First Gimp Attempts

I recently posted in a Reddit thread about superhero novels and thought that the list I put together there might form an interesting blog post.

Superhero novels are near and dear to my heart for several reasons.

• One, I grew up reading comic books and loved some of them dearly. The only fanfic I have ever written involved the uncanny X-Men and the super villain Arcade, along with a thinly veiled version of myself. It has, luckily, been lost and not recorded for posterity.
• Two, I loved playing superhero RPG’s like Villains and Vigilantes and Champions. Superhero 2044 came out around the same time, but it wasn’t as interesting to my gaming group, which tended to stick with Champions.
• This led in fact to three, which is that I once wrote a novel involving superheroes. I wrote it while in the Masters program in writing at Johns Hopkins. At the time, watchmen had just come out, and the possibilities of superhero literature had not, perhaps we shall say, been realized as effectively as it is today. In fact, I took the book to Tom Disch, who was teaching in the office next to me, and who read a chapter, fixed me with a gimlet eye, and asked, “but why bother?” Several publishing houses looked at the novel and felt it was well written but not commercial. Some time later, tragically, the manuscript was lost in the course of moves. Its heroes can be found in a short story which appeared in Strange Horizons, Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut, which can also be found in story collection Near + Far. Other superhero stories by me appear in Corrupts Absolutely and Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight

So here’s some of my favorites:

From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain by Minister Faust is awesome superhero fiction. It’s told by the therapist of a superhero team that closely resembles the Avengers. Faust also has The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad.

Count Geiger’s Blues by Michael Bishop is amazing. Along the same lines is Bishop’s Brittle Innings, the story of a baseball playing monster.

The Wild Cards series edited by George R.R. Martin (of GoT fame) is tons and tons of fun and there are a LOT of them for those of us who like to read at a fast and furious clip.

In Hero Years I’m Dead by Michael Stackpole is terrific along with Once a Hero. I wish Stackpole would write more in this world.

Carrie Vaughn After the Golden Age is told from the point of view of the unpowered daughter of a pair of superheroes, Captain Olympus and Spark.

Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty.

Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible is told from alternating experienced villain and novice hero viewpoints.

Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a classic.

The Sugar Frosted Nutsack by Mark Leyner is, like all of Leyner’s books, hysterical, but this time with superheroes.

Those Who Walk in Darkness by John Ridley is the beginning of a series that I found reminiscent of joint online project Shadow Unit, created by Elizabeth Bear, Holly Black, Leah Bobet, Emma Bull, Sarah Monette, and Will Shetterly.

Nobody Gets the Girl by James Maxey. Series.

Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks is YA superhero fantasy.

Karma Girl by Jennifer Estep is frothy and funny and sweeps you along in a nicely satisfying story. First of a series.

Along the same lines is Black and White, the story of a superhero and a supervillain friendship by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge. First in a series.

Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey (also known for her Kushiel adult epic fantasy series) is the story of a group genetically engineered for superpowers. First of a series.

If you want something that goes back to some of F&SF’s roots, try Doc Savage or A Feast Unknown by Philip Jose Farmer.

This essay originally appeared in the January 2000 issue of Imaginary Realities.

In 1999, one of the Armageddon MUD coders, Morgenes, put in a command that has no effect on a player at all. It doesn’t get you gold (or obsidian, in our mud’s case), doesn’t raise your skills, doesn’t open the mystic portal to the realm of Waterdeep, or anything at all like that. Yet it was a change that would end up becoming one of the most popular (and most copied) commands ever on the mud, with at least one thread on our discussion board devoted to lavish praise of it from players and staff alike.

The command was ‘think.’ Its syntax is simple. The player types think ‘Woah, hey, did I just see a coin lying in the road back there?’ and gets this back: ‘You think ‘Woah, hey, did I just see a coin lying in the road back there?’ Easy, no? And at first glance, somewhat pointless.

To explain the immense popularity of this command, one needs to understand that Armageddon MUD is more than role play intensive. It’s role play required, and players who fail to stay in character or interrupt the flow of the vast interactive story that staff and players are spinning together usually mend their ways fast. Or are asked to leave the story, usually not in a particularly polite manner. Armageddon’s had the reputation of having the rudest immortal staff on the net for a long time, and while that’s changed considerably, there are, I suspect, staff members who still cherish that attitude to a degree. Players who aren’t staying in character find out fast that it’s not appropriate, or appreciated, on Arm.

Given this, think has proven invaluable to the players whose actions might be incomprehensible to the staff. If a staff member happens to be monitoring a player, and glimpses a few thinks here and there, they know what’s going on and why, precisely, that crazed Krathi is sitting out in the desert. She’s waiting for a vision, which she might choose to supply of her own accord via think, or with which a staff member might help. Why did that elf suddenly take off running? He thought he saw a mantis, gythka staff in mandible, approaching his hiding place. Think not only helps the player solidify what it is she’s doing, but lets the staff know what’s going on as well.

Beyond that, the command’s entertaining and helps the player flesh out the character. Is he thinking ‘Did that templar just look at me?’ If so, he may scurry back into the Labyrinth to hide from the unwanted attention. Perhaps while that wily gypsy is trying to sell her a luck charm, the player’s sitting there thinking hard on how to sell the gypsy out to the dreaded Blackmoon. Personal beliefs, spiritual beliefs, reactions to other characters – all of these, and more, get played out via the think command in a way they never were before. One of my favorite moments was monitoring a conversation between a pretentious noble and the commoner they were upbraiding, who while keeping their eyes downcast was thinking of the multitude of ways that noble could be humiliated.

I’ve seen other benefits as well. At least one character has accidentally typed talk instead of think, and found themselves saying aloud what’s in their head, leading to assorted and interesting results. It slows down some of the fast typists, who otherwise tend to overwhelm other players with the multitude of their emotes and speeches. Some players use it while sleeping, to create intricate and sometimes lurid dreams. We’ve some plans to tie think into the psionic skills on the mud eventually, though that’s a far and future notion. But the benefit to the role playing of the mud has been tremendous. I’d urge other role playing muds to at least…think about putting this command in.