Fortress of Solitude
Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman / Jennifer McKeown
Book Reviews | August 13, 2008 | Comments (16)
If you’re enjoying this superhero summer, you might want to add Soon I Will Be Invincible to your reading list immediately. Hell, even if you could care less about superheroes, chances are good you’ll still enjoy this novel. Soon I Will Be Invincible is light, fun, and wonderfully written. If it weren’t so close to the end of the summer, I’d say it’s the perfect summer read - but if you don’t get to it for a few months, it’ll be good then, too.
In fact, this review was in danger (dare I say imminent peril?) of being mostly quotes from the novel, because as I read I found myself deploying post-it after post-it in order to mark quotable passages. Unfortunately, I ended up marking too many to share here. But how shall I choose? Shall I provide Fatale’s sorrowful musings, or the hysterical rantings of Doctor Impossible? There are so many great passages; it’s simply unfair to make me decide.
But first, a brief overview of the novel itself. Soon I Will Be Invincible revolves not only around a group of superheroes but also around their archnemesis, Doctor Impossible. Quite simply, Impossible is the star of the show; he’s the most complex (and interesting) character in the novel. One of our two narrators, Doctor Impossible is an evil genius who hasn’t had the best luck conquering the world. As he ponders early in the novel,
How do you take over the world? I’ve tried everything. Doomsday devices of every kind, nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological, gadgets that fit in a shoe box and that were visible from space. I’ve tried mass mind control; I’ve stolen the gold reserves in Fort Knox, only to lose them again. I’ve traveled backward in time to change history, forward in time to escape it; I’ve stopped time altogether to live in a world of statues. I’ve commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies. Fungus army. Army of fish. Of rodents. Alien invasion. Interdimensional alien invasion. Alien god invasion. Even a corporate takeover, Impossible Industries, LLC. Each time, it ended the same way. I’ve been to jail twelve times.
But just give him time, something Impossible has in spades. Imprisoned at the novel’s opening, he will figure out a way to take over the world…eventually.
Meanwhile, a group of superheroes, the Champions, search for a fallen hero. CoreFire, the most powerful of them all, has simply disappeared. To solve the mystery behind his disappearance, the Champions have reunited, recruiting some new members in the process. Among the rookies is Fatale, half-woman, half-cyborg.
Fatale, our other narrator, is a reluctant superhero; after a horrific accident nearly killed her, scientists saved her the only way possible - by removing much of what made her human. Now impossibly strong and weighing nearly 500 pounds, Fatale knows firsthand that all superheroes have “paid a price for their power, and for most of them it turned out to be too high.” While many may think that having super powers is the coolest thing ever (it isn’t?), Fatale proves that the grass is always greener, explaining,
Your powers are what you always have with you…For everyone else, it’s a momentary fantasy. They don’t have to take them into the kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom. Or wake up in the night in flames, or sweep up shattered glass in their apartment, or show up late for work with a black eye. No one else knows where they itch or bruise you, or has tried the things you’ve tried with them when you were bored or desperate. No one else falls asleep with them and finds them still there in the morning, a dream that won’t disperse upon waking.
Passages like these illustrate the way in which Grossman transcends the superhero genre. True, the plot is entertaining and generally fast-paced, and the characters exchange appropriate hero-villain banter (much of which is groan-worthy) during the battle scenes. But Grossman takes his novel further by examining what makes a superhuman, surprisingly enough, human.
That’s not to say this is a perfect novel. I’m no comic book connoisseur, and those familiar with comics and graphic novels might not appreciate Grossman’s take on the genre, which some critics have found facile. Furthermore, Grossman is clearly no Tolstoy, and he’s not writing literature here. Some parts of the plot dragged, and the voices of Impossible and Fatale aren’t as distinct as they could be.
Still, that doesn’t mean Soon I Will Be Invincible isn’t worth your time. It may not have you running wild through the streets, but it’s a fun and entertaining read that provides material for both amusement and reflection. At the very least, we can all learn from Doctor Impossible, the embodiment of persistence, when he says, “When your laboratory explodes, lacing your body with a super-charged elixir, what do you do? You don’t just lie there. You crawl out of the rubble, hideously scarred, and swear vengeance on the world. You keep going.”
Amen, brother.
Jennifer McKeown reads way too much and blogs about her experiences over at Bibliolatry.
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Comments
Posted by: BarbadoSlim at August 13, 2008 12:36 PM
Sounds interesting.
Although I respectfully submit that the real money is NOT in taking over this miserable planet but in destroying, the Universe.