Reviews of POW!erful Tales

by Ken St. Andre and Michael K. Eidson

Product: POW!erful Tales: Super-Powered Stories from Beta City
Product Type: Superheroes Fiction Anthology, Illustrated, 210 p.
Authors: Lawrence Barker; Gustavo Bondini; Jon S. Crews; A. H. Jennings; Gareth D. Jones; Christina Lea; Michael C. Lea; John Michael Martin; Tim McDaniel; Mark Onspaugh; John E. Rogers, Jr.; Eric Ian Steele; David Taub; Geoffrey Thorne
Illustrators: Mike Hartlieb, Michael C. Lea, Luis Nunez de Castro Torres
Cover Artist: Alejandro Gutierrez Franco
Editor: Michael C. Lea
Publisher: Peryton Publishing
Publication Year: 2009
Review Date: May 30, 2009

Review by Ken St. Andre

Science fiction is all about extra-ordinary people in extra-ordinary situations. There are mutants and supermen and amazons and monsters galore, but . . . not many of these stories are cast as superhero stories. Apart from the Wild Card series created by George R. R. Martin back in 1986, it's almost impossible to think of significant superhero stories that have been published. But, I've been a comics fan all my life, and that's why I'm very happy to see Michael and Christina Lea (brother and sister, not husband and wife) of Peryton Publishing tackling the genre with their POW!erful tales books.

When I first got the book I thought it was merely an anthology of superhero stories, perhaps influenced by role-playing superhero games, and set in a common environment, but reading it ended that notion. POW!erful Tales is a shared world anthology that moves through a series of stories from beginning to understand. Like a well-written mystery, each tale adds one more clue to the puzzle that is superhero life in Beta City. (It used to be Cleveland, but there was a catastrophe.) The book contains 18 short stories by a crew of unknown writers, but being unknown doesn't make them bad or amateurish. The prose presented here is as polished and well-constructed as anything Martin and his co-writers ever did.

The complete gamut of super-heroism and super-villainy is explored in this book. "The Lingering Grief of Twilight" by Geoffrey Thorne begins with an alien superhero (Lady Justice) who has to face an inconceivable threat from outer space. This establishes a cosmic theme for the book that surfaces from time to time in odd ways, but is only resolved by Michael Lea in the book's last story "Uncreation Myth."

Between these bookend tales of characters mightier than Superman are 16 shorter pieces that explore many different aspects of what it means to be a superhero (or a supervillain). "Bad Man's Gift" by John E. Rogers, Jr. is one of the standout tales in the collection. It deals with a bad guy whose power is to teleport anyone or anything but himself, when he is called upon by the League of Champions to help rescue a child and dispose of a gigantic monster from another dimension. What happens when a bad guy gets a chance to do something good?

"Legacy" by Mark Onspaugh offers a rather grim tale of what happens when a group of young sidekicks grow tired of playing second-fiddle to their adult counterparts. Batman, you should really treat Robin a lot better than you do.

"A Dog, A Rat, A Mouse, A Cat" by A. H. Jennings is really about a monkey. This novella is a bit confusing at first, and that's good. As a reader you have to try and figure out what's really happening, and when you finally understand it all, you have such a good feeling about your anthropoid heritage that you may just feel like setting up your own shrine to Hanuman.

The final story, "Uncreation Myth" by Michael Lea, is in my opinion the best one in the book. This is the story that ties all the loose ends together and cements the overall brilliance of the book. A godlike hero finds himself coping with a living god with the fate of the earth hanging in the balance. I'll let you know that the earth is not destroyed, but there is one hell of an effective trick ending that left me, as a writer myself, just shaking my head in admiration of Lea's abilities.

No book is perfect. Peryton is a small press with a limited budget. Although the book is handsomely produced, I have to say that I think the art is somewhat second-rate, and really doesn't help the stories that much. If anything hurts this book, it is the rather dark and muddy front cover. The interior pictures are not very good except for the one on page 59—that one is a beaut and captures the superhero ambiance better than all the others. But, POW!erful Tales is not about the art—it's about the stories, and the stories are very good indeed. Buy it for the stories.

I always wanted to be a superhero, and it gripes me that there is no Superman, no Skyhammer, no Lady Justice, no Samcrow, no Brass Monkey in our world. It saddens me that I am not Green Lantern, or Wolverine, or Tarzan. Reading a book like POW!erful Tales makes me feel better. For a few hours I do live in a world of larger-than-life heroes and villains instead of one dominated by politicians and terrorists. If you like superheroes, you'll love POW!erful Tales, and look forward to the sequel volumes that Peryton Press is working on even now.

Review by Michael K. Eidson

I'm in agreement with most of what Ken had to say, but there are a few things I'd like to add.

As Ken said, there are 18 stories in the anthology. Let me clarify that. There's an important introduction (by the editor, Michael C. Lea), four stories, interlude one (by Lea), four more stories, interlude two (by Lea), four more stories, interlude three (by Lea), and then three more stories, the last of which is by Lea. The introduction and each interlude sets the theme for the stories immediately following. It's a nice touch, and I give kudos to Lea for it.

The stories to which Ken specifically refers in his review are perhaps the most well-written stories in the book. That's not to say that the others were poorly written. Of the lot, there's only one story that I didn't really enjoy: "The Ironic Man" by Gareth D. Jones. I understand it was supposed to be funny. But for me it fell flat—the punch line had no punch. Or maybe I'm just dense and didn't get it. Fortunately, the story only takes up two pages in the book.

A few other stories in the anthology had a "comedic" bent to them. When I first started reading "Steaming Mad" by John Michael Martin, I thought something seemed a bit strange. It kept getting stranger. Then all became clear, and I wanted to groan, but the story was too cleverly delivered for that. So I just shook my head and smiled.

I also couldn't help but smile at "Mister Blue Sky" by Christina Lea. It didn't start out particularly funny and it didn't cause belly laughs, but for me it had numerous amusing moments. It's humor is subtle, which is my favorite kind of humor, when I get it. And I felt that I got it with this story.

Humor wasn't the goal of most of the stories. "Legacy" by Mark Onspaugh (an HWA member and one of my favorite upcoming authors, btw) is a prime example of a story that goes straight for the jugular vein. Onspaugh knows how to unfold a tale, feeding you just enough to pull you curiously along, until you reach the end and learn—the terrifying truth.

There's more than one story that reveals origins of the supers involved, and of those, my favorite is "The Man Comes Around" by Christina Lea. I like how Christina's story lets you experience the origin as it happens. Most of the other origins stories are revealed as events in the hero's past.

The stories are not all told from a superhero's point of view. Some of them are told from a supervillain's point of view. Of these, "Bad Man's Gift" by John E. Rogers, Jr. is my favorite. By the end of that tale, the supervillain has redeemed himself, so maybe he doesn't qualify as a supervillain any more. It's a fine line that divides the heroes from the villains, eh. In real life, few people are purely good or purely evil, and such it is with Samcrow, the protagonist of this tale.

One story in particular stands out as a tale told from a point of view of someone that has no super powers. "Confidante" by Tim McDaniel relates how even a "normal" can cause damage to a superhero. Whether this particular wayward soul carries through with his plans, however, is the crux of the tale.

Ken mentioned that his favorite tale in the book was Michael C. Lea's "Uncreation Myth." It does a great job of wrapping up the anthology. Like Ken, I was impressed by the twist ending of the tale, shaking my head, too, in awe of Lea's story-crafting ability. Let me just say that the story is aptly titled.

Of the stories I haven't specifically mentioned by name yet, my favorites are the tragic "The Lingering Grief of Twilight" by Geoffrey Thorne and the enigmatic "A Dog, A Rat, A Mouse, A Cat" by A. H. Jennings. They are both well-written and do a good job of drawing you into the story.

Rounding out the book are "What Are the Odds?" by David Taub, "Day of Wrath" by Jon S. Crews, "A Very Small Hero" by Lawrence Barker, "The Silver Shadow" by Eric Ian Steele, and "Yet Another Bad Hair Day" by Gustavo Bondini. Some people will like these stories better than I did. It's not that I disliked these stories. They just didn't connect with me that well, that's all. OK, I admit that the ending of "Yet Another Bad Hair Day" was way cool.

As for the illustrations in POW!erful Tales, they aren't what you'd expect to find in a graphic novel—except for those done by Luis Nunez de Castro Torres to illustrate "Uncreation Myth." If you like chalk drawings, you might like the illustrations by Michael C. Lea—they just have that kind of feel to them. I wonder what they might have looked like in color. Have you ever noticed that CreateSpace doesn't do the best job of printing grayscale illustrations?

But CreateSpace does well with line drawings, so the line drawings by Mike Hartlieb printed well. Still, I would have liked to've seen more shading.

Production-wise, Christina Lea did a good job with layout and book design. She used a smaller font for this book than for Troll Tunnels. It's still readable, and it keeps down the page count, which is a good thing from a publisher's viewpoint.

Would I have done things differently if I had edited and published this anthology? Of course. But this is a quality product nonetheless, and worthy of your dollar if you enjoy super powered tales—or if you are looking to give the supers genre a try.

Buy it here: POW!erful Tales: Super-Powered Stories from Beta City

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About The Reviewer: Ken St. Andre is the creator of the fantasy roleplaying game Tunnels and Trolls. He also co-created the classic PC game Wasteland. He has written various other games and fiction, and is an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He currently dwells in Phoenix, Arizona, where by day he takes on the guise of a public librarian. He is worshipped as the Trollgod in a universe parallel to Earth's, in a place called Trollhalla, where he is also known by the name Khenn Arrth.

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About The Reviewer: Michael is the manager of Eposic Diversions LLC and chief editor for the Eposic web site. He has been interested in reading since before he first read Harold and the Purple Crayon, which he considers a classic. His first role playing experience was in 1976 with Tunnels and Trolls, a game of which he is still a fan to this day. He can be found on the wall in Trollhalla, where he sometimes offers his services as a web developer. Today his leisure reading interests are primarily science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His real job carries the title of Senior Software Engineer and he works for a Fortune 500 R&D IT company. He currently lives in Windermere, Florida, about five minutes from Disney World, with his wife Mary and their dog Rusty.

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Legalese: Each above review is the opinion of the individual reviewer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Eposic Diversions LLC. This review is Copyright ©2009 by Ken St. Andre and Michael K. Eidson. Online rights have been licensed by Eposic Diversions LLC. Please respect these rights and do not further distribute this review or any significant portion of it without permission from the rights holder. If you quote from this review, please give credit to the author. If your quote is on the web, a link back to the full review is appreciated.

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