Soon I Will Be Invincible (2007) - Plot & Excerpts
I read Soon I Will Be Invincible in a single sitting (although the two-hour rain delay before the ball game began helped). It has an easygoing, tongue-in-cheek style that makes it a pleasure to read. Sometimes it feels like a comic book, other times it feels like a parody of the superhero/supervillain genre in general. In making an effort not to be too serious, Austin Grossman has created a literary mélange of Douglas Coupland-style humour, characters worthy of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, and an offbeat sense of plot reminiscent of Terry Pratchett.Now, to be fair to those three great authors, I'll state explicitly that they all do it better than Grossman. Soon I Will Be Invincible is good, but it has plenty of room for improvement. For instance, while the characters remind me of those in The Dresden Files owing to their attitude, most of them lack depth. The only characters we really learn much about are the two narrators--the villainous Doctor Impossible and the cyborg heroine Fatale--and Lily, Doctor Impossible's ex-girlfriend with a plot twist buried in her past.While I can't speak for all readers, I found myself sympathizing most with Doctor Impossible. All he wanted was world domination--is that so much to ask?! Perhaps it was just the way Grossman had him narrate his chapters, but I found Doctor Impossible an entertaining character. Moreover, through him, Grossman explores the psyche of a comic-book-style supervillain: why he chose villainy instead of heroism and how this affects his ego and his plans. There's something to be said for having two-dimensional instead of three-dimensional characters--a well-rounded, morally-ambiguous villain is great, but sometimes snarling and nefarious evil-doers can be just as entertaining (for half the price!).By contrast, the heroine half of this dynamic duo of narrators falls short of the mark. We're supposed to feel sympathy for Fatale, who chose to become a cyborg only because she was mortally wounded in a horrific traffic accident. There's a twist toward the end of the book where we learn more about Fatale's origins, but it doesn't seem to have much of an effect on the story other than a couple of throwaway lines; Lily's secret origin, on the other hand, actually drives the plot behind the scenes and leads us inexorably to the climax. I really enjoyed Lily and wondered what it would be like to have her as a narrator instead of Fatale. Then again, that would have made it hard to conceal her true origin from us (which I'm not going to reveal because I liked the twist).Ultimately, the climax was disappointing compared to the rest of the book. However, this may be a problem with the genre itself (especially when writing from the perspective of the villain) rather than Grossman's overall style. You can't just have Doctor Impossible win, after all; as much as the reader might sympathize with him, he's still the bad guy. I just never really felt like there came a moment where he could possibly win, not even when he put the bad guys in their cages. And I think that in order for a story to truly transcend from "good" to "great," that moment has to exist, even if only for an infinitesmial time. Because that's the best moment of the book: you know the villain can't win, but it looks like, however impossible it may be, that he will win!The fact that Doctor Impossible was outnumbered from the start and his reliance on a MacGuffin reduced the drama during the climax. This only worsens when Grossman begins trying to use the MacGuffin to explain away the entire plot, including giving a purpose to Elphin, the last fairy left behind on Earth by Titania for some great duty, which turns out to be tossing the MacGuffin into the ocean.That's a marked departure from the early part of the book, where Grossman establishes a slowly-rising sense of suspense as Doctor Impossible escapes from prison and begins plotting his One World Domination Plan to Rule Them All. He trounces the heroes when they manage to stumble upon him in public; the heroes, of course, are busy squabbling among themselves and chasing uninformative leads while Doctor Impossible diligently pursues his plan for global conquest. Grossman depicts a nice dystopian world where being s superhero isn't all it's cracked up to be. A comparison, in this respect, to Watchmen is on the tip of my tongue, but I don't know how to do it without insulting Watchmen....Soon I Will Be Invincible is a supervillain story. It's got all the hallmarks: the megalomania, the bickering superheroes, and of course, the unwieldy doomsday plans. Doctor Impossible is a somewhat sympathetic, if a bit loquacious, character. Grossman's writing style is relaxed and witty. It's a good read, but don't go into it expecting too much.
I'm considering writing an essay, in the tradition of Mark Twain, called Austin Grossman's Literary Offenses.This book is that bad. Really.It's so bad, I wonder what's wrong with someone that they could actually like this book. I know, that's a really mean thing to say, but if you read this book and it doesn't make you feel like the world just got a little darker and more dreary, I challenge that you aren't actually a human being, but probably some sort of text scanning utility maintained by a Belarusian literature pirate.My first complaint is with the book's form. While Grossman's and his editor removed all traces of typos and other rudimentary grammatical errors, they left intact all of the awkward and flailing writing that seems to form the backbone of Grossman's style. In most basic terms, this book was not edited. Writing should be clear or at least intentionally obfuscated; neither is the case here. Whole sections requiring rereading not because of their complexity, but because of their incomprehensibility.At one point I had to stop reading to go watch TV when the author wrote “Give me where to stand, said Archimedes, and I will move the world.” That one sentence condenses everything that’s wrong with the author’s incomprehensible, cluttered style. Not enough pickled ginger in the world to scrub that out of my skull.Beyond matters of form, we have issues of style. In this, I am hesitant to criticize, but I cannot leave this matter half finished. The best term I can think of to describe Grossman's style, once I've dispensed with incomprehensible, awkward, thick, and failing, is immature. I mean this in the sense that he seems the immature writer, still at the start of his craft.The book alternates between the two main characters, one a hero, the other a villain. Generally speaking, you can tell which is which because you'll read dialogue where someone addresses the person by their proper superhero/villain name. Beyond that, there's basically nothing to indicate that either character is a different person. Add to this the fact that every character in the book not only exemplifies a stereotype, but in some cases proudly trumpets that fact.This is not a good book, and you should not read it. It mystifies me how this book gets good reviews from anyone. And keep in mind that I say this as a reader, not as a comic book fan. This goes beyond what the author does to the genre, into basic errors of literature. Please, do someone some good and help them avoid this book.If you need further coaxing, here, listen to my friend Charon:“It hurt me in my brain-head, and I have only the one.”
What do You think about Soon I Will Be Invincible (2007)?
Very well read comic book from two points of view that of Dr. Impossible, the super villain, & a young super hero in alternate chapters. The voice of Dr. Impossible is especially good. Instead of avoiding tropes, this book embraces them all, gives us the origins & motivations of each with a fairly twisty ending including a real shocker, but one that made sense. It was a lot of fun & perfect in this format. I don't think it would have read as well in paper, even graphic format, for me.
—Jim
some surprisingly strong writing in this oddball offering from the most gutter of gutter sub-genres. meta playfulness with the iconic figures of superman/batman/wonder woman is to be expected in today's post-post-modern world, and the novel satisfies on that level. less expected is the charmingly wry writing, the novel's melancholy tone, and the nostalgia that suffuses the thoughts of both narrators. all of this more than helps to make this surprising novel stand out. overall, this may not be earth-shaking, but it is certainly a very happy surprise.i was also surprised that this book was written by the twin brother of the author of The Magicians... the family snark was present, but none of the curdled, sour, wannabe Less Than Zero cynicism.__________ Super Template Action!* Superman: CoreFire* Wonder Woman: Damsel* Batman: Blackwolf* Doctor Doom: Dr. Impossible (our hero!)* Cyborg: Fatale (our heroine!)* Doctor Strange or Zatara: Mr. Mystic* Wildcat: Feral* is there even a template for an invisible, invulnerable superwoman from the future?: Lily (love that name)
—mark monday
I bought this book based on a strong review, and was quite disappointed. Any reviewer who praises this book's imagination clearly hasn't read a comic book within the last 5-10 years. The settings, characters, and powers all seem to have been lifted wholesale out of the most dire quick cash-in books of the 90s comics boom.I will grant that there is some amusement to be found in Dr. Impossible's story. His wry, matter-of fact viewpoint is often entertaining, and the telling of a comic book tale from the villain's side is at least a bit unusual, if not unheard of (see Astro City: The Tarnished Angel, for one particularly fine example). Unfortunately, Dr. Impossible's side of things only occupies half the book. The rest of it is told from Fatale's perspective, and she's an absolute bore. A cyborg with a lost past, she doesn't seem to be terribly passionate about anything. The most she ever manages is some uninspired teenage-esque angst that her character seems much too old for.In fact, the Dr. Impossible/Fatale contrast is indicative of a larger problem with the book. Grossman has some fun poking into the psychologies and histories of his villains, people with frightening powers living with the perpetual cognitive dissonance that exists between their world-conquering ambitions and inevitable humiliating defeats. He has no such insight, however, into the minds of his heroes. None of them spend any time pondering why they chose to put on tights and fight crime. Dr. Impossible wonders why he didn't choose to become a hero instead, but none of the heroes ever ponder why they didn't choose to just go rob a bank and retire to a tropical island. None of them appear to get any particular enjoyment from fighting crime, or derive any pleasure from helping others, so why do they do it? This book has no answers, so it does its best to dodge the question. Worse, Grossman attempts to substitute angst and bickering amongst his heroes in place of psychological depth. The New Champions, the super team that Fatale joins, bicker and sulk like a car full of high school students reluctantly dragged on a field trip, rarely displaying a single likable trait between the seven of them.Worse still, this book reads more like a first draft than a published work. The writing is sloppy and inconsistent, and the whole thing seems to have been untouched by an editor. Descriptions are few and far between; it reads more like a comic book script than a novel, still waiting for an imaginative artist to draw in the undefined settings, faces, and costumes. Characters repeat observations several time throughout the book, each time as if they're new. The book is riddled with inconsistencies and dangling plot threads. Dr. Impossible sometimes talks as if he loathes magic and does his best to avoid it, and sometimes comfortably mentions incorporating it into past and future plans. Fatale observes that a hammer weighs a couple hundred pounds, then, several paragraphs later, picks it up and finds it "surprisingly heavy." Conflicts are set up, but never pay off. Other conflicts seem to appear out of nowhere. A scene in which Fatale accuses a mystical teammate of not being a real fairy comes entirely out of left field; one scene later, the conflict is completely forgotten, and is never mentioned again.Character voices are also wildly inconsistent. Everyone sounds the same in conversation, and no one sounds particularly interesting. Dr. Impossible, an evil genius, comes the closest to having a unique voice, but even he bounces unpredictably between occasionally inspired bits and inexplicably juvenile lines such as, "Whatever. Just don't think you can stop me." Most dismayingly, the two narrators sound remarkably similar for most of the book, with the only distinct difference being that Fatale's utterly flat sections lack the occasional moments of inspiration that sparingly pepper Dr. Impossible's narrative.This book is an "adult" take on superheroes only when compared to the simplistic comics of the 30s-50s. The story and dialog ibook don't hold a candle to the clever and insightful works of such modern-day comics writers as Kurt Busiek, Brian Michael Bendis, and Neil Gaiman. The novel format tries to sell this as a more adult and literary take on comic books, but it's ultimately just a pale and surprisingly shallow imitation of the real thing.
—Ben Flasher
