I read Charles Stross's latest Laundry Files novel yesterday:
The Rhesus Factor. Imaginative, complex plot, lots of heart. And incredible writing: How can you not love a book that includes writing like the following?
Charles Stross said:
KARMA'S A BITCH.
No, let me rephrase that:
Karma is your vengeful bunny-boiler ex, lurking in your darkened front hallway wearing an ice-hockey mask and carrying a baseball bat inscribed with BET YOU DIDN'T SEE THIS COMING.
Great book, but if you haven't read any of the Laundry Files, you should start with
The Atrocity Archives.
Lately, though, I've been on a tear of novels involving super-heroes. I've read the two
Superheroes in Prose Collections (the city the stories are set in is called Prose). It's by Sevan Paris and is pretty decent.
Before that (and all the following was in June) was Kevin Hardman's
Kid Sensation series (books 1-3 are in a collection). I don't know how far the series can go - Kid Sensation has a lot of powers and many powerful allies, and I don't know the author will continue to challenge the protagonist without a ridiculous escalation of threats. Before that was the
Psion series by Jacob Gowans. A little YA, but OK. Before that was Michael Bailey's
Action Figures: Secret Origins and
Action Figures: Black Magic Women. I really enjoyed these two novels. Bailey uses language as vivid as anything Stross has:
Michael Bailey said:
...he is seriously freaked out about this. Like, Mom and Dad just found out you smoked weed and drank beer before driving your little brother home in their car even though you have no license-level freaked.
Or
Code:
This isn't a[I] help me with my math[/I] request,
this is a [I]let me borrow your Lamborghini so I can learn
how to drive for my big NASCAR race[/I] request.
Before that was T. Mike McCurley's tales of a grizzled P.I./superhero named Francis Drake. They are
Firedrake Volume One and
Firedrake Volume Two. Well, he isn't really a P.I., but he's an homage to Dashiell Hammett even if he looks like a dragon and breathes fire.
Ian Thomas Healy's
Just Cause and
The Archmage were before that. A little bland, but fine. The protagonist is a speedster named Mustang Sally.
(A lot of these authors I found by reading
The Good Fight, a collection of short stories that is free on Kindle. Be warned, though: you might end up spending a lot of money on other books because you read this one for free.)
I like Jim Bernheimer's novels, especially
Confessions of a D-List Supervillain. I've reread it several times. He made a prequel,
Origins of a D-List Supervillain, but I haven't read it yet.
Jim Zoetewey's
The Legion of Nothing didn't hook me when I saw it on topwebfiction.com, but the preview of the novel did. I bought the novel and then binge-read the following installments. The protagonist of the Legion of Nothing stories, Nick, is a gadgeteer with a set of powered armor. He and his friends are grandchildren of World War II era heroes (or supervillains). Legion of Nothing is up there with the Action Figures novels as my favorites of what I have recently read. Marion G. Harmon's
Wearing the Cape novels are also very good.
The epic series
Worm is accessible at topwebfiction as well, but I think it is dark enough to count as horror. I read it earlier this year. I also like
Super Powereds, by Drew Hayes. They are free: I'd recommend checking them out.
If you like "High School for Supers" genre you might like R. J. Ross's "Cape High" series, starting with
Super Villain Dad. The first three volumes are bundled for Kindle on Amazon ("The Distort Arc").
A slightly juvenile but very enjoyable novel is
Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Super-Villain by Richard Roberts. The protagonist is also a gadgeteer, just beginning her career. Roberts has some other fantastic reads like
Quite Contrary and
Sweet Dreams are Made of Teeth, but they aren't superhero stories. Roberts has a knack for creating vivid characters in a few strokes that you genuinely care about. And he is highly imaginative- not as poetic as Neil Gaiman, but up there.
I think that's most of it. Steven Campbell's
Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy is set on a space station in the distant future. It is more Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy than a superhero novel, but is very funny.
I think it was the latest X-Men movie that got me all gung-ho for this genre. Before that I had been binging on Terry Pratchett's
Discworld novels, which I think are familiar to everyone.