Better to Die a Hero

by Michael Van Dagger

Sometimes smart kids, good kids, the type of kids that you think would know better, do stupid things. Steve Pierce is an overweight eighteen-year-old with a propensity for daydreaming. His best friend Bryan, voted class clown, is gangly with a gift for mimicry. Their beautiful acquaintance Nora usually runs with the popular crowd. When Steve thinks back to the moment he and his friends held their innocent tea ceremony, when they dissolved the powder into the water, he cannot fathom why he drank it. Nora Chan was at his house earlier in the week when he’d opened the crate of antiques, an inheritance from a father he’d never met. It was in that crate they discovered the powder. Nora’s ninety-year-old grandfather identified the substance as a Chinese health remedy. Still, judging from the antique container, the contents were at least a hundred years old or older. The substance is a mystical compound and it endows them with great power. On the powder, the three take to the Bronx rooftops where they vault alleyways and delight in super strength, and enhanced reflexes. They create costumes and play at being superheroes; but really, how many crimes occur in any given neighborhood on any given night? None. And, what’s the use of being strong when there are no super villains? Still, a properly motivated superhero living in New York should be able to find a worthy adversary, and then regret it. You always remember your first super villain, provided you live.

264 pages, Paperback

First published August 20, 2011

Reviews

[Kris Boggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story. A real page turner! Unpredictable and suspenseful. I highly recommend. .

[Procrastinador Diletante · Rating 2 out of 5]

Este foi daqueles livros que comecei a ler sem grandes expectativas, para depois ser surpreendido nos primeiros capítulos, e acabar desiludido nas últimas páginas!

Com uma capa duvidosa e uma sinopse que não prometia muita originalidade - adolescentes "geeks" que ganham poderes -, confesso que após ficar a conhecer as personagens, comecei a pensar que talvez estivesse errado em relação a esta história.

O conceito de que não basta só ter capacidades extraordinárias para nos tornarmos num super-herói, foi bem explorado e parecia prometer bastante, com os protagonistas a debaterem-se com vestuário, nomes, ausência de criminosos...pormenores secundários que muitas vezes são esquecidos.

E assim ia o enredo avançando, até que o autor decidiu acelerar a narrativa, mudando o tom para um velho cliché da temática - o poder corrompe.

Honestamente, acho que esta mudança súbita lhe correu mal, porque dá uns "saltos" que muitas vezes são confusos, omitindo pormenores que nos deixam a adivinhar o que ocorreu em certas situações.

Um caso concreto, é que nunca ficamos a saber a origem específica da misteriosa substância que os transforma, que é somente a base de toda a história!!

A par de livros com zombies, hoje em dia também há uma torrente de livros de super-heróis, de onde este "Better to Die a Hero" poderia ter sobressaído, se o autor tivesse permanecido no caminho inicial...sendo assim, afundou-se no oceano de publicações banais de autor.

[Echo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm surprised that there are not any reviews on this book. I'm not great at reviews, but I really enjoyed this new spin on young "super heros".

After Steve, his best friend Bryan, and the girl of his eternal crush Nora start taking a strange powder left to Steve by his father they develop super abilities. Steve and Bryan, hard core nerds/gamers, take this as a chance to be just like the characters they read in comics and play in their games. However, it means more to Bryan than Steve and Nora and the need for the strength and power to "fight crime" starts to change Bryan, and their life long friendship starts to be affected as well as the physcial changes. At this point it shifts from a light hearted, funny tone to something much darker.

The story jumps primarily from Steve and Bryans POV and occasionally a few minor characters, this proves confusing at times, but overall it was a good story. The ending left a little bit to be desired and there were a few questions that Van Dagger created that weren't really answered, I hope he continues the story in another book. I would highly recommend this book to people

[Leann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked how this book caught my attention really well from the beginning. Usually that is a good sign that I will like a book. However, as I continued to read, I felt like the story developed too slowly and didn't develop enough in many of the areas I felt that it should have. For instance, I saw another reviewer mentioning the supervillians that were in the book and how they were not developed enough and I tend to agree. SPOILER ALERT There is also mention of some supernatural characters which honestly I don't know if they were even real or a figment of a crazed mind. If they were real, maybe there is another book to follow or something because that part seemed to lead nowhere. There were just enough interesting things going on to keep me reading, but nothing making me not want to put the book down. With all the really good books out there to read, this is not one i would recommend to my friends.

[Richard Larmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a bit of everything. It began as what seemed to be somewhat light-hearted story about a trio of teens who bcame super-powered through the use of an ancient powder in an old bottle. It then became a quasi-Frankenstein novel as two of the trio tried to stop the third, who had become a demented super creature called the Troll. I have read both better and worse books.

[Marjie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not recommended

Needed an editor, badly. Too many verb subjects not in agreement made for difficult reading. Poorly written, not believable. Hard to follow. I slogged through when I should have deleted.