Soon I Will Be Invincible

Not I, and based on the site you linked, I have no plans to remedy this lacuna in my education.

Why do you ask?

hey maybe I Love Books would be more popular if there were fewer posts like that one, Aimless!

I haven't read it, but I read a lot about it last summer.

snotty posts like aimless's post, not like HI DERE's

I actually just finished it a couple of days ago. I had read some really good reviews when it was published, but I found it pretty "meh" overall. A few good bits, and Grossman clearly knows the genre, but overall concept and execution are nothing that hasn't been done better in dozens of other post-Watchmen works.

If I have diminished the popularity of ILB through exorbitant snottiness, then I apologize. In extenuation, HI DERE's thread was sinking without a ripple and I felt a need to at least make an answer.

For good or ill, it has attracted some attention now and I will withdraw to the sideline to see if it can swim on its own.

I just finished this over the weekend during my vacation. I thought it was passably executed; there were some serious flaws in pacing as it passed the midpoint and the climax was equal parts fantastic and frustrating. The ridiculous chasm between the villain's inner monologue and his villainous denouements were pretty silly but I liked the cyborg protagonist A LOT.

It worked well to frame the story but focusing it as alternating narrative between two characters ended up leaving a few too many questions for me (some of which were probably intentional; for example, did anyone besides the villain make all of the history connections between half of the characters? besides the obvious one, of course). On the plus side, I would totally read a sequel.

It's not the same genre but the prose reminded me very strongly of Jennifer Government, only with a weaker story.

Do superhero novels work, or would people be better off reading superhero comics?

I think any type of novel can work given the correct writer and plot. I think this one would have been better if the villain's internal monologue had better matched his dialogue. He was way, way, way smarter than some of the things he said to people, but the author attempted to juxtapose a realistic rendering of this internal monologue with wholly unrealistic villain ranting, with an attempt to justify the latter using the former that just didn't work. The interrogation scene at the beginning of the book was WAY more effective in pulling that type of thing off, mostly because the villain's ranting wasn't so OTT comic-booky. The heroine's part never suffers from this, largely because she's cut from a more recognizable template that allows for more integration between her inner and outer voice.

It was a pretty funny book, easy read, I'd like to see more fun stuff like this. Perhaps also influenced a bit by Alan Moore's '1963' in that it's 'camp'.

anyone else read this btw?

i read this btw

went back to an old email to find out what i thought at the time:

I finished Soon I Will Be Invincible. The writing was a little patchy -- it seemed really obviously written out of order, with certain sentiments (sometimes even verbatim sentences?) being repeated at weird times, and the tone was kind of shifty (esp. at the end). But other than that I think it's a fun prose version of a comic book.

I still stand by what I wrote upthread. I wish the entire book had been as strong as the opening scene but it was overall an enjoyable read.