmas kept things real, and helped the reader (me) to identify with the characters.

I liked the plot of the story as a whole, and the "there are some things that no one can fix" theme. All in all, good book, but again, I wasn't allow my escape.

I really wanted to like this book. I truly did. I love superhero fiction in all forms, but this offering falls short of the mark. Having the narrator of the book be one of the side characters that happens to be a conspiracy theorist works. The slice-of-life drama that goes along with the characters' backgrounds helps build the human angle of the narrative and provides a good counter-balance to them trying to get used to their powers and then trying to use them to help the city. The idea of random people gaining super-powers and then trying to figure out what to do with them is a solid premise on which to build a story. The possibility of the government both using and suppressing them is a neat twist, but unfortunately the tale never gets to the point where we can explore that. The book reads like the author had a good setup and then lost his way about halfway through. When he couldn't write himself out of the corner he had backed into, he decided to take it in the "OMG NINE-ELEVEN!!!" direction and then just let the characters' lives fall to pieces in the aftershocks of the terror event.

I read the book all the way through once. I picked it up for a second read thinking I might have missed something, got about halfway through it, and put it down. Turns out I hadn't missed anything. If you're in my neck of the woods, feel free to swing by the library where I donated it to check it out, but if you buy this one... well, don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed.

The author gave a really in depth portrayal of the superpowers that the college kids gained with empathy invoking descriptions. Having said that, however, I really didn't care for the book. These 5 college kids wake up with super powers and the book shows how they deal with the powers (telepathy, invisibility, super-speed, flying, and super-strength) but nothing happens. The kids fight crime for a little while, start to doubt whether they are doing good or not, and the book ends. The last line of the book is "I just don't know if it matters, in the end." That's exactly how I feel about reading this book -- it doesn't matter, so save yourself some time and skip it.

First off the bad parts. Yeah, it's a little cliche at first. It's hard to get around that in the genre though. Also, the hopping back and forth between characters and perspectives makes it difficult to understand what's going on at first. Something as simple as chapter headings would've helped a lot in that regard, ala A Song of Ice and Fire.

But, while not a deconstruction on the level of Watchmen, by any means, Mr. Schwartz focuses on the character elements vice their superhero-ness. We're given a couple of vignettes on how their powers are used to save people, but mostly they tend to underline emotional and character developments. And that's where I really felt this story shined. Don't get me wrong, I love a big superhero story, Civil War, Identity Crisis, Secret Wars, or Infinity Gauntlet, but I much prefer character driven pieces. Secret Identity, Sandman, Strangers in Paradise, etc.

Some people have groaned about the inclusion of 9/11. And I think that after ten years it's about time to start examining it not as an attack but as a psychological event. How many books have been written where the characters were impacted by Pearl Harbor, or the Kennedy Assassination, the fall of the Berlin Wall, or Desert Storm?