Soon I Will be Invincible

I highly recommend this book to any fans of superhero work. I don't normally write reviews but I was so moved by this book that I decided to write one. What makes this book interesting is that it unravels the psyche behind what makes a super villain put on the tights everyday.

This product is worth buying! The book itself is action-packed and worth-reading! The book in total changes point-of-veiw every chapter or so, and (although you will never catch me complaining of a female superhero) I, unfortunately, found Fatale's portion of the story quite boring; however, Doctor Impossible's story made the book worth the buy.

No traditional superhero book, this is a provoking character portrayal. It re ignites cliches and shows meaningful personalities behind them. Well, mostly. I'm baffled by mister mystic thrown in, but still an engaging book.

You won't regret reading it.

This sat on my bookshelf for awhile because it was an unusual buy for me. But a few days ago I picked it up and wasn't able to put it down. Terrific book about superheroes presented in a novel rather than a comic. I hope he writes some more because I will be the first to buy them.

This sat on my bookshelf for awhile because it was an unusual buy for me. But a few days ago I picked it up and wasn't able to put it down. Terrific book about superheroes presented in a novel rather than a comic. I hope he writes some more because I will be the first to buy them.

I thought this book was pretty decent. My wife appreciates it as well because, after reading it, I began wearing a super hero costume to bed.

Let me tell you, it isn’t easy to find a good adult-size super hero costume. I ended up going with a Kick-Ass costume because those are fairly popular right now. One minute I’m in the bathroom brushing my teeth. The next… BAM! Out I come in my awesome outfit ready to fight crime… or at least go on the hunt for some Tuesday night action.

Oh – speaking of the movie Kick-Ass. Did you see the part where the guy has his German Shepherd trained to bite guys in the junk? I did. Did you? I did. I tried to train my dog to do the same thing. It’s tricky though because it’s not exactly like they have dog training videos on that sort of thing. There is plenty of material on training to sit, stay, come, etc. Biting junk? Not so much. Therefore, I came up with my own technique. I went to the store and got me a few packs of hot dogs. Then I pulled down my zipper just enough to get the hot dog to stick out and stay put. You know… you unzip an inch or so, slip the hot dog in, and then zip back up so it holds. One can use a variety of meats – hot dogs, brats, summer sausage, kielbasa. I don’t cook the hot dogs or the sausage, but I do cook the others. Some of these meats have a natural curve, so I’d rotate training with curve-up and curve-down. I wanted the dog to get used to both ways. The hot dog just sort of stick straight out.

It worked pretty well actually – a simple command and she went right for the meat! You have to be careful though… too much excitement and the dog might bite a little too far.

Uhhhhhh…what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, the book!

What’s my superpower you ask? Well… it involves my tongue, but that’s all I can say. Just in case anyone out there attempts to take over the world or something, I need to be able to unleash my powers without giving them away. Although… my tongue powers seem to work better on women…

An excellent book. It mixes the superhuman with emotions normal humans feel in a masterful fashion. If you want to read a story about superheroes/villains, with real human emotions, I highly reccomend it to you.

I bought this book for my husband, and he thought it was outstanding. He is a big comic book collector. He had requested this book for his birthday, and found it even better than he had expected. He said it was funny, well paced, with a great build up.

I won't get into all the deep philosophical stuff, though it's there. ...Invincible was a great read - one I was all too happy to finish in one sitting. It was funny, creative, and put a "behind-the-scenes" feel I enjoyed thoroughly. My only real complaint was that I wish he would have put a little more into the wrap-up. You spend the book learning the all too human sides of these larger than life people, then it all seems to end rather abruptly. After investing the time getting to care about the characters a little more epilogue would have been nice. There were a couple scenes that cut too quickly or seemed to jump a bit, but don't let that discourage you from a fun story and an afternoon well spent!

Soon I Will Be Invincible: A Novel
I really fun summer read. Could not put the book down once started. My son read it in one day and he hates to read.

Awful story telling from a novice author.

The plot lines and narration are jumbled. Flashbacks (which are half the story) are convoluted and nested, leaving the reader confused. Often contradictory descriptions as if the author forgot what he said about a character previously.

This book doesn't do the comic book genre justice, nor is it an entertaining spoof of it. Rather it is like reading the worst of a bad DC milieu during the late 70s / early 80s without the artwork.

You can definitely skip this title.

I learned about this book via the webcomic "Unshelved," a library-themed comic that regularly features new and interesting books. While I've struck out from time to time when it comes to books about superheroes (both "The Ables" and "Metamorphosis: Lady Hornet" were disappointments), this one looked intriguing enough that I decided to give it a shot. And unlike the previous two books, it was certainly better-written, with a more compelling world and a nice return to the Silver Age of comics.

I really wanted to like this book, and for the most part it was a decent and even fun ride. But it can never quite decide if it wants to deconstruct the world of superheroes "Watchmen"-style or be a loving homage to them, and so gets muddled along the way.

"Soon I Will Be Invincible" alternates viewpoints between a brand-new hero and a longtime villain. Doctor Impossible, a nigh-invincible super-genius and one of the most infamous supervillains in the world, has just broken out of prison again, and is set to return to his schemes to take over the world... and personally defeat his longtime nemesis CoreFire. Meanwhile, a cyborg-woman named Fatale, rebuilt into a super-soldier after a terrible accident, is recruited as the newest member of the Champions, a team made up of some of the best superheroes in the world. As Impossible constructs his newest superweapon and Fatale struggles to find her place amid the Champions, both find themselves looking back -- Impossible reflecting on the events of his past that brought him to this point, Fatale striving to recall some fragment of her past -- and discover a shocking link between hero and villain that could shake the world...

I'll get my major complaint out of the way first -- as another reviewer pointed out, this book feels tired. There's a sense of world-weary ennui to this world of superheroes and supervillains, a sense that everyone is tired of being super and is just going through the motions. This is most clearly evident in the Champions, as their relations are quite strained and everyone seems snappish and combative even in the best of times. I can understand that Grossman wanted to show that being forced into the role of hero and protector can be draining, and superpowers can have devastating side effects. But... the sense of fun that one expects from comic-book-style superhero action just isn't here. Even the fight scenes are mostly boring, either glossed over quickly or entirely offscreen.

Also, as stated before, this book can't seem to decide on its purpose. It's clearly build in the world of the Silver Age of comics, an era when mad scientist and alien invasions and killer robots existed side by side with elven kingdoms and powerful magic relics and mystical powers, and when comics weren't expected to have too much grounding in realism. The way is paved for a loving homage, even a parody, but Grossman tries too hard to make a serious deconstruction of the genre at the same time. It's a valiant effort, but gets muddled along the way.

Despite these flaws, however, I did fall in love with the world he created, and was delighted at the wide roster of heroes and villains we were given. True, some of them are obvious expies of "real" superheroes -- Blackwolf is Batman in all but name and mascot, CoreFire is essentially a Superman clone, Doctor Impossible could easily be Lex Luthor, etc. -- but I ended up loving some of the minor characters more than the major ones. The magically-powered Mister Mystic, the transparent reformed-villain Lily, the fae warrior Elphim, the half-human half-tiger Feral, the obnoxiously overpowered and goofy Pharaoh, the aged and retired mad genius Baron Ether... there's a huge cast of colorful characters here, a wealth of potential, and if Grossman ever chose to expand this into a series he certainly has plenty of material.

Of the two main characters, Doctor Impossible is truly the more interesting character. Our journey into his mind and his past is a fascinating one, showing a path to evil that isn't necessarily a single dramatic event, but a slow descent that's somehow a lot more realistic and compelling. We even grow to feel a bit sorry for him, and want him to win a battle just once, to see the evil underdog come out on top for once. His rivalry with CoreFire and his crush on the intrepid Lois-Lane stand-in remind me heavily of the movie "Megamind," but that's less a complaint and more a coincidence in my mind. Fatale's side of the story is less interesting -- sorry, but amnesiac heroes are very boring -- and I wish Grossman had followed a different character for the heroes' side of the tale, such as Lily or Damsel or even Blackwolf.

I waffled back and forth on what rating to give this book, as it did give us a whole new superhero universe to explore and had some fascinating things to say about heroes and villains in general. In the end, however, I ended up giving it three stars instead of four. It tries hard, and it gave us some memorable characters, but in the end it feels too tired and muddled to make much of a statement. For a better tribute to superheroes with a slightly modern edge, I recommend Kurt Busiek's "Astro City" instead.

Austin Grossman tells a comic book story in novel format. But this is a sophisticated comic book story, full of pop culture references and a long list of clever-named superheroes and supervillains who never existed in anyone else's imagination. Soon I Will Be Invincible is told from the interlaced viewpoints of the evil genius Dr. Impossible, and the newest member of the superhero group The New Champions, the half-cyborg Fatale.

Grossman gives a fun alternate universe story, set in the contemporary world where enhanced people exist, some are superheroes, some are supervillains, others are neither. In this world, the superheroes have an uneasy alliance with the government.

Although on the surface, Grossman delivers simple comic book plot. Evil supervillain escapes from jail and attempts to take over the world. Noble superheroes come to the rescue. In Grossman's hands, the simple becomes a lively romp. He weaves together the recent history of this world with the origin stories of the superheroes and supervillains .Austin Grossman can't but help and give us his twist on the Chronicles of Narnia books with Lily's origin story, a nod to the Magician novels of his twin brother Lev Grossman.

Fatale is enhanced by cyborg technology that she barely understands. Having worked as a lone operative and then for the NSA, she can barely believe her luck, recruited to the New Champions. As they try to thwart Dr. Impossible, Fatale struggles with her integration with the team. Dr. Impossible is driven by adolescent impulses, and his origin is tied up with several of the superheroes. His cartoonish behavior at times comes across as a parody of villains, which can be so funny as to cause you to laugh out loud. One of the themes is why do some enhanced people become bad and others good, and the nebulous area in between.

For comic book fans, this is a fantastic novel. Grossman shows great facility with the genre, but he is able to transcend the genre to give us a very enjoyable story.

First off, this is straight-up point-of-view novel about relationships, about self-realization, about the futility of it all, and about the drive to go on despite all the setbacks life throws one's way.

It's just that the characters are all superheroes and supervillains.

"Why did I never learn to keep quiet about my plans?" moans Doctor Impossible. "It doesn't matter! All my efforts have led to this moment and this time I WILL rule the world."

It's well written and you empathize with the characters. Sort of. Until you realize it's quite silly. Treating supervillains as regular people is an old joke that's been done countless times. Just search the internet for the "Evil Overlord List" or look at the 1969 Monty Python "Bicycle Repairman" sketch where in a world of Supermen, no one knows how to fix a bicycle. Or Jane Curtin interviewing Bond villains on the original Saturday Night Live in the 1970s. Or the father and son moments in Mike Myers' Austin Powers series from the 1990s.

Here it's done deadpan and seriously but it's still a joke; one that runs too long.

Vincent Poirier, Quebec City

I listened to the audio book of this. The narrator was quite good, but I had a hard time staying engaged with the story. Sometimes there are stories that have nothing but plot and paper-thin characters. This is the exact opposite! 85% of the book seemed to be the characters internal monologue detailing their thoughts, feelings, and recollections explaining how they became who they are. The main character, Doctor Impossible, spends the majority of the book describing his childhood and the process of becoming a villain. It is an interesting viewpoint, but I really wanted much more to happen. It was a book with extraordinary character development and a paper-thin plot. Sorry, that doesn't work for me either.

This is not a superhero adventure story in any normal sense. It is not a graphic novel and it is not a prose fiction version of a comic book. It is a great deal more, or at least it is greatly different.

This is Dr. Impossible's book. A second character, Cyborg, is a new recruit on the Champions hero team, and she suffers through newbie crises and self-doubt, but her story is just there to balance Dr. Impossible and to provide a little dramatic tension. The heart and soul of the effort is Dr. Impossible.

Newly sprung from a maximum security prison, (because no jail can hold the smartest man in the world), Impossible has to start from scratch rebuilding his awesome criminal empire. We follow his hopes and dreams, self-doubt and dark musings, as he gets himself back on his feet. At one point he revisits a hideout where failed super-villains, most in costume, hang out talking about their past glory days. It is like the high school reunion from hell and is brutally funny, sad, touching and bizarre. There is gentle humor in this book, lacerating humor, bile, regret and a moving combination of hope and melancholy that make Dr. Impossible closer to a failed everyman than any bright and sparkling superhero could ever be.

This book is about ambition, celebrity, ego and power and our villain's rueful reflections on those subjects will amuse and provoke thought. It's deadpan approach, sly inside jokes, and the earnest humanity of Dr. Impossible make him one of the great memorable villains. Just a marvelous find.

Austin Grossman's debut novel was recommended to me by a colleague - A book about superheroes (to appease my perpetually adolescent comic book nerd self) filled with tongue-in-cheek humor and enough irony (to appease my very read English teacher self.) While the book is, at its heart, a sort of awkward love letter to the whole Super Hero team vs. long time nemesis theme, it tries to be a deconstruction at the same time. The problem is, it never fulfills either assignment. It sure as HELL ain't "Watchmen," but it IS a unique take on a genre that, unfortunately, either gets worshiped as gospel or dismissed as childish trash. "Soon I Will Be Invincible" is a story about super villain Dr. Impossible (a man with very real issues) and his newest attempt at world domination. It's also a story of the "New Champions," a Justice-League-ish team with very real world problems creating tension within their ranks. An entertaining, if lighthearted read that would warrant a sequel, albeit one with a bit more depth and - dare I say it - laser beam like focus.

I recently read Austin Grossman's sophomore novel, You, and the tale of games and gamers didn't speak to me. However, even I could see that it was well-written and not a bad book. Rather than discouraging me from reading more of his work, it inspired me to at last read his debut novel, Soon I Will Be Invincible. What a good decision! God, I laughed and laughed and just loved it! Based on this book alone, I will be sure to read Grossman's next work promptly.

The funny thing is, I didn't relate well to the computer gamers of You and I am equally disinterested in the super heroes and super villains of Soon I Will Be Invincible. I can't stand comic book stories--but I do like making fun of them. And Austin Grossman is having an absolute hoot playing with well-worn tropes. It's all done with great affection.

Told in alternating chapters from the points-of-view of super villain Doctor Impossible and superhero Fatale (as in femme), the actual plot of the tale is largely irrelevant. It's all about the comic book tropes. I recognized them even as the fast and furious plot twists were unfolding. I'd groan and think, "Of course!" For instance, at one point the evil genius narrates:

"'You won't be laughing when I move the--' I start to say, the plan I've concocted in prison on the tip of my tongue. Why do I always tell people my plans? "

But in the addition to the many, many laughs, Grossman infuses some humanity into his larger-than-life characters. Fatale explains:

"I know what it's like. Your powers are what you always have with you. It's one piece of knowledge we all share here. No matter how many dossiers the government keeps on you, no matter what data your enemies have collected, no one knows your powers the way you do. Everyone has seen them on TV. For everyone else, it's a momentary fantasy. They don't have to take them into the kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom. Or wake up in the night in flames, or sweep up shattered glass in their apartment, or show up late for work with a black eye. No one else knows where they itch or bruise you, or has tried the things you've tried with them when you were bored or desperate. No one else falls asleep with them and finds them still there in the morning, a dream that won't disperse upon waking."

I think the language above is beautiful. The man can write. As you can see, Grossman's work covers quite an emotional spectrum, but rest assured that he keeps things light most of the time. I found myself wanting to quote passages aloud because they were so funny, even more so in the context of his over-the-top tale. Soon I Will Be Invincible actually reminded me a lot of another favorite--Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog. Both works use humor and pathos to illuminate the lives of their cartoonish characters. I can only hope that Mr. Grossman takes another page from the comics and one day writes a sequel. As you know, no prison can hold Doctor Impossible!

The Marvel and DC universes are so large and complex, and I don't know them. Or whatever little I ever did know, I don't remember. Or whatever little I remember, I can't be arsed to care about, because it's such a small part of the whole that it's pointless to even bother trying to understand it all now. I watched Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman, and the Justice League and Spider-Man cartoons, as a kid -- but didn't read the comics or dive into the deeper backstories or map out the family trees. Today's surge in the superhero stories of those two universes seems like something I can only access on a surface level, because of my lack of understanding (or interest, at this point). And they're not really pursuing me on any deeper level, either; they're catering to those who are already deep in that world, naturally.

But that's not to say I'm not interested the basic idea. This book has all the things I like about superhero tales -- origin stories, amazing powers, cool lairs, a world-domination plot -- and, because it is its own self-contained (but complex!) universe in a single book, I'm not fraught with angst over all the context and metadata I don't understand. It's all here. POV chapters alternate between a supervillain and a superhero -- not only a smart way to organize two storylines that converge, but also a successful means for a slow roll-out of personalities and exposition, creating a nice build in the dramatic arc. Grossman's writing is intelligent.

There is a pragmatism to both narrators which some critics apparently deplore, but which I think succeeds as both parody and credibility. It lacks the campy silliness of the modern superhero movies, and while I like those things sometimes ("Puny God!), I find a deeper value here. In terms of tone, it's closer to the James Bond universe than Marvel/DC. And Bond was my "superhero" of choice, growing up.

This book came out in 2007, and I would never have heard of it but for some random user comment on some random io9 post. But so far, it's a contender for my favorite book of the year.

"Soon I Will Be Invincible" is a fresh and thoroughly well written take on the superhero genre that I highly recommend. While most superhero stories focus on their amazing abilities and grand battles against super villains, Austin Grossman delves into the nitty gritty of the real superhero life behind the veil of glitz and glamour. He touches on the complexities of life as a cyborg, the social awkwardness of becoming the new member of a reknowned superhero team, the internal squabbles and issues which arise even within a group of superheroes, and the loneliness of being a supervillain.

While some of these themes have been explored before in comics, they have always taken a back seat to the battle between good and evil. In this case these issues are always at the forefront, with the contest between the Champions and Doctor Impossible merely serving as plot device to advance the story to allow for further examination of the traditional concept of Superheroes and Supervillians.

Really my only quibble with this book is that it has a massive build up to the final confrontation, but then ends with more of a whimper than a bang. Overall though this doesn't detract from what is otherwise a captivating and enjoyable read.

Finally finished this book! Let me preface this review by stating that this would be a pretty interesting movie. I feel like the two main characters that you follow around the story are very good, even if you only get snippets of their past through their own observations. It is told from the first person and therefore may be difficult for some readers who are not used to reading this type of literature.

However, as a story it is pretty interesting because you get to experience the trials and tribulations of both an aspiring superhero and a fallen villain. I liked it.

The story was a little disjointed in places due to the numerous flashbacks and sometimes it was difficult to keep straight what was going on. Overall however, I greatly enjoyed it.

After months of staring at the bright (and slightly garish) cover, I finally purchased this book. I was both pleased & dissapointed after I finished it. I also started wondering when the movie version would come out, as this book seemed to be aching for a big screen treatment.

The plot surrounds two characters, Doctor Impossible (the villain) & Fatale (a hero). The chapters switch back & forth between the two regularly, which allows us to see the story from both ends. Impossible's arch-nemesis CoreFire has gone missing just before he decides to break out of prison. Confused (as he didn't do it) & a bit peeved, Doctor Impossible decides that without CoreFire around he can finally get around to that little task of taking over the world. Meanwhile there's a new superhero in the New Champions, the half-human/half-robot Fatale. She has no memories of her past & a lot of issues over her lot in life.

The story was pretty good for a first attempt & I anticipate that the author's future works will get even better as they start getting more polished. There's a few tedious parts to the book & some of the twists are sort of predictible, but they're forgivable for the most part. The only part that got me was the open-ended resolution. It ended the book with more of a whimper than a bang. For how interesting the rest of the book was, I was dissapointed that the ending seemed so... weak. Still, it's a decent enough read & comic book fans like myself will enjoy reading the various cliches thrown into the book.

This is an interesting literary take on Comic Superheroes. When I first picked it up I worried it would veer too far into dark and gritty territory, but it's more similar in tone to Venture Brothers than Watchmen...sort of a dry send-up of hero/villain tropes. There are some neat ideas here and even a few gorgeous snippets of prose, but the thing that keeps me from giving it four stars or higher is the frustrating paragraph structure, specifically non-attributed dialog. So many scenes have the characters performing actions and speaking with ZERO tags, so it's hard to tell who is doing/saying what. I often found myself having to backtrack to previous pages to try and pick up the thread of which character was talking and which was reacting. It's worth the time to read if you have the patience for that.

Superhero's and Evil Scientists? Yes please!
This book provides the inner monologue of Doctor Impossible (DI for short), the villian, and Fatale, a rookie hero, during the latest of DI evil schemes to, what else could it be, take over the world!

There is a lot of the back story of both characters, which provides the overall background of this super-powered world (with Aliens, Faery, magic and evil scientists) providing both their origin story and the story of most of the characters as well as some of the Super organizations. Fatale, for example, is asked to joined the re-formed Champions organization which has its "Superman" powered character at the core, Corefire. And of course the impetus of reforming the Champions is that Corefire has gone missing and Doctor Horrible, his arch-nemisis, is suspected even though he is residing in prison.

Briskly placed with appropriate background, this is a great read for fans of the superhero genre.

The Champions, a world famous group of superheroes, is changing. Some old members are gone and new members are coming on board. One new member is a new modern cyborg, part human and part machine, named Fatale. But villains don't take a vacation so that new trainees can get up to speed. Super villain Doctor Impossible, an evil genius who is always trying to find some way to take over the world, has escaped from his latest prison and is once again gearing up his diabolical plans. While Fatale tries to find her place to fit in with the existing Champions group, she also wants to find Doctor Impossible and prove her worth.

This young adult sci-fi book reads like a comic book without the pictures. It is the story of one young woman in the process of becoming a superhero and the story of a super villain getting one more chance to rule the world. The story is very fast paced with a whole lot of different heroes and criminals cropping up in the story. Several times I felt like I had dropped into the middle of an existing series-but this is the debut book. While the story is good, I could have used a few less characters to keep up with.

The story jumps from following Fatale to following Dr. Impossible. I loved Fatale's character and how she grows and matures into a heroine through the story. I wasn't nearly as interested in what Dr. Impossible was thinking and wanting, although I do think the information was a vital part of the story. I guess I'm just not a fan of super villains.

I also liked learning about many of the secondary characters but I think I would have enjoyed it more if their stories were in different books in the series with more details about each of them and their relationships instead of everything being in one book.

On the whole I liked the book and would read a sequel.

Armchair Interviews says: If you are a fan of superhero or super villain stories, this book is a pretty fun adventure!

I thought this was a good book - fairly well written and from an angle you don't see very often. It isn't often that you find yourself somewhat rooting for the villain, but this is that book.

What didn't I like about this book? At times, it seemed to be repetitive and drag out a bit. There were also times where I wasn't certain for a few moments whether the current scene was a flashback or taking place right now.

Despite those couple of flaws, it was a great read for those that grew up on 80s era superheros. If you enjoyed watching The Superfriends or the Justice League, you will probably enjoy this book :)