CBI Archive
Interesting Superhero Novel
- by Brian Cronin
- in General
Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 2:11 PM EST
Updated: Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 2:11 PM EST
Rob Rogers dropped me a line about his new superhero novel that is coming out soon (it is solicited in the February issue of Previews), from Wizards of the Coast’s new book line - Wizards Discoveries.
Here is Rob’s description of the book (and read more to see the cover, plus Greg Rucka’s take on the book, plus a link to Rob’s work blog for the book!):
It’s a superhero story set in a fictional Louisiana city called Devil’s Cape (a sister city to New Orleans, founded in the 1700s by a masked pirate called St. Diable). The book is set in the present day and features a trio of new heroes: Argonaut, Bedlam, and Doctor Camelot.
Here is what Greg Rucka had to say about the book (you can see this and more at Rob’s blog here):
There is NO WAY that this is Rob Rogers’s first novel. This is a novel replete with the rewards of a lifetime of training, effort, and passion. Devil’s Cape is a mesmerizing, seductive, and darkly moving piece of fiction that seamlessly, even gracefully, marries tactile reality with myth and magic to bring its own pulsating world to life. Beyond expectations, full of surprises, singing with resonance and emotion, Rogers has written a novel that first stabs the superhero genre in the back, then flips the body over and shocks it back to exhilarating life. What arises from this crime scene is a post-modern delight. Take the tour of Devil’s Cape—I guarantee you’re going to like it here!
Some heady praise there, Rob!
6 Comments
Rob Rogers
January 31, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Thanks very much for the post, Brian. I’m excited about the book and I appreciate the attention.
And yes, I’m very grateful to Greg Rucka for taking the time to read the book and for his gracious comments. What a cool guy!
Stony
January 31, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Y’know, I’ve often wondered why superhero novels never really took off. Maybe it’s because it’s so used to being marginalised as a visual medium, and that a lot comic readers aren’t fans of prose and won’t always cross over.
I for one would love to see a lot more superhero novels around the place… maybe instead of luring novelists to work in comics, the companies should give novelists the properties to write in the medium that they’re most comfortable with themselves.
This is not to knock that comic writers themselves shouldn’t or can’t write novels, I guess this goes back to the argument over whether TV writers coming into comics is a good thing. I’m soundly of the mind that a good writer is a good writer regardless of the medium they choose, BUT that they need to be able to master that medium before their true worth can be revealed.
Otherwise, look forward to seeing Roy’s book when it comes out down here. Let’s get this sub-genre popping!
Stony
January 31, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Who the hell is Roy? I meant Rob…. oy… I need my eyes checked
Matthew E
January 31, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Y’know, I’ve often wondered why superhero novels never really took off. Maybe it’s because it’s so used to being marginalised as a visual medium, and that a lot comic readers aren’t fans of prose and won’t always cross over.
I for one would love to see a lot more superhero novels around the place…
I’m a big fan of superhero novels; I’ve got a shelf and a half of them downstairs, and a big list of more I want to get (and Devil’s Cape has just been added to it). Most recent additions: the latest Wild Cards book and Minister Faust’s From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain. (The first was awesome and the second deceptively good and intriguing.) There are actually a lot of them out there; the best ones are very good, but others tend to be kind of underwritten. If you want an exhaustive list, check out this site; he includes a lot of stuff I wouldn’t include, but I can’t think of anything he should have included but didn’t.
red-Ricky
February 1, 2008 at 2:38 am
…a sister city to New Orleans, founded in the 1700s by a masked pirate called St. Diable.
Oy!
No disrespect, but are we talking about a pirate named Street Devil or Saint Devil?
‘Cause I gotta tell you, there are a lot of awesome pirate names out there and Saint Devil doesn’t strike me as one of the best.
Yours truly,
Bad-Rum Bart
ps: Aren’t pirate name generators neat?
http://gangstaname.com/pirate_name.php
Frank Byns
February 1, 2008 at 12:29 pm
[plug]
If anyone is interested in more superhero prose fiction, the latest issue of A Thousand Faces, the Quarterly Journal of Superhuman Fiction is now available at http://www.thousand-faces.com
Nine original superhero stories, plus interviews with Christopher Knowles (”Our Gods Wear Spandex”) and Van Plexico (the “Sentinels” series).
[\plug]