My husband, who in all other respects is a fine man, doesn’t like Spaceballs. He thinks it’s disrespectful to Star Wars, or something. At least, that’s what he said. Then I gave him a little story to read about a knight who rescues an ancient high priestess from her home owners’ association. He didn’t like that, either. If you find yourself agreeing with him, you should probably disregard this article.
I, however, grew up in Oregon to an Anglophilic family who believed comedy should be as dry as the weather is wet. (Who else can claim to have been introduced to The Black Adder and the original Who’s Line? by their Sunday-school-teaching, deacon-serving grandparents?) With that in mind, I offer the following.
Marcher Lord Press is a sparkling new publishing company owned, operated, and bled over by Jeff Gerke, AKA Jefferson Scott. They (OK, “he”) specialize in Christian speculative fiction. The second round of offerings has just hit the market.
Their first release, however, included the little 598-page gem by college student Mitchell Bonds, Hero, Second Class (book one of “The Hero Complex”). It follows the young Cyrus Solburg who dreams of following in his father’s footsteps to become a fully qualified, dues-paying member of the Hero Guild. It falls to Sir Reginald Ogleby, the Crimson Slash, to train Cyrus in the importance of Capital Letters, the power of Arbitrary Numbers, and the danger of the Army of Darkness™. In the meantime, Cyrus discovers love, truth, and his own powers.
The Christian element feels somewhat tacked on and generally irrelevant to the plot. The language comes off as a bit modern at points. If I had one serious gripe, though, it would be that at six-hundred pages, I’d expect some closure. Instead, you get the set-up to the next installment.
But its good points greatly outweigh the bad. I’m not versed enough in RPGs to know how derivative it may be. I just know it’s well-paced and consistently funny; something I find very hard to pull off. And it taught me that all good heroes must learn to narrate their own battles:
“‘The evil Dragon quickly parried the attack with its pincer-like tail and countered with a blast of withering flame. The Hero brought his shield up and deflected the furious blaze. As it burned up in his hand, the Hero vowed to wreak his revenge upon the merchant who had sold him the “fire-proof shield.” Recovering quickly, the Hero vaulted into the air, preparing to deliver his signature “Blade of Fury” attack! Unfortunately, the Dragon somehow anticipated it and slammed the Hero with its tail, sending him flying into a—oof—nearby tree! Ow…’”
Life as a hero is no easier in the present day than it is in the fantastical, as Tzadik Friedman discovers in G. Xavier Robillard’s Captain Freedom: A Superhero’s Quest for Truth, Justice, and the Celebrity He So Richly Deserves. Despite the soy-intolerant super hero’s ability to sign up for a new credit card while fighting an escaped barbarian from Monsanto’s giant farm laborers breeding program, he can’t save his own career with Gotham Comix. Still, he has his adopted son and sidekick, DJ (who can turn easy listening music into a powerful sedative that instantly causes hapless bystanders to fall asleep), the ability to find recreational drugs anywhere in the world, and his fashion line is finally taking off.
But what really rubs the good Captain isn’t that his girlfriend continually returns to her life of crime, or his lost sponsorship with Carl’s Jr., or even the fact he owes his career—well, former career—to his mother. It’s his complete failure to find an arch-enemy. No super hero has gone so long without one, and even spending time with his personal dinosaur collection can’t ease the emptiness.
Tzadik isn’t nearly so innocent as Cyrus, or even Mr. Incredible, and the book reads more like the memoir it claims to be than a cohesive story with a defined arch. But it is funny and gives a poignant look into the type of life that fuels so many comic books.
David Perkins, in Tom Holt’s Falling Sideways, isn’t a super hero, but he will have to find within himself that courage and self-sacrifice if he is to save the world from the frogs that have been shaping mankind’s civilization since its inception. Provided, that is, he can sufficiently overcome his obsession with a seventeenth-century portrait of Phillipa Levens, fifth marchioness of Ipswich.
But that’s unlikely, seeing as how he has been in love with her for twenty-one years, ever since his mother introduced him to the museum in which she resides.
So, for the bargain price of fifteen thousand pounds, he purchases what is purported to be a lock of her hair. For a mere hundred quid, he takes the hair down to Honest John’s House of Clones to bring his true love back to life.
Now he just needs to figure out why she’s green, why his neighbor has no furnishings save a bag of sugar sitting in the middle of his living room, and why it is that every new face he meets seems to look just like Honest John’s.
Oh, and why there’s suddenly so many frogs jumping about.
Tom Holt has been compared (unfavorably) to the master, Douglas Adams. But he did get a blurb from Rob Grant of Red Dwarf fame, so there you go. I found the book to be delightfully surreal, and sufficiently confusing. The protagonist is a typical British male, swept along by forces out of his control. Gradually, he learns courage, self-preservation, and the truth about the frogs.
Captain Freedom was clever, but a little too seedy to rate prime bookcase space. Falling Sideways is a delightful tale that will attract a very specific audience—my mom, my sister, and any other Anglophilic scifi lovers out there. Hero, Second Class, will probably be the first BFFB my son reads. I think the subject matter and the humor will keep him engaged, and the message will easily get it past the mom-censor.
Torainfor forgot to submit a bio to go with this piece, and we forgot to ask her for one. Oh well, we'll catch that next time. She blogs at Rain Writes.
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