Imagine this: New York City has been hit with a dirty bomb. No, I'm not talking about a bomb that tells inappropriate nursery rhymes, I'm talking about a bomb that spreads radioactive waste, slowly killing everything in its wake. Throw in some climate change-related disasters, a super addictive online video game and you've got the perfect recipe for the dystopian sic-fi thriller that is Shovel Ready. Spademan is a hit-man, before that, when the world was still semi-normal, he was a garbage man. Then the terrorists dropped the bomb on New York, killing his wife and his will to carry on as he did before. He has specific rules about his job, he kills both men and women but he won't kill children because according to him that's "a different kind of psycho." Then, out of the blue, he's given a job with a very lucrative payoff. The catch? The target is an eighteen year-old pregnant girl. He refuses the job and instead of her killer, he becomes her guardian. He quickly learns that she's the daughter of a wealthy television evangelist that spends all of his time the same way the other super-rich people do: jacked into an online virtual reality world called the limnosphere. So addictive is the limnosphere that anyone with enough cash spends months of their lives plugged into it, lying in a bed while a nurse feeds them and tends to other, more *cough* delicate matters. It's theWachowskis meets Dashiell Hammett. What I love most about Shovel Ready is that yes, Spademan is a ruthless killer that would off your great-gammie if the price is right, but you can't help but cheer for him as he takes on the forces that run the limnosphere while protecting the girl he's been hired to murder. He's the perfect anti-hero for a world that's been completely gutted by terrorism, climate change and corruption. Shovel Ready is still going strong as my favourite book of 2014, Sternbergh is currently writing a sequel and a movie starring Denzel Washington is in the works. It's a great debut full of shocking twists and most importantly a cynical, tough and uncompromising protagonist that I can't wait to see again.
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It's impossible for me to write an intro to Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson without hearing the voice of the late, great voice actor Don Lafontaine in my head. So here we go: In a world where all superheroes are evil and all hope is lost, a small group of rebels must work together to save the Earth from total annihilation. That's Steelheart in a very small nutshell, although the actual story is a lot more complex and interesting: One day, something appears in the sky, people call it Calamity. It looks like a star or a comet, but nobody really knows what it is or where it came from. What they do know is that Calamity grants a random number of ordinary people super powers, they decide to call them "Epics." Also, for reasons unknown, the Epics are huge jerks. Each Epic has a specific power, like the ability to fly, see the future, create life-like illusions, repel females without speaking a single word - wait, that last one is my superpower. Since there are no superheroes around to stop them, each Epic takes charge of a city of their choice, ruling without consequence and degrading the quality of life for everyone living there. Just imagine if every major city was run by Rob Ford and you'll get the picture. Despite the misery the Epics unleash, people try to live their lives as normal as they can. This is where we meet eight year old David and his father, who are in a Chicago bank trying to secure a loan. As if from nowhere, an Epic named Deathpoint strolls through the bank and starts killing people at random. Deathpoint's power is pretty self-explanatory, if he points at you, your remains can be cleaned up with a Roomba. As Deathpoint embarks on his killing spree, another Epic enters the bank. His name is Steelheart and he can do pretty much anything, shoot balls of energy from his hands, fly, is impervious to bullets and can turn inanimate objects into solid steel. He's basically the Oprah of super villains. It's important to know that David's father is known as a Faithful, a small percentage of the population that believe one day superheroes will emerge and defeat the Epics. He mistakenly believes that Steelheart is one of these prophesized heroes and ends up paying the ultimate price for it. After his father is murdered, David devotes the rest of his life to studying the Epics and learning their weaknesses, for they all have at least one. Through his research he comes across a group called The Reckoners, a small group of misfits that assassinate the "lesser" Epics, Epics that wouldn't garner the attention of people like Steelheart if they disappeared. With David's encyclopaedic knowledge of the Epics, the Reckoners learn that they might actually have a chance of taking down Steelheart and his empire of fear once and for all. Sanderson has created a totally believable world that pays homage to comic books and great adventure tales with its amazing weaponry, sneering villains and rag-tag heroes. It also contains some very enjoyable twists. I had a lot of fun reading it and I look forward to its sequel, Firefight, which is out early next year. In the meantime, you can check out the short story, Mitosis which takes place just after "Steelheart" ends. |
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