Spider-man books

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by garoo1980, Mar 27, 2011.

  1. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Enemies and Allies is excellent. My favorite thing from Kevin J. Anderson and since I don't like his work much that's saying a lot. The Last Days of Krypton is bad, but some have liked it here.
     
  2. Chris McCarver

    Chris McCarver Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Really need to track some of these down sometime... got a bit harder when my local Borders shut down (grumble).
     
  3. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    What characters other than Batman, Superman, and Lex Luthor are in it?
     
  4. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I came across Enemies and Allies at the library and remembered the recommendation here, so I picked it up. It's got Clark/Superman, Lois, Perry, Jimmy, and Lex on the Metropolis side and Bruce/Batman and Alfred on the Gotham side, with a brief appearance by Captain James Gordon and cameos by a couple of society figures named Kyle and Cobblepot. It's also got President Eisenhower, Joseph McCarthy, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

    It's an okay book, an interesting alternate history of Superman and Batman, but there are some failures of research both in history and physics, things that most readers probably wouldn't be troubled by but which stood out for me. And it was a bit odd seeing a story set in 1957-8 but featuring more modern versions of Superman, Batman, and Luthor.
     
  5. Man of Steel

    Man of Steel Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Someone's got to pick up the license to publish more Marvel novels. Although, Marvel has their own line I think so why don't they just publish novels (not the graphic)

    Is anyone still putting out DC novels? Didn't Pocket have it for a bit?
     
  6. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Just in case anyone missed it, my novelization of COUNTDOWN is being reissued as a mass-market paperback in June.

    So far, Ace has published all of my DC novelizations, but I'm not aware of anything new in the pipeline . . . .
     
  7. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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  8. Whofan

    Whofan Fleet Captain

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    Peter David-who of course has written many Trek novels-wrote an excellent Hulk novel "What Savage Beast". Basically, it takes place around Hulk #430 or so in David's own run, when the Merged Hulk and Betty are hiding out, and when the Hulk gets angry he transforms into Banner but with the Savage Hulk's persona. It has an interesting couple of twists as well. It's not really 'canon' though as the events in the novel are never addressed in the comic itself (Also the Ghosts of the Future arc kind of ovverides it).
     
  9. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Christopher, Anderson acknowledges that he embellished history for the purposes of telling his story in the back of the book. The "research failures" in history at least were done on purpose. I can't profess to say that the physics is though :)
     
  10. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Those aren't what I'm referring to. I'm referring to subtler things, like assuming that Fidel Castro's revolution was driven by a passionate devotion to Communism. That's erroneous. Castro started out as a nationalist revolutionary, fighting to liberate the Cuban people from the dictator Batista. At the time of Enemies and Allies, in 1957, Castro was seen as a pro-democratic freedom fighter, and actually spoke out against Communism and dictatorships. It wasn't until he actually took over in 1959 that Castro began showing dictatorial leanings himself and earned America's enmity, and it wasn't until 1961 that he declared himself a Communist, mainly because it was politically expedient to side with America's rivals in order to get their backing against America. So that was a massive anachronism.

    In that and other things, Anderson simply went with generally accepted myths about history rather than actually doing the research. Another example is the assumption that the "Roswell crash" was famous as far back as 1957. Actually it was a minor event that was largely forgotten until a UFO researcher dug it up in the late '70s. The Roswell mythology is mostly a creation of the '80s and '90s.

    And then there's the bit where a damaged nuclear reactor explodes rather than simply melting down. That's where the physics failed. It's a complete impossibility, and it's an irresponsible misconception to propagate.
     
  11. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Fair enough. I thought the story worked extremely well and was one of his better written works. Both the Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent "personal' stories I thought were well handled as well. Bruce cleaning up Wayne Enterprises and trying to improve his reputation while Clark discovering about himself still.
     
  12. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    No, it wasn't bad, it's just that there were a few moments of Did Not Do the Research that stood out.
     
  13. garoo1980

    garoo1980 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Is it poor etiquette to pick HP a thread I started 8 months ago? :)

    Sad to hear they aren't currently publishing Batman/Spiderman novels. I enjoy them immensely. I don't really like comics although I enjoy comic book movies and shows. Guess I'll have to try again at the comics. I tend to read them like novels, reading a while book in 15 minutes. I gather you're supposed to take time and appreciate the art work
     
  14. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    More like 21 months ago.
     
  15. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    But, hey, if it gives me a chance to plug my upcoming MAN OF STEEL novelization . . . go for it!

    Oh, I should also mention THE AVENGER: THE ROARING HEART OF THE CRUCIBLE, an anthology coming out this spring featuring new stories about the classic pulp hero created by "Kenneth Robeson."

    Just to be clear, we're not talking about Tony and Steve and Bruce here, or even Steed and Emma. We're talking about Richard Henry Benson, The Avenger.

    (And, yes, I have a story in the anthology.)
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2012
  16. Starbreaker

    Starbreaker Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I can read a comic from the 2000's in just a few minutes. It's the stuff from the 60's that takes a while to read because they spelled out every little detail for you.
     
  17. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Also because comics today have become so decompressed. It used to be that comics routinely had up to 9 panels per page, often quite crowded with speech balloons and captions. These days it's more typical to have 2-4 panels per page and relatively little text. Back then you could have 2-3 complete stories crammed into one issue, now it typically takes 4-6 issues to tell one story because comics are written with the trade paperback compilations in mind.
     
  18. scnj

    scnj Captain Captain

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    Does KRAD still post here? I'd like to know when that second Serenity novel is coming...
     
  19. Sto-Vo-Kory

    Sto-Vo-Kory Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I'm VERY excited to hear this. Who's publishing this? Will your story feature any of the Justice, Inc. gang?
     
  20. ATimson

    ATimson Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    It's not. Mutant Enemy never approved any outlines, so the line never happened.