Who Can Save Us Now?: Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories (Paperback)

~ Owen King (Editor), John McNally (Editor)
Key Phrases: ghetto man, ordinary superheroes, brown bodysuit, The Rememberer, Manna Man, Abigail Paylor (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Twenty-two of today's most talented writers (and comics fans) unite in Who Can Save Us Now?, an anthology featuring brand-new superheroes equipped for the threats and challenges of the twenty-first century -- with a few supervillains thrown in for good measure. Edited and with contributions by Owen King (We're All in This Together) and John McNally (America's Report Card), Who Can Save Us Now? enriches the superhero canon immeasurably.

With mutations stranger than the X-Men and with even more baggage than the Hulk, this next generation of superheroes is a far cry from your run-of-the-mill caped crusader. From the image-conscious and not-very-mysterious masked meathead who swoops in and sweeps the tough girl reporter off her feet; to the Meerkat, who overcomes his species' cute and cuddly image to become the resident hero in a small Midwestern city; to the Silverfish, "the creepy superhero," who fights crime while maintaining the slipperiest of identities; to Manna Man, who manipulates the minds of televangelists to serve his own righteous mission, these protectors (and in some cases antagonizers) of the innocent and the virtuous will delight literary enthusiasts and comic fans alike.

With stunning illustrations by artist Chris Burnham, Who Can Save Us Now? offers a vibrant, funny, and truly unusual array of characters and their stories.

About the Author

Owen King is the author of We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Bellingham Review, The Boston Globe, One Story, Paste Magazine, and Subtropics, among other publications. He lives in New York with his wife, the novelist Kelly Braffet. In researching the events described in "The Meerkat" he benefited from the kind assistance of Maile Chapman, and the scholarship of Peter Golub, Russian translator and expert in the history of Soviet Nuclear Defense Robots. Thank you, both. As to the matter of his favorite superhero, King writes that after agonizing deliberations, he has settled on Captain Marvel, because "no matter what the situation, it can almost always be improved by simply shouting 'SHAZAM!'"

John McNally is the author of two novels, The Book of Ralph and America's Report Card, and a short story collection, Troublemakers. His next book, Ghosts of Chicago, a collection of short stories, will be published this fall. A native of Chicago, he lives with his wife, Amy, in North Carolina, where he is associate professor of English at Wake Forest University. The first word he ever spoke was "Batman," who has remained, in his darker incarnations, his favorite superhero. John's first creative work, a play written in the fourth grade, featured an overweight superhero who gets stuck inside a phone booth while changing into his costume. He is happy to return to the genre, albeit thirty-four years later.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; Free Press Trade Pbk. Ed edition (July 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416566449
• ISBN-13: 978-1416566441
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #277,694 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some very good, some very average, October 20, 2008

By	Elmore Hammes "Writer and Reader" (Anderson, IN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Most short story collections I have read have been fairly even in the stories contained within the particular collection, as far as how much I have enjoyed them or how well I felt they were written. Who Can Save Us Now? is an exception to that.

There are several very good stories that I enjoyed quite a bit - notably Tom Biessell's My Interview with the Avenger and Owen King's The Meerkat.

However, others were not up to par for me, with weak, obvious or missing plots (In Cretaceous Seas, Mr. Big Deal).

The good ones were worth getting through the not-so-good ones, none of them are overly long to feel your time was wasted. Four or five stars for the good ones, two or three for the others, average rating for the book of three stars.

3.0 out of 5 stars Semi - super stories...., March 14, 2009

By	BJ "Brett Starr" (East Peoria, IL United States) - See all my reviews

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Finally finished it!

"Who Can Save Us Now?" is good, not great!

If you where to only read the best stories, it's a five star quality book, but everyone has their own opinion on which stories were best, so your stuck reading them all and deciding for yourself....

It seemed to me that alot of the writers didn't quite grasp what a super hero story is and got totally of course & to make matters worse, their stories were long winded!

The book has twenty two stories, eight of which I thought were exceptionally written:

Remains of the Night by John McNally (* 1 of 4 best)

The Pentecostal Home for Flying Children by Will Clarke

The Thirteenth Egg by Scott Synder (* 1 of 4 best)

The Snipper by Nora Jablonski

Man Oh Man - It's Manna Man by George Singleton (* 1 of 4 best)

My Interview w/ the Avenger by Tom Bissell

Mr. Big Deal by Sean Doolittle

The Somewhat Super by David Yoo (* 1 of 4 best)

Start with one of those 1st and proceed with caution on the other stories not mentioned~

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Super Fiction!, August 6, 2008

By	Shawn "bookmonster" (Cedar Rapids, IA USA) - See all my reviews

This book is not only about superheroes, it's about superheroes by people who know how to write. Tom Bissell's story is about a magazine writer who secures a one-on-one interview with a superhero-slash-masked vigilante. John McNally's story is about a human-sized silverfish superhero (dubbed "the creepy superhero") as told from his servent's perspective. Will Clarke's story is about the offspring of a certain libidinous superhero: the orphan boys now fly around Shreveport and spy on sunbathing girls. David Yoo writes about a group (a support group?) of men and women with dubious powers; nonetheless, they're afraid the government will want to exploit them. Sam Weller's "The Quick Stop 5" is about a group of slackers who work at a Quick Stop and gain powers based on what they're holding when there's a toxic tanker spill in the parking lot. Some of these are origin stories in the best comic book tradition. Some are stories about the dark nature of being a superhero. Some are hilarious. Some are downright creepy, like Richard Dooling's "Roe #5", which reminds me of the kind of scary old-time sci-fi stories I read when I was a kid. (Except that this one isn't for kids.) This book has killer Russian robots (Owen King's story), a young girl who can use her power only once (Cary Holliday's story), a town menaced by the presence of superheroes (Michael Czyniejewski's story ). And more. Jennifer Weiner, who's famous for her book GOOD IN BED, has a story in here, too. I know I wrote mostly about the stories by guys (probably because I'm a guy) but there are stories by several women, too. This is a great book. In all honesty, it may be more to the liking of someone who likes Michael Chabon, etc., than someone who strictly reads superhero comic books, but I would think anyone interested in reading new takes on an old genre would be interested in this one. BTW...Nothing I wrote here is a spoiler. These are just the premises to get the stories going. I tried to touch on several of them because I don't think the person above me (or is the dude below me?) even read the book, which is too bad. It's a truly unique collection.