Book Review: Soon I Will Become Invincible
Meandering might best fit for audio
REVIEW: Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
Published: 2007
I did not read this book. Not entirely. I completed approximately 70% of my ebook copy before I decided to put my Kindle down. I did not quit the story, I quit reading it in favor of the audiobook version. I restarted the novel from the beginning, happily listening to the performances of Coleen Marlo and Paul Boehmer. It was through the voice narration that I finished this tale, but getting there left me feeling nothing but invincible.
I’m a slow reader and take frequent, lengthy breaks between chapters. It is because of this sluggish reading habit that I put this book on my to be read list in the first place. Like the costumed characters in the story, I was challenged by the change, as well as my own choices. The decision to download the novel was an easy one to make, and I immediately felt pride not unlike one of the most powerful heroes in Invincible, CoreFire. I was, however, not as impervious to mental strain.
When I passed the halfway point of the book, I found myself struggling to retain what I had read and felt lost at points. Though I admittedly read at an unhurried pace, it’s not like I haven’t finished other text-based tales. Invincible appeared to be another entry in my slowly growing collection of literary trophies. This book centered on superheroes, which happens to be my genre of choice. Austin Grossman offered an unexpected twist to his storytelling method, which was to include two characters sharing POV chapter duties. This, too, spoke to me as this is a similar writing technique I enjoy using myself. A striking difference for this particular book, though, was that the main character duo both serve as rather unreliable narrators in some cases.
Doctor Impossible tells his side of things by providing a villainous account of his long career as a genius evildoer. The action reads like he’s recounting an oral history of his own dastardly deeds. We are introduced to the brainy bad guy as he escapes from yet another super prison, outsmarting a pair of young crime fighters. Impossible’s main arc revolves around his pursuit of a powerful weapon that will bestow upon him invincibility. By achieving invulnerability, added onto his existing extreme intellect and armada of gadgets, rayguns, and secret lairs, would allow him to finally take over the world. The icing on the cake? To one and for all defeat his dreaded nemesis, the heroic CoreFire and his band of super friends known as the Champions.
Fatale narrates her chapters like she’s swimming through uncharted waters. As an advanced cyborg, her memory of being fully human is sketchy. She recounts her time as a burgeoning public protector, dealing out enough street justice to earn her a spot on the New Champions squad. The disappearance of CoreFire has left the team in a state of flux, and Fatale joins at a low time for them. She joins the investigation which takes winding turns into seedy bars and even explores the supernatural.
The respective narrators often drift into unstructured tangents regarding different eras of their lives. Their individual backstories weave in and out of the present action, making it difficult for a lapsed reader such as myself to follow along. Not every novel has to adhere to a traditional formula, but Grossman slivers in and out of digressions as if he’s out to destroy the very notion of linearity. Don’t get me wrong, authors often take asides to wade in streams of consciousness—in fact, this kind of descriptive derailment can be more realistic, deepening the immersion. For a leisurely read, though, it got more confusing than anything.
When I switched to the audio version, the story came alive and was far simpler to track, especially with voiceover professionals killing it in the recording booth. Hearing the characters tell their stories fit the erratic, free-roaming narrative. The charm is tested when even as the main characters are stuck waiting in a deathtrap, one of them decides at that moment to drive into her not-so-short backstory. I guess there was time to kill, right at the book’s climactic finale.
The intriguing concepts and delightfully evil diatribes speeches from Doctor Impossible make this enough of a recommendation from me, as long as you understand you’re getting into a non-traditional, freewheeling form of storytelling.
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Avenge Her takes place four years before the events of Unsecret Identity: Eric Icarus - Book One.
AVENGE HER: ERIC ICARUS MYTHOS
From the ashes of ambition rises the battle for a dream—can a shattered inventor turn his greatest failure into his ultimate redemption?
Eric Icarus Mythos - Explore the stories of the heroes and villains of New St. Cloud City.