Superpowers: A Novel (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Schwartz borrows heavily from classic comic books in this eager-to-please but unsatisfying debut. After five college friends wake up after a night of partying to discover they have superpowers, they band together as the All Stars, supernatural crime fighters straight out of Madison, Wis. From there, the plot packs few surprises: the team—Charlie, Jack, Harriet, Mary Beth and Caroline—embark on dozens of good Samaritan adventures. While it's entertaining enough (in a pulpy way) for a while, characters remain mostly static, and the narrative never attains any sort of urgency, so that by the time 9/11 comes into play—and, regrettably, it does—the text reads like an ill-considered parody. (June)
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From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Five college students in Madison, WI, drink some home brew together one May evening in 2001 and the next morning they each have a new power. One can fly, one is superstrong, one can run faster than the eye can see, one can become invisible, and one can read minds. They spend some time learning about the limits of their superpowers, but, eventually, they decide to use their newfound abilities to do what they can to help society—stopping crimes, solving crimes, rescuing those in danger, and so on. The premise of this first novel sounds lighthearted, and there certainly are funny moments. But Schwartz seems more interested in the confusing and difficult aspects of having such talents. He doesn't worry about how the powers came to be, or why each person got his or her particular one. Instead, he asks: Whom do you tell? How do you conduct an ordinary life? What is the difference between being a crime fighter and being a vigilante? What are these new powers doing to one's physical and psychological well-being? This is a thoughtful but entertaining novel, with interesting characters. It is respectful of the genre of the superhero comic book, while taking the concept in a different direction.—Sarah Flowers, Santa Clara County Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 377 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Advance Uncorrected proof edition (June 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307394409
• ISBN-13: 978-0307394408
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #633,541 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars ok, June 25, 2008

By	Nat Zorach (Lancaster, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, thoughtful, and moving, August 6, 2008

By	Eric D. Honaker (Burnsville, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not really that super - an average read, at best., January 23, 2009

By	F. E. Hinz "book collector" (Effingham, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.