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Superhero Prose Fiction Recs
12-31-2011, 08:20 AM
I have been on a kick of reading superhero fiction lately.
So in the interests of turning up some more recommendations I thought I would pass along my own.
My Recs:
Published Prose:
"Soon, I will be invincible!" by Austin Grossman
Just awesome. A look at a Dr. Doom type guy from inside his head, among others.
"In Hero Years... I'm Dead" by Michael Stackpole
Also awesome. A former hero tries to rebuild his life after being gone for many years.
Web Serials:
"Worm" by Wildbow
Very good, but not finished. A young girl grows into her powers and ends up almost-accidentally turning into a super-villain.
Link: http://parahumans.wordpress.com/
"Legion of Nothing"
A group of childhood friends deal with being "Legacy" heros and stepping into the very big shoes left for them.
Link: http://inmydaydreams.com/
"Whateley Academy stories" by Many.
I have gone through most of it, and most of it is fairly high quality. Warning for TG.
Link: Crystallhall.org
Any good fanfic for established universes or the like would be fine, or even decent COH fanfic.
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Interviewing Leather. Awesome story about a music reporter and a supervillian.
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Yes, I have read that one and it is indeed awesome. Also complete which is good.
I have also read this one:
http://drewhayes.digitalnovelists.com/sp
"Super Powereds"
The idea is a bunch of kids that were formerly pariahs for having uncontrollable powers are now adjusting to having control.
The Wanderer
Unregistered
I'm assuming that superhero fanfic doesn't count for this, that we're looking exclusively at original stories here?
Not sure if it counts, but The List is at least borderline in that genre, and fairly interesting IMO.
It's a first-person serial (monthly updates, IIRC) told from the perspective of someone who makes a career - though not a living per se - hunting down and killing superheroes. The trick is that in that world, superpowers are available pretty much exclusively to those with the staggering degree of wealth necessary to pay for the research and the technological self-modification necessary - so those "superheroes" are apparently all rich kids on ego and/or power trips, most of them with some degree of sadism or another.
Combine that with the facts that the wealth is acquired by oppressive corporate tactics on the backs of the general population and the research which makes those superpowers possible involves extensive human experimentation, and top it off with the fact that these "superheroes" run a good enough PR machine that they still manage to spin themselves in the public eye as the good guys, and it's surprisingly easy to sympathize with the POV "villain"'s perspective.
The Last Skull is another good one, this one closer to the typical superhero vein; I won't try to describe it, as I don't think I could convey much without spoiling the story, but it makes a good read and I'm looking forward to a hoped-for sequel.
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www.fanfiction.net/s/3588436/1/Deadpan_Love
Deadpan Love is an excellent fic based on the old Teen Titans cartoon.
www.fanfiction.net/s/4205893/1/Reset
Reset! is an interesting Young Justice fic focused on Impulse.
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Stuff I've read recently...
Mercedes Lackey. al, Invasion. Pretty explicitly CoH fanfic with the serial numbers filed off.
Kesler & Kittridge, Black and White - great look into the ethics and morality of Heroes and Villains
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Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
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I dont mind the fanfics for establish mainstream settings at all, actually.
Sometimes they rely on background knowledge of series that I don't know however.
Especially settings like x-men with massive secondary casts that I have no clue who they are when they show up.
"The Last Skull" is great, I have also read the other project the author started but that appears to be stalled.
"Notorious",
A very bad man has his conscience wake up one day.
Link: http://notorious-online.blogspot.com/
I have also read "Invasion", the second book of which is also available here:
http://www.baenebooks.com...world-chronicle-arc.aspx
Interesting, but I often find anthologies frustrating because there are always some stories I want more of than others.
I will definitely add "The List" and "Black and White" to my reading list.
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In Worm, Taylor is pretty much screwed as a heroine. Given some of the stuff she's pulled, the fact that the only person who knows she wanted to be a hero is a jerk and that, with the best will in thwe world, Captain America would have severe doubts at this point, she's never going to be accepted.
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Yeah, I figured as much as soon as they described what her powers actually were.
Her only wait out now is up.
If some low level person tries to flip, they just toss them in jail. She has to make it big enough as a villain that the powers that be are more willing to use her than lock her up.
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Wearing the Cape by Marion G Harmon
and for something....related
Death to the Centurion by Mark Misercola
Granted both are e-books to buy for the Nook or the Kindle, but they are decent reads
If you can find the books, since they are out of print:
Path of the Bold
Path of the Just
Unsure about this book of short stories:
Superheroes edited by John Varley an Rica Mainhardt.
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Tom Mathews aka Disruptor
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Pulp with that?
01-02-2012, 07:34 PM
All three Red Panda novels are excellent, but they assume that you are fans of the radio series.
www.decoderringtheatre.com
If you haven't listened to the Red Panda or Black Jack Justice yet, go visit Gregg and the crew over at Decoder Ring. This is pure pulp goodness.
I will also throw my kudos behind 'Soon I will be Invincible' easily my favorite read in the deconstructionist superhero genre.
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VladimirTherin Wrote:I dont mind the fanfics for establish mainstream settings at all, actually. Then I have to strongly recommend :
Catwoman Cat-Tales
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children
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Aha! I knew I was forgetting something. I have read most of Cat-Tales but I am by no means current.
@Rev Dark: How much backstory do you miss just reading the novels?
@ShinDangaioh: It really irks me the way publishers arent more behind flipping their out of print back catalogs into E-Books, it would seem to be a no-brainer way for them to make a lot of money and ensure they remain relevant.
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According to one of the Bean Library editorials I remember, the main reason Bean (one of if not the most progressive companies on this front) finds the going slow is that very little is actually stored in electronic form, so to produce electronic editions they have to pay someone to OCR it, then go through the copyedit process looking for errors, and then put it all into html or pdf or whatever format in a way that looks respectable, so it's not nearly as simple as dumping a few text files on a web server.
- CD
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
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The Academy of Superheroes
This is an original fiction universe from rec.arts.comics.creative. The URL goes to the ASH web archive. Created and written mostly by Dave Van Domelen, who's a Physics professor in his real-world secret identity.
The prose quality is extremely high. It's all good, aside from a couple of stories (I'd stay away from the couple tagged LNH 2023). ASH has the some of the best worldbuilding I've ever seen. Awesome explanations for superpowers, high technology and magic. There's a great deal of attention to detail in the setting and timeline, as well. The ASH stories are mostly set in the 2020s, in a world recovering from a near-apocalypse that claimed the lives of the last generation of superheroes.
Stories are available on the site in plain text format and ebook downloads. There's a lot of them - these guys have been writing since 1998. The ASH website has a guide on where to get started reading ASH, though even that guide's coming on ten years old itself. But everything's numbered comic-book issue-style, so it's easy to figure out what's older and newer. If you're willing to start diving into this, the ASH material is really rewarding.
-- Acyl
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Here's a few that have appeared in past Update threads.
Polarity (Starring Mavel's Shocker)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5124106/1/Polarity
and it's (in progress) sequel, Transistor
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6958790/1/Transistor
Inviolate (starring Lex Luthor)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5536346/1/Inviolate
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VladimirTherin Wrote:Aha! I knew I was forgetting something. I have read most of Cat-Tales but I am by no means current.
@Rev Dark: How much backstory do you miss just reading the novels?
@ShinDangaioh: It really irks me the way publishers arent more behind flipping their out of print back catalogs into E-Books, it would seem to be a no-brainer way for them to make a lot of money and ensure they remain relevant. I've read the first two of the Red Panda novels, and I can say that you really don't need to know much beyond the fact that Red Panda is a Mystery Man. Gregg Taylor does a good job of introducing the character in the first novel, Tales of the Red Panda: The Crime Cabal. However, I agree with Shayne; listen to the show. It's starts good, gets better, and is one of the things I really look forward to listening to. The "Black Jack Justice" series is also good (if you like detective stories, which I do).
Ebony the Black Dragon
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Since you wish to read fanfics as well, I'll go with the old standby of Faux DC.
http://www.fauxdc.com/
With the New 52, it seems to be the place to go for well written post-Criss DC Earth stories. The seperation point was the Millenium Giants storyline.
I don't know if 5 Earths Project is still going or not.
As to the publishers of Path of the Just and Path of the Bold, well they can't. They went out of business before e-book readers made a major impact.
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Tom Mathews aka Disruptor
For the gold standard of comic book fanfic...
Shocker: Legit
It really is that awesome.
Also violent and dark, but awesome.
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There was even a shout out to Shocker: Legit in Polarity. 8)
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