Thursday, June 18, 2015

Five “superpowered” characters found outside of sci-fi novels

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well.

At B & N Reads Somers tagged "five characters that are basically superheroes, despite appearing in books that aren’t in any way speculative fiction," including:
Memory Man, by David Baldacci

Superpower: Perfect memory

Amos Decker’s life gets ruined twice. The first time, a head injury ends his professional football career, but blesses/curses him with a perfect memory stretching back even before the injury, allowing him to access details as if his brain were a DVR. The second time, he loses his family to a grisly murder, and is almost destroyed. When that tragedy turns out to have been the first step in a fiendish plan personally targeting him, his super memory is what helps him survive and solve the mystery. It’s a novel that seems to consciously draw on superhero tropes for much of its structure, including the origin story, the doppelgänger villain, and the “Moment of Despair” so common in superhero stories.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue