A lot of comic books aren’t for kids anymore. With all these massive crossovers and events, a tween or teen can’t get his or her fix. Thankfully, there are books like SIDEKICKS to fill the void. Jack D. Ferraiolo’s prose novel follows the adventures of Scott Hutchinson, aka Bright Boy, a school kid who has hit puberty in a big way: having an unexpected moment captured live on TV while saving a pretty woman. Yup, Bright Boy got a boner.
The book is all about Scott dealing with his other side of life, being a superhero sidekick. It’s obvious on whom Bright Boy and his boss, Phantom Justice, are based. Even people not familiar with comics can figure it out, and the young-adult work delivers with plenty of fun reading. There are some great twists even we old-timers won’t see coming.
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The world has had enough and finally reaped its revenge. At least that’s the feeling you get when you start BURN DOWN THE SKY from James Jaros. The readers are never told fully what happened to cause this existence people are now living. We are only given small snippets in the chapter headings, but it’s clear that climate change had the final say, and it won.
It’s only later on we are told of a virus that killed billions. In an unnamed year well after those events, we find a small community living in the wastelands, and a team of marauders are headed straight to this encampment with a prisoner: a leader of the community who was out on his own.
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Do you miss the nautical novels of Patrick O’Brian, adventurous tales of the sea, and doughty warriors involved in daring escapades?
Can you handle a shift in ancestry and time from Englishmen fighting during the Napoleonic Wars to Spaniards wreaking havoc in the 17th century?
If so, then you should be reading Arturo Pérez-Reverte and his series of books featuring Captain Alatriste, the latest of which is PIRATES OF THE LEVANT, translated into English by Margaret Jull Costa.
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To coincide with one of the summer’s last big movies, I’m revisiting a few series that have not been covered in a long time, and two of which left serious bad tastes in my mouth. So let’s delve into another column of guns and explosions while we bask in that testosterone fest called EAT PRAY LOVE. (To be honest, there was only one summer movie I went to and that was INCEPTION. My mind is still spinning … wondering how Ellen Page still gets acting jobs.)
DEATH MERCHANT #38: THE BURNING BLUE DEATH by Joseph Rosenberger — How this series lasted so long is a head-scratcher. I figured it must have improved since the first , but no, this 1980 entry is just as much of a mess as the last one I read. Richard Camellion, aka The Death Merchant, is still as bland, jumping from country to country with his weapons.
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Ben Bova, one of our elder statesmen of science fiction, has spent the better part of his prolific career tracing humanity’s destiny towards other planets and beyond. So THE HITTITE, a historical novel of ancient Greece, might seem strange at first.
But his truly devoted readers know that several titles in his “Orion” series involve a time traveler exploring parts of the unexplained past. This new work leaves out any sci-fi trappings and instead presents the story of the Trojan War from the point of view of an outsider.
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