Soon I Will Be Invincible

[Dr.Volt]

Moderators, I hope you don't mind me posting this here as I don't see an area for novels.

Have you all heard of a book that is coming out next month called Soon I Will Be Invincible?  It is a book using the comic book superhero genre as a theme...and it sounds really promising.  I don't think it's a graphic novel but an actual text novel.  It just seems that there has not been an abundance of literature devoted to this genre' that we know and love so well.  But with the success of superheroes in popular media (i.e. movies and TV) in recent years...we may well see more.  And I say, HURRAY!!

You can read an exerpt here if you are interested:  http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375424861&view=excerpt

And you can pre-order it here:  http://www.amazon.com/Soon-Will-Be-Invincible-Novel/dp/0375424865/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-3432833-9416047?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179151559&sr=8-1

I'm first in line to check it out at the local library.  And I may shell out my hard earned cash if it's decent enough. We'll see.

Any how, anyone else heard of this novel?  Are you looking forward to it's release?  Plan to buy a copy???

[zuludelta]

Thanks for the links!

Just read the excerpted chapter... looks like some decent, lighthearted stuff bordering on parody, and I might have to check it out when it appears in my local library. Hopefully the rest of the book is written in a similar vein, since most serious "text-only" novels I've read that deal with an author's original superheroes end up falling flat on their face and turn into unintentional comedy (anybody read Mel Odom's F.R.E.E.Lancers and F.R.E.E.Fall?).

The thing about superhero novelizations is that unless they're based on already existing and previously published comic book properties, the writer has to work extra hard to make the characters compelling and interesting... there's a strong visual element to superhero character design that's at the core of the genre, and by resorting to a text-only medium, the writer is basically asking the reader to supply the visual design element him/herself. I think this is why the Wild Cards anthologies didn't really achieve breakthrough success, despite being written by some of science fiction's established authors. With any other genre fiction, a capable writer should be able to set up standard visual themes and elements, but when you're dealing with the superhero genre, where visuals can range from the utterly absurd to the outright impossible, it takes a writer with a flair for visual storytelling to suggest images in the reader's head for which the reader might not have any reasonable frame of reference. I mean, think of a classic Steve Ditko panel from "Strange Tales" or Kirby's work on "The Eternals"... even an experienced writer would have at least some measure of difficulty in getting the same punch across in words.

[Dr.Volt]

Yes, I think that is the challenge for translating the Superhero genre into text only media is that you kind of lose the power of the visuals.  But this book seems to be very well crafted.  I am definitely going to give it a chance.

I read one of the Wild Cards books years ago.  It was a good idea...but it was too scattered.  Too many characters written by too many authors.  It was very hard to follow.  Yep, I agree, I think this and the lack of images led to it's demise.  Hopefully this book will be much more tight plot wise.

[Alaric]

I read one of the Wild Cards books years ago.  It was a good idea...but it was too scattered.  Too many characters written by too many authors.  It was very hard to follow. 

I didn't find that to be a problem with those books at all, personally.

Thanks for the links!

Just read the excerpted chapter... looks like some decent, lighthearted stuff bordering on parody, and I might have to check it out when it appears in my local library. Hopefully the rest of the book is written in a similar vein, since most serious "text-only" novels I've read that deal with an author's original superheroes end up falling flat on their face and turn into unintentional comedy (anybody read Mel Odom's F.R.E.E.Lancers and F.R.E.E.Fall?).

The thing about superhero novelizations is that unless they're based on already existing and previously published comic book properties, the writer has to work extra hard to make the characters compelling and interesting... there's a strong visual element to superhero character design that's at the core of the genre, and by resorting to a text-only medium, the writer is basically asking the reader to supply the visual design element him/herself. I think this is why the Wild Cards anthologies didn't really achieve breakthrough success, despite being written by some of science fiction's established authors. With any other genre fiction, a capable writer should be able to set up standard visual themes and elements, but when you're dealing with the superhero genre, where visuals can range from the utterly absurd to the outright impossible, it takes a writer with a flair for visual storytelling to suggest images in the reader's head for which the reader might not have any reasonable frame of reference. I mean, think of a classic Steve Ditko panel from "Strange Tales" or Kirby's work on "The Eternals"... even an experienced writer would have at least some measure of difficulty in getting the same punch across in words.

I think the problem is that the super hero genre has been so closely associated with the comic book medium that people just don't know how to translate it to a non-visual medium, or are unwilling to sample such a thing. Any genre is going to be different when done in different ways- horror films are very different from horror novels, for example. I personally enjoyed the Wild Cards series- well, the seven or so that I read. I've also enjoyed a lot of the fan fiction written by people right here on the forums. The super hero genre has been successful in comic books, comic strips, animated tv shows, live action tv shows, and movies, all of which are admittedly visual in nature. I think to really make the jump to (non-graphic) novels in a lasting way will require some unconventional thinking, skillful writing, and clever ideas, but I think it's entirely possible.

[Jakew]

Soon I Will Be Invincible ... I just tried reading the excerpt, but got turned off by all the self-reference and the amount of times the main character says 'I'.

[captainspud]

Just finished it. It's a really awesome book, very cleverly written. I heartily recommend this to anybody here.