Buy new:
$16.99$16.99
FREE delivery: Wednesday, March 15 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon.
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Buy used: $1.59
Other Sellers on Amazon
+ $3.99 shipping
90% positive over last 12 months
Usually ships within 4 to 5 days.
& FREE Shipping
76% positive over last 12 months
& FREE Shipping
85% positive over last 12 months
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Masked Paperback – July 20, 2010
| Price | New from | Used from |
- Kindle
$12.99 Read with Our Free App - Paperback
$16.9944 Used from $1.59 15 New from $7.99
Enhance your purchase
- Print length416 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJuly 20, 2010
- Dimensions5.31 x 1.04 x 8.25 inches
- ISBN-101439168822
- ISBN-13978-1439168820
"It's Not The Three Little Pigs (It’s Not a Fairy Tale)" by Josh Funk
Meet the three (ahem―four!) little pigs as they convince the narrator to tell a slightly different version of their fairy tale.| Learn more
Popular titles by this author
Product details
- Publisher : Gallery Books; 1st edition (July 20, 2010)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 416 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1439168822
- ISBN-13 : 978-1439168820
- Item Weight : 12.9 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 1.04 x 8.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,916,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,519 in Superhero Science Fiction
- #16,269 in Short Stories Anthologies
- #27,923 in Science Fiction Adventures
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Lou Anders is the author of the novels Frostborn, Nightborn, and Skyborn, the three books of the Thrones & Bones series of middle grade fantasy adventure novels, as well as Star Wars: Pirate's Price. Anders is the recipient of a Hugo Award for editing and a Chesley Award for art direction. A prolific speaker, Anders regularly attends writing conventions around the country. He and his family reside in Birmingham, Alabama. You can visit Anders online at louanders.com and ThronesandBones.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter at @LouAnders.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
It seems we have created a sub-cottage industry to the original super hero comic book trade. This has meant more original efforts that move the genre forward. Take into consideration the movies Hancock, Unbreakable and The Incredibles, Michael Chabon's Pulitzer-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay, Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman, and one will see that characters in bright tights and capes have evolved.
And to my surprise, while reading this collection, I read a story in the February 26, 2011 edition of The Wall Street Journal called, Bam! Pow! Superhero Groups Clash In an Epic Battle of Good vs. Good. It covers the true story of individuals dressing up as superheroes in the Seattle area (among them Phoenix Jones - Guardian of Seattle, Zetaman, Knight Owl, Dark Guardian, and Mr. Raven Blade). And like the stories in Masked these real-life characters are revealed to have conflicts amongst themselves. Life imitating art indeed.
This collection has a dark and deep tone that appeals. The stories are all highly original and cover a range of subjects that add reality to the unreal. It begins with Cleansed and Set in Gold by Matthew Sturges which introduces a mash-up of epic proportions including "plausible" superheroes as conflicted individuals. It is a great kick-off story with fun lines given the genre like "I don't have a fascinating origin story" and "His conclusion was that the Ghouls are a gift from the seventy-second century, sent back in time by some enterprising villain to plague the twenty-first".
"Atomahawk", "Retaliator", "She-Devil" are members of "The Law Legion" waging a never-ending battle against "Prime Mover". How awesome are those names? This tale, Where Worms Dieth Not, explores the challenges of crime fighting and the dark abysses it can send even the most noble. Another story in the collection called, Secret Identity, explores homophobia (yes homophobia). I will not be a spoiler here as the story is ingenious.
And how about a story from the villain's perspective? The Non-Event by Mike Carey covers two-bit hoods who benefit from an occurrence which gave one in ten people various super powers. This line explains it, "I don't mean supervillains, you understand: I mean good, old fashioned burglars, bank robbers, and stick-up merchants who just happen to have picked up powers during the endoclasm. We're not interested in ruling the world, or destroying it, or having a big pointless punch-up with a bunch of twats in tights. We just ply our trade, when we're allowed it, do the job, and then clock off."
The collection is wildly entertaining exploring emotions, situations, and relationships in the super hero universe with humor and intelligence.
Superhero prose has definitely come around since comics began to be seen as a more respectable art form. Most of the focus in this book is on twists on the superhero genre that still come across as (mostly) respectful of the cape-and-cowl set, with a lot of the stories written by people who are best known for writing actual comic books.
The stories include:
* “Cleansed and Set in Gold” by Matthew Sturges, about a hero whose powers rely on a secret just as terrifying as the plague of monsters afflicting the countryside;
* “Where Their Worm Dieth Not” by James Maxey, which focuses on the question of why superheroes and supervillains die and are reborn so often;
* “Secret Identity” by Paul Cornell, a wonderful and very funny story about a hero whose secret identity has its own secret identity;
* “The Non-Event” by Mike Carey, a heist-gone-wrong tale told from the POV of a low-level supercrook;
* “Thug” by Gail Simone, an absolutely outstanding tale in which we get the heartbreaking life story of a superstrong but dimwitted super-lackey;
* “Vacuum Lad” by Stephen Baxter, a sci-fi tale about a guy whose power lets him survive in outer space;
* “A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows” by Chris Roberson, which focuses on a magic-using pulp-era hero battling demons in L.A.;
* “Downfall” by Joseph Mallozzi, a mystery in which a reformed villain tries to find out who killed Earth’s most powerful hero;
* “A to Z in the Ultimate Big Company Superhero Universe (and Villains Too)” by Bill Willingham, which is pretty much exactly what the title says — a complete superhero universe, wrapped around a big summer crossover and alphabetized for easy reference;
* and plenty of other stories besides.
Any sort of anthology like this is going to have some good stories and some not-so-good stories, and I’m glad to say that most of these fall on the good side of the equation. Far and away, my favorite stories were the ones by Gail Simone, Bill Willingham, and Paul Cornell, but the majority of the stories in this book are just plain great. Even the ones I disliked still had some small bits I was able to enjoy.
Not a perfect anthology, but certainly one of the better ones of this type I’ve seen. if you’re a superhero fan, this is definitely something you’ll want to pick up.
I wouldn't give it to a tween or earlier - there are a couple of stories that might be a bit mature (no, not "adult") for them.






