Another Wiscon dealer room purchase. This time I bought the book at the Small Beer Press table, even though the book isn’t published by Small Beer Press. Manning the booth was David Schwartz himself, though I didn’t realize it until I came back to pick up my purchase later. I guess he got to sell his book in return for slave labor.
Superpowers was nominated for a Nebula, and deservedly so, though it didn’t win. It’s a realistic
take on superheroes, focusing on the personal. In the story, having super abilities isn’t a boon. The five main characters were all richly conceived. I disagree with some reviewers who took issue with the number and quality of secondary characters. I thought they added quite a bit to the story. Unlike a lot of superhero fiction, the conflict is primarily that of self-doubt and that doubt is not caused by facing a nemesis. It’s also a pretty quick read.
Charlie and Jack invite their downstairs neighbors, fellow University of Wisconsin Madison students Caroline, Harriet and Mary Beth, to a party. The vague purpose is to get laid, but a flash of light in the sky gives all of them superpowers. The young people wake up the next morning and discover their new abilities. Charlie can hear people’s thoughts, Jack has superspeed, Mary Beth has strength, Harriet can turn invisible, and Caroline can fly.
When I was in elementary school, I used to make-believe I had super-vision. Walking to school along 3rd Avenue in what is now Shoreline, I convinced myself I could see details on 195th Street all the way from Richmond Beach Road a half mile to the south. Oh, how I wanted superhuman abilities! What could be bad about having powers?
The students in Superpowers struggle to cope, even from the beginning. In addition, to standard learning my powers
difficulties, all have different ideas on what to do with them. For instance, Caroline tries to hide her flying from her fellow superfriends, even. She likes the solitude and serenity she gets floating above the Earth. She has to be dragged into the nascent crime-fighting group, the All-Stars.
The biggest issue for all of them are their secret identities. They want to maintain real lives while also being superheroes. A conspiracy is pretty hard to maintain though. People such as family members, co-workers, roommates, and a campus underground newspaper all start to figure it out. I liked following the interactions between the All-Stars and others.
The students are all pretty normal middle-class type people. That’s not too out of place for something set in Madison, Wisconsin, but it does make them all seem fairly similar. Personality-wise, they aren’t. But in terms of their situations, they feel sort of cookie-cutter. I do wish there were a little more diversity in their economic classes, or their family background, or even the languages they spoke. Several secondary characters have different backgrounds. One of my favorite interactions was between Caroline and a man she thinks is trying to kill himself. Turns out he’s José the dishwasher at the restaurant where she works and hasn’t noticed him before. Hispanic servants just blend in when you are white and self-involved like Caroline. The interactions with these characters of different backgrounds sparked the most interesting developments. I’d love to see what Schwartz could do if he made that the focus of a novel, because I think he’d do a really good job with it.
Anyhow, for a fairly small investment of time because it’s an easy read, it’s a fairly substantial story.
A few other blogged reviews:
- Seen, Read and Heard
- Andrew Wheeler at ComicMix
- Torque Control
- The Book Swede
- Electronic Cerebrectomy
- Once Upon a Bookshelf
- Calico Reaction
Title: Superpowers
Author: David J. Schwartz
Cover creator: Norm Breyfogle (illustrator) / Si Scott (title designer)
Imprint / publisher: Vintage UK
Format: Paperback
Length: 376 p.
Publication date: June 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0-099-51610-1
Subject: College students — Fiction
Subject: Heroes — Fiction
