Zephyr: Phase One by Warren Hately Review

Title: Zephyr: Phase One

Author: Warren Hately

My Rating: 4/5

Part of a series? Yes

Genre(s): Superhero, Adult, Fantasy, Science fiction 

Description/Blurb:

Zephyr phase one isn't exactly an average book, it's from a prose web-comic series to find out more look here.

It's 2011 on the eastern seaboard of the United States. The place is Atlantic City: a sweeping longitudinal metropolis rebuilt following widespread devastation in 1984. Superhumans are not only real, they're human. All too human, as Nietzsche would say.

Zephyr is a "novel" alt.superhero adventure influenced by postliterary writing and Sturgeon's law. The style is cynical, cinematic and systematically against standard expectations of the genre. Imagine if Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho was about costumed vigilantes rather than stockbrokers and you have half an idea.

Zephyr tells the story of a major, if somewhat jaded superhero in an alternate universe where New York City has been abandoned and the Beatles were a superhero team. Zephyr is a regular guy, but with powers, and it's easy to wonder if his life might have been better without them as supervillains and other problems that only superhumans can deal with derail his efforts handling life.

In Phase One, Zephyr tackles the pressure to reform his old Sentinels superhero team for financial gain, saves his best friend Twilight, endures sexual blackmail, reconciles his daughter's expulsion from high school and deals with a close betrayal, all as the star-god Hariss as-Sama prepares for its assault on Atlantic City.

My review: 

Finally a superhero story for grown ups! There's the super powers, the villains, the slightly ambiguous in betweens (I'm having to really try to avoid spoilers in this review). We get to see our hero Zephyr deal with the press and trying to keep his normal identity secret which isn't something comics really touch on too much. Warren Hately also manages to include all the battles and plots that comic readers tend to love, there seems to be something going on around every corner, I really feel for the poor normal people living in that world who have to deal with all the supercharged criminals without any powers of their own.

There's a fair bit of adult content in this, well I'm not sure how to describe it, novel? comic? so even though it's great and at certain points quite witty writing I would avoid letting children or anyone a bit on the prudish side read it.

The idea that Zephyr is a veteran in the superhero world at just 35 is quite an interesting point, especially in the youth obsessed world we live in ourselves where older celebrities tend to get less press. Though really it’s more likely that he’s a veteran because of how dangerous the superhero world is, I mean how many of us would survive in a world where people can control pretty much any element I could easily see myself accidentally injuring myself with my own powers if they were decent ones.

Anyway to cut away from the weird rambling in the last paragraph I'm seriously recommending this book to someone who likes the whole superhero thing, you don’t even have to be the greatest fan. I've never read a ‘proper comic’ and most of my superhero experience comes from films like The incredibles or Batman and I really enjoyed this book.

My Name is Dee by Robin Wyatt Dunn Review

Title: My Name is Dee

Author: Robin Wyatt Dunn

My Rating: 1.5/5

Part of a series? No

Genre(s): Science fiction

Description/Blurb:

My Name is Dee is a novel for the reader who enjoys noir action, intrigue and dark romance, for the child in all of us who wants to go on adventures, and for the fearful adult too who marvels at the terrifying scale of this universe.
Battling aliens, journeying between dimensions, exploring the
immensity of the human mind, and saving a woman are on the docket for John Dee in this noir adventure. 
He must choose what moral course his life is going to take: can he stand to still wear the grey hat?

My review: 

If I’m honest I have to say that I found this book difficult to read, which is probably why it’s taken me the best part of a month to read this. I found myself needing to go back over parts to make sure I was reading it properly and it was page 30 before I found myself really understanding what was going on.

The story itself was great, full of action and I loved the author’s take on magic. It was quite interesting to see magic as a more subtle force rather than the in your face form (think Harry Potter style spell casting when I say this) seen in quite a lot of books at the moment.  It seemed to be the writer’s style that wasn’t to my taste rather than anything else. Dunn would often change settings so fast that I was left unsure about whether that part was a flashback or if it really was a change of location, this left the piece feeling really disjointed, though this may have been a reflection of the main characters rapid descent into madness as he comes to terms with what he has done in his life. In a way the writing style reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ though ‘My Name is Dee’ felt more disjointed and didn’t have the same satirical air.

Although I wasn’t overly fond of this book I would still recommend it to a sci-fi fan who enjoys the whole disjointed writing style thing because I found the story itself to be very good. I really wouldn’t recommend anybody with a short attention span or somebody who prefers to speed read to read this though as I found that it does require a thorough read through.

Bitter Orange by Marshall Moore

Title: Bitter Orange

Author: Marshall Moore

My Rating: 4/5

Part of a series? No, though there might be one day 

Genre(s): Sci-fi 

Description/Blurb:

Seth Harrington can be invisible or undetectable, but he is not a superhero. The ability only works in morally grey situations; the rest of the time, he can't turn it on and off at will. He can use a movie ticket stub to buy a coffee or a one-dollar bill to pay for a cell phone. He can stop muggings in plain sight, unseen, but only with worse violence. But this only adds to his confusion about his place in the world. Still reeling from the horrors of the September 11 terrorist attacks and ambivalent about his future, Seth is at a crossroads: Can he be one of the good guys by doing bad things, or are his new found powers part of someone else's malevolent agenda? There are no easy answers or expected outcomes in Marshall Moore's exploration of urban life and the ways that people can disappear.

My review: 

I was interested by the take on 'super powers' presented by this book. Our main character Seth is not your typical superhero, well he's not a superhero at all, his power of invisibility only work in morally grey situations such as to stop an attack by harming the attacker. Events are further complicated by the influence of Seth's room-mate Sang-hee who encourages Seth to explore his new found powers and the slightly unbalanced tattoo artist (and former one night stand) Elizabeth who seems desperate to remain in Seth's life.

One of the great things about this book is that Moore keeps the reader guessing until the end of the book and the reader learns as Seth learns, we aren't told anything through narrative before the character knows so each twist Seth experiences the reader experiences too.

At times it's almost possible to forget that this is a science fiction novel and not a commentary on modern life as the reader learns more about Seth and his past and through the reactions to Seth's attempts at redemption after using his power.

I'd recommend this book to a science fiction fan or to somebody who finds the usual super hero characters a bit too unbelievable and would rather read about somebody who would react to having super powers the way the average man on the street would. However this isn't a book that provides instant gratification plot wise so you have to be able to handle being left without answers until the end and even then being left with a question or two.

Gateway to Reality by Becca J. Campbell Review

Title: Gateway to Reality

Author: Becca J. Campbell

My Rating: 2/5

Part of a series? No, but the ending did leave the possibility of a sequel. 

Genre(s): Sci-fi, fantasy, smidge of romance. 

Description/Blurb:

Talented artists shouldn’t be waiting tables, scraping by, and living mediocre lives. But that’s exactly what art school graduate Wes Teague is doing.

Then he wakes from a bizarre dream, haunted by the sense that his life isn't real. A harrowing truth presents itself--the real world lies in his dreams, not when he's wide awake.
The dream world he enters each night is rich and vibrant. Chicago appears the same on the surface, but chaos runs rampant as gravity, physics, and other laws of nature become fluid, changing unexpectedly. There, Wes's parents, brother, and sister are strangers. His girlfriend Emily doesn’t recognize him. Wes longs to return, to unlearn the truth about his dual reality.
Wes would sacrifice almost anything to get back to blissful ignorance in a false world.
But now he has feelings for the real Emily.

My review: 

The Gateway to reality is a fairly interesting sci fi/fantasy read, I don't think I've ever read anything completely like it before. We have the true reality which is like a dream world where there is no logic and no rules and then we have a fake version of reality which is like our universe, poor Wes finds himself thrown into life in the 'real world' where his girlfriend and family don't know him and a mysterious man who seems to have answers seems to be watching him.

Although this story wasn't quite my cup of tea it does raise some interesting points about the human condition. Campbell seems to suggest that we need rules and logic to stay sane, and when allowed to do anything they want when they want people need to escape somewhere with a set schedule, where they have to go to work and pay the bills.  The reader also gets to see how people in this world deal with grief and see how events people aren't necessarily aware of may affect the subconscious. However I was a little bit disappointed when the author didn't explore some of these issues further, it felt like the book was a bit too short as it had the potential to really explore the human psyche. 

I like how the author really fleshed out the character of Emily, she could have ended up as the standard love interest who ignores the main character while staring wistfully off into the distance, but she was actually made quite realistic. Emily acted how you'd expect someone to act when a man they barely know comes up to them for the first couple of times, though she did become trusting a bit too quickly for my liking (especially considering her past)but the book was only short so any more time spent with Emily completely rejecting Wes would have made the plot drag a bit.

This is not a book I'd personally want to reread but I think it would be a great read for somebody who enjoys reading about alternate realities, universes completely different to our own or has a lot of appreciation for the creative process (due to the way things get done in the 'real world').