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Whoosh! Bam! Pow! #2
Burn Baby Burn: A Supervillain Novel
Sundancer is a militant radical who channels the heat and light of the sun, capable of melting steel and vaporizing anyone who stands in her way. Pit Geek is seemingly immortal, able to survive any injury, but haunted by fragmented memories. Together, these supervillains launch a crime spree bold enough to threaten the world's economy.
To stop them, the government authorizes a new band of superheroes known as the Covenant to hunt down the menaces. Sundancer and Pit must learn to rely on one another as never before if they're to escape the heroes that hound them. When they finally run out of places to hide, can mankind survive the conflagration when Sundancer unleashes the full force of her solar powers?
"Burn Baby Burn has an incredibly high cool things per page quotient. Maxey crams more fresh ideas in a chapter than most books have altogether. That plus kick-ass action scenes and I found it hard to put down."
--Maya Lassiter, author of Toby Streams the Universe
"The most genuine fun I've had with a superhero story since watching The Incredibles."
--Lon Prater, author of Roads Like These
To stop them, the government authorizes a new band of superheroes known as the Covenant to hunt down the menaces. Sundancer and Pit must learn to rely on one another as never before if they're to escape the heroes that hound them. When they finally run out of places to hide, can mankind survive the conflagration when Sundancer unleashes the full force of her solar powers?
"Burn Baby Burn has an incredibly high cool things per page quotient. Maxey crams more fresh ideas in a chapter than most books have altogether. That plus kick-ass action scenes and I found it hard to put down."
--Maya Lassiter, author of Toby Streams the Universe
"The most genuine fun I've had with a superhero story since watching The Incredibles."
--Lon Prater, author of Roads Like These
212 pages, Paperback
First published October 30, 2011
17 people are currently reading
332 people want to read
About the author
James Maxey
93 books188 followersI've been an avid reader since I first picked up a book. Luckily, I was within biking distance of three different libraries growing up. I was a skinny kid. If only I had maintained that link between biking and reading, I might be a skinny adult.
I'm also a writer. I wrote my first book as a kid, an adventure about pirates and ghosts. When I was a teenager, I used to write superhero adventures. Then I went to college and was steered toward writing "literature." It took me several years to shake that off, and today I write the sort of books I devoured by the shelf when I was sixteen, fast-paced fantasy, SF, and superhero adventures, which I use to explore deeper questions about life. My goal is to always be thought-provoking and always be fun.
I've had short stories in about a dozen anthologies and magazines. My novels to date are:
Nobody Gets the Girl
The Dragon Age trilogy
Bitterwood
Dragonforge
Dragonseed
Burn Baby Burn
The Dragon Apocalypse
Greatshadow (January 2012) -- A team of superpowered adventurers are recruited by the Church of the Book to extinguish the primal dragon of fire, Greatshadow.
Hush (July 2012) -- An effort to complete a quest for a fallen friend, the warrior woman Infidel stumbles onto a plot to kill Glorious, the primal dragon of the sun, and plunge the world into permanent cold and darkness, the elemental domain of the dragon Hush.
Witchbreaker (January 2013) -- A young witch named Sorrow has lost control of her magic after tapping into the spirit of Rott, the primal dragon of decay. Her desperate quest to save what remains of her humanity leads to an uneasy alliance with an amnesiatic warrior who might be the legendary champion of the church known as the Witchbreaker. But can there combined powers prevail when they trigger the wrath of Tempest, the primal dragon of storms?
I'm also a writer. I wrote my first book as a kid, an adventure about pirates and ghosts. When I was a teenager, I used to write superhero adventures. Then I went to college and was steered toward writing "literature." It took me several years to shake that off, and today I write the sort of books I devoured by the shelf when I was sixteen, fast-paced fantasy, SF, and superhero adventures, which I use to explore deeper questions about life. My goal is to always be thought-provoking and always be fun.
I've had short stories in about a dozen anthologies and magazines. My novels to date are:
Nobody Gets the Girl
The Dragon Age trilogy
Bitterwood
Dragonforge
Dragonseed
Burn Baby Burn
The Dragon Apocalypse
Greatshadow (January 2012) -- A team of superpowered adventurers are recruited by the Church of the Book to extinguish the primal dragon of fire, Greatshadow.
Hush (July 2012) -- An effort to complete a quest for a fallen friend, the warrior woman Infidel stumbles onto a plot to kill Glorious, the primal dragon of the sun, and plunge the world into permanent cold and darkness, the elemental domain of the dragon Hush.
Witchbreaker (January 2013) -- A young witch named Sorrow has lost control of her magic after tapping into the spirit of Rott, the primal dragon of decay. Her desperate quest to save what remains of her humanity leads to an uneasy alliance with an amnesiatic warrior who might be the legendary champion of the church known as the Witchbreaker. But can there combined powers prevail when they trigger the wrath of Tempest, the primal dragon of storms?
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 4, 2015
This book is a sequel to Nobody Gets the Girl, but it is really a stand-alone novel in the same universe. The supervillain main characters, Sundancer (formerly Burn Baby) and Pit Geek were secondary characters in Nobody Gets the Girl — here, they become the antihero protagonists.
James Maxey's superhero universe is as creatively disordered as any comic book universe. There are aliens. There are supergeniuses who have literally remade the world. There are wormholes in space, powers that literally bend time and space with the potential to do so on an apocalyptic scale, fifty foot tall babies with guns for a head, a race of supergenius chimpanzees created as a byproduct of a supervillain's science experiment, and so on.
The problem with superhero novels is that it's very hard to capture the tone of a comic book, with its epic four-color smackdowns and blend of advanced alien civilizations, ancient pagan gods, vampires, magic users from another dimension, mutants, gadgeteers with ultra-tech weapons, and whatever else fits a particular character concept, without being very silly on the page. But James Maxey does it. Burn Baby Burn starts out relatively tame - Sundancer and Pit Geek, former minions of Sundancer's father, the nearly omnipotent Rex Monday, are living life on the lam. Sundancer, who has incredible flame powers, is a bitter, angry terrorist who believed in her father's vision of burning down a corrupt civilization. Pit Geek, who can literally eat anything, and also regenerate from any damage, has no memories of his previous existence.
They make an odd, scary, violent, yet somehow likeable (if you can ignore all the killing) couple.
When Sundancer gets the bright idea to rob banks, she thinks big. She doesn't just take money, she starts a campaign of terror to convince people that their money will never be safe in a bank. Creating a run on banking institutions, she and Pit Geek begin destabilizing the economy in a matter of days.
At this point, the government reluctantly accepts the help of a semi-outlaw band of superheroes called the Covenenant. They consist of Raildancer, daughter of Dr. Knowbokov, who was Rex Monday's old arch-rival, Ap, a young man who can literally code new powers for himself, or receive new ones coded for him by his eager online fans, and Servant, an invincible Superman-figure.
Chapters alternate between Sundancer and Pit Geek and the Covenant. All of them turn out to have complex backgrounds and the author takes advantage of the novel form to make them all more interesting and complicated people than can be developed in a comic book. Ap is gay and spent some time on the streets as a teen prostitute; this causes friction with Servant, who is a born-again Christian. Except Servant, it turns out, just might be a literally born-again superhero, as in his previous life he was a drug-dealing supervillain, now supposedly dead.
While there are chapters spent on revealing secret origins, the purpose of the story is of course to bring these two groups into superpowered conflict, and their fights are literally Earth-shaking. After Sundancer and Pit Geek get away the first time, they flee to the island nation of Pangea, ruled by super-intelligent chimpanzees. This does not sit well with the Covenant, who scheme to find a way to retrieve the wanted terrorists, notwithstanding Pangea being a sovereign state.
On Pangea (which was a development that seemed to come out of almost nowhere, yet it fit into this superhero world just fine), we learn a bit about chimp culture, and the chimp factions, before there are more villainous plots exposed, a tragic secret unearthed about the fate of Pit Geek and Sundancer, and finally, another battle, this time to save the world.
If this all sounds very epic and exciting and highly improbable, it is. But the charm of Burn Baby Burn is that, unlike many other superhero novels I've read, this one doesn't dial down the scale of the superheroics or the absurd science or try to make everything strictly "realistic," yet it still reads as plausible on the page, within the context of this universe, if you can suspend your disbelief that far. It is very much like reading a comic book without pictures, yet it manages to be just as fun. The final chapters are as epic as they are ridiculous, with Sundancer and Pit Geek teaming up with the Covenant to stop a hundred naked headless Sundancer clones, unleashed by an evil chimpanzee mad scientist, from destroying human civilization. And then, there is a sad and surprisingly touching coda to the relationship that has evolved between Sundancer and Pit Geek.
Burn Baby Burn will not appeal to those who don't have an appreciation for the aesthetics and logic of superhero comics, but if you do, I'd rate this (and James Maxey's previous book, Nobody Gets the Girl) as among the better superhero novels out there. This second book, in fact, was significantly better than the first, both in terms of character and plot development, and in more polished writing. 4 stars, but more like 4.5.
James Maxey's superhero universe is as creatively disordered as any comic book universe. There are aliens. There are supergeniuses who have literally remade the world. There are wormholes in space, powers that literally bend time and space with the potential to do so on an apocalyptic scale, fifty foot tall babies with guns for a head, a race of supergenius chimpanzees created as a byproduct of a supervillain's science experiment, and so on.
The problem with superhero novels is that it's very hard to capture the tone of a comic book, with its epic four-color smackdowns and blend of advanced alien civilizations, ancient pagan gods, vampires, magic users from another dimension, mutants, gadgeteers with ultra-tech weapons, and whatever else fits a particular character concept, without being very silly on the page. But James Maxey does it. Burn Baby Burn starts out relatively tame - Sundancer and Pit Geek, former minions of Sundancer's father, the nearly omnipotent Rex Monday, are living life on the lam. Sundancer, who has incredible flame powers, is a bitter, angry terrorist who believed in her father's vision of burning down a corrupt civilization. Pit Geek, who can literally eat anything, and also regenerate from any damage, has no memories of his previous existence.
They make an odd, scary, violent, yet somehow likeable (if you can ignore all the killing) couple.
When Sundancer gets the bright idea to rob banks, she thinks big. She doesn't just take money, she starts a campaign of terror to convince people that their money will never be safe in a bank. Creating a run on banking institutions, she and Pit Geek begin destabilizing the economy in a matter of days.
At this point, the government reluctantly accepts the help of a semi-outlaw band of superheroes called the Covenenant. They consist of Raildancer, daughter of Dr. Knowbokov, who was Rex Monday's old arch-rival, Ap, a young man who can literally code new powers for himself, or receive new ones coded for him by his eager online fans, and Servant, an invincible Superman-figure.
Chapters alternate between Sundancer and Pit Geek and the Covenant. All of them turn out to have complex backgrounds and the author takes advantage of the novel form to make them all more interesting and complicated people than can be developed in a comic book. Ap is gay and spent some time on the streets as a teen prostitute; this causes friction with Servant, who is a born-again Christian. Except Servant, it turns out, just might be a literally born-again superhero, as in his previous life he was a drug-dealing supervillain, now supposedly dead.
While there are chapters spent on revealing secret origins, the purpose of the story is of course to bring these two groups into superpowered conflict, and their fights are literally Earth-shaking. After Sundancer and Pit Geek get away the first time, they flee to the island nation of Pangea, ruled by super-intelligent chimpanzees. This does not sit well with the Covenant, who scheme to find a way to retrieve the wanted terrorists, notwithstanding Pangea being a sovereign state.
On Pangea (which was a development that seemed to come out of almost nowhere, yet it fit into this superhero world just fine), we learn a bit about chimp culture, and the chimp factions, before there are more villainous plots exposed, a tragic secret unearthed about the fate of Pit Geek and Sundancer, and finally, another battle, this time to save the world.
If this all sounds very epic and exciting and highly improbable, it is. But the charm of Burn Baby Burn is that, unlike many other superhero novels I've read, this one doesn't dial down the scale of the superheroics or the absurd science or try to make everything strictly "realistic," yet it still reads as plausible on the page, within the context of this universe, if you can suspend your disbelief that far. It is very much like reading a comic book without pictures, yet it manages to be just as fun. The final chapters are as epic as they are ridiculous, with Sundancer and Pit Geek teaming up with the Covenant to stop a hundred naked headless Sundancer clones, unleashed by an evil chimpanzee mad scientist, from destroying human civilization. And then, there is a sad and surprisingly touching coda to the relationship that has evolved between Sundancer and Pit Geek.
Burn Baby Burn will not appeal to those who don't have an appreciation for the aesthetics and logic of superhero comics, but if you do, I'd rate this (and James Maxey's previous book, Nobody Gets the Girl) as among the better superhero novels out there. This second book, in fact, was significantly better than the first, both in terms of character and plot development, and in more polished writing. 4 stars, but more like 4.5.
December 29, 2011
This is an amazing follow-up to Nobody Gets the Girl. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that it is better in just about every way than the first book.
I've always been a sucker for books where the lines of good and evil are not clear-cut. Sunday was brainwashed by her father. Pit was damaged and confused. Servant/Ogre was a conflicted bully. None of them were completely innocent, nor were they completely guilty.
The nods to Nobody Gets the Girl were nice, while I appreciated that no knowledge of the first book was required in order to enjoy the second book.
I've always been a sucker for books where the lines of good and evil are not clear-cut. Sunday was brainwashed by her father. Pit was damaged and confused. Servant/Ogre was a conflicted bully. None of them were completely innocent, nor were they completely guilty.
The nods to Nobody Gets the Girl were nice, while I appreciated that no knowledge of the first book was required in order to enjoy the second book.
October 15, 2015
I do love superheroes! Comics, movies, and novels, it does not matter.
I read the previous volume in this series about this time last year. I had a lot of fun reading it.
So, I picked this one up knowing some of what I had in store for me. And I was not disappointed.
This book picks up a few months/years after Nobody Gets the Girl. The story follows two of the minor villains from the previous book as they look for purpose in a world without their megalomaniacal former leader.
The pair end up causing quite a stir and draw the attention of the United States Government. The US sanctions an Avengers-like group called the Covenant to track them down and capture them.
Lots of action, intrigue, and sci-fi madness ensue.
It has been a long time since I last rooted for the bad guys so strongly. I disliked both villains in the first book, but here I got to know more about them. I started to sympathize with them.
The stakes are high and the action robust. Once again, James Maxey delivers the superhero goods!
I read the previous volume in this series about this time last year. I had a lot of fun reading it.
So, I picked this one up knowing some of what I had in store for me. And I was not disappointed.
This book picks up a few months/years after Nobody Gets the Girl. The story follows two of the minor villains from the previous book as they look for purpose in a world without their megalomaniacal former leader.
The pair end up causing quite a stir and draw the attention of the United States Government. The US sanctions an Avengers-like group called the Covenant to track them down and capture them.
Lots of action, intrigue, and sci-fi madness ensue.
It has been a long time since I last rooted for the bad guys so strongly. I disliked both villains in the first book, but here I got to know more about them. I started to sympathize with them.
The stakes are high and the action robust. Once again, James Maxey delivers the superhero goods!
May 28, 2018
3 stars (by a fingernail, dangling above a precipice)
Just as with 'Nobody Gets the Girl', 'Burn Baby Burn' is an enjoyable if not particularly overwhelming story. Unlike the first book, however, this one gets off to a rather clumsy start and I was really wondering after the few dozen pages if I should continue. Let's just say the preachiness that one character loves to spew as an apparent justification for, well, the injustice around them and being inflicted by them (after all, what better way to make it a better world than by destroying the current one?) gets a bit tiresome. Thankfully, things do pick up and it even includes some deliciously bizarre plot turns as it races to a conclusion (?). Plus, I was more than happy that Nobody was not included in this book as his forced humour (shades of Spidey on a run of bad puns!!) was the worst part of Book 1.
Again, the story drips with the time-honoured gooey goodness that is the gray area between what it means to be a hero or a villain. What - or perhaps better said who(m) - starts off clearly being a nasty SOB turns out before you know it to be a character with real humanity, flaws and perhaps even a nice butt. Then again, those that are supposed to be the good guys might be anything but(t) though you wouldn't want that kind of truth being reported on the news now, would you? Conclusion: pretty much everyone on the planet is a jerk but try not to get killed in the process of figuring things out...
The book was very affordable and at the price I paid, certainly worth the few hours of enjoyment one might expect from the genre. Very quick read, some rather far-fetched bits, weird ending, on to the final chapter.
Just as with 'Nobody Gets the Girl', 'Burn Baby Burn' is an enjoyable if not particularly overwhelming story. Unlike the first book, however, this one gets off to a rather clumsy start and I was really wondering after the few dozen pages if I should continue. Let's just say the preachiness that one character loves to spew as an apparent justification for, well, the injustice around them and being inflicted by them (after all, what better way to make it a better world than by destroying the current one?) gets a bit tiresome. Thankfully, things do pick up and it even includes some deliciously bizarre plot turns as it races to a conclusion (?). Plus, I was more than happy that Nobody was not included in this book as his forced humour (shades of Spidey on a run of bad puns!!) was the worst part of Book 1.
Again, the story drips with the time-honoured gooey goodness that is the gray area between what it means to be a hero or a villain. What - or perhaps better said who(m) - starts off clearly being a nasty SOB turns out before you know it to be a character with real humanity, flaws and perhaps even a nice butt. Then again, those that are supposed to be the good guys might be anything but(t) though you wouldn't want that kind of truth being reported on the news now, would you? Conclusion: pretty much everyone on the planet is a jerk but try not to get killed in the process of figuring things out...
The book was very affordable and at the price I paid, certainly worth the few hours of enjoyment one might expect from the genre. Very quick read, some rather far-fetched bits, weird ending, on to the final chapter.
August 20, 2016
Being a big fan of James Maxey's "Nobody Gets the Girl", I was eagerly looking forward to his next foray into the super hero world. As soon as I saw "Burn Baby Burn", I down loaded it to my Nook. I wanted to take my time, really savor this book. But I couldn't do it! "Burn Baby Burn" was just too exciting, too awesome to put down! I read this book in a day, I couldn't stop turning pages!
This time it's the super villians who get the spotlight, specifically Sundancer and Pit Geek. Maxey does an incredible job of turning these mass murdering villians into complex, sympathetic characters. He meticulously builds a very believable relationship between these two emotionally damaged characters.
Another thing Maxey does extremely well is detailing the inevitable super human throw downs. His fights between hero and villian aren't just people hitting each other extra hard, they are dangerous, catstrophic explosions of raw power. It's not just the combatants who are in mortal jeapordy but whole cities of innocent bystanders, even the earth itself. You really aren't sure who's going to live and who's going to die when Pit Geek and Sundancer clash with the Coventry.
All in all, a must read for anyone who loves that larger than life feel of comic books in their literature.
My favorite quote from the book: "Monkeys and robots make everything better."
This time it's the super villians who get the spotlight, specifically Sundancer and Pit Geek. Maxey does an incredible job of turning these mass murdering villians into complex, sympathetic characters. He meticulously builds a very believable relationship between these two emotionally damaged characters.
Another thing Maxey does extremely well is detailing the inevitable super human throw downs. His fights between hero and villian aren't just people hitting each other extra hard, they are dangerous, catstrophic explosions of raw power. It's not just the combatants who are in mortal jeapordy but whole cities of innocent bystanders, even the earth itself. You really aren't sure who's going to live and who's going to die when Pit Geek and Sundancer clash with the Coventry.
All in all, a must read for anyone who loves that larger than life feel of comic books in their literature.
My favorite quote from the book: "Monkeys and robots make everything better."
November 20, 2015
Stick with "Nobody Gets the Girl" unless you REALLY like downer stories.
This book starts out ok, and it has some good ideas and things you don't see elsewhere. However it is on a downward slope pretty much from the beginning.
It starts off pretty negative and only manages to go down from there.
By the end you will look back ad the sad beginning of the story as the highlight and happy time of the book.
The protagonist don't have much redeeming qualities about them and the so called hero's are worse.
There is not much of a plot and It ends very suddenly. We also don't get a resolution of many of the issues that come up during the story. So while the book wonders all over the place in search of a plot it's ending still manages to feel forced and rushed.
I liked the first book, and that was a pretty dark story as far as "superhero" stories go, but this one never gets as high up as the lowest point in that story.
And with the sad excuse of an ending it has pretty much no redeeming value.
I would have given it a one but it has some original ideas.
I would have given it a three if it had a plot or an actual ending that didn't come out of nowhere and seam to be very forced.
To bad because I was hoping for better.
I should have gone with my impression from the sample. But I figured it was just a slow start. Who knew the sample would be the high point?
This book starts out ok, and it has some good ideas and things you don't see elsewhere. However it is on a downward slope pretty much from the beginning.
It starts off pretty negative and only manages to go down from there.
By the end you will look back ad the sad beginning of the story as the highlight and happy time of the book.
The protagonist don't have much redeeming qualities about them and the so called hero's are worse.
There is not much of a plot and It ends very suddenly. We also don't get a resolution of many of the issues that come up during the story. So while the book wonders all over the place in search of a plot it's ending still manages to feel forced and rushed.
I liked the first book, and that was a pretty dark story as far as "superhero" stories go, but this one never gets as high up as the lowest point in that story.
And with the sad excuse of an ending it has pretty much no redeeming value.
I would have given it a one but it has some original ideas.
I would have given it a three if it had a plot or an actual ending that didn't come out of nowhere and seam to be very forced.
To bad because I was hoping for better.
I should have gone with my impression from the sample. But I figured it was just a slow start. Who knew the sample would be the high point?
November 22, 2012
Reading self-published novels is seldom more rewarding than a tedious chore. They're generally poorly written, poorly plotted, poorly proofed, poorly printed, and just poorly executed all around. So I'm excited to say James Maxey's Burn Baby Burn is none of the above! While it does lack the polish that a publishing house complete with a full staff of professional editors, copyeditors, and proofreaders could provide, it still manages to be both immensely readable and insanely enjoyable. With that extra layer of polish, Burn Baby Burn could be a truly great novel. Or at least a great super power novel, as I doubt anyone not interested in the genre would enjoy it. That's the book's only real flaw: that it is unlikely to be accessible to anyone outside its built in target audience. Overall Burn Baby Burn is fun, action-packed, humorous, and, at times, philosophical. In other words, it's everything you could ask for from super power fiction outside of four colors.
February 3, 2018
This sequel to 2003's Nobody Gets the Girl ups the quotient of weird, wacky comic book fun. The focus is primarily on the two surviving villains from the last book. Pit Geek can eat anything by warping space-time. Sundancer's power appears to be flying and shooting flames, but this is really a byproduct of her ability to open tiny wormholes within her body and let solar energy flow through them.
The war between two evil-genius scientists is over. (The good guys won, although readers of the trilogy know that in this universe, the distinction between heroes and villains is often just a matter of opinion.) Pit Geek and Sundancer begin robbing banks because they don't really know what else to do. This leads them into conflict with a new team of superheroes known as The Covenant, and it also leads to war between humans and a new race of highly evolved chimpanzees.
This novel is full of zany new superpowers. Pit Geek is essentially an inter-dimensional zombie who cannot be killed. An army of naked, headless women attack the South Pacific. The world's first open source superhero allows the public to upload computer code to modify his abilities. A sentient alien probe known only as Space Donut travels through seven dimensions. The battle scenes are more epic, the stakes are higher.
I give the book a lot of credit for sheer imagination. It reminded me a lot of some of Joe R. Lansdale's more off-beat stories like "Dread Island", "The Drive-In Bus Tour", and the Ned the Seal series.
Unfortunately, Burn Baby Burn lacks the complex human relationships that grounded Nobody Gets the Girl and elevated it into a meaningful story about responsibility, moral ethics, and family ties. There is a charming romantic element to Pit Geek and Sundancer's story but even this is too straightforward and uncomplicated to create real narrative depth.
Without meaningful characters, this is no more than a simple adventure-romp like you might find in any comic book. Which is not necessarily a bad thing...
The war between two evil-genius scientists is over. (The good guys won, although readers of the trilogy know that in this universe, the distinction between heroes and villains is often just a matter of opinion.) Pit Geek and Sundancer begin robbing banks because they don't really know what else to do. This leads them into conflict with a new team of superheroes known as The Covenant, and it also leads to war between humans and a new race of highly evolved chimpanzees.
This novel is full of zany new superpowers. Pit Geek is essentially an inter-dimensional zombie who cannot be killed. An army of naked, headless women attack the South Pacific. The world's first open source superhero allows the public to upload computer code to modify his abilities. A sentient alien probe known only as Space Donut travels through seven dimensions. The battle scenes are more epic, the stakes are higher.
I give the book a lot of credit for sheer imagination. It reminded me a lot of some of Joe R. Lansdale's more off-beat stories like "Dread Island", "The Drive-In Bus Tour", and the Ned the Seal series.
Unfortunately, Burn Baby Burn lacks the complex human relationships that grounded Nobody Gets the Girl and elevated it into a meaningful story about responsibility, moral ethics, and family ties. There is a charming romantic element to Pit Geek and Sundancer's story but even this is too straightforward and uncomplicated to create real narrative depth.
Without meaningful characters, this is no more than a simple adventure-romp like you might find in any comic book. Which is not necessarily a bad thing...
December 6, 2018
Good, but not as good as the first one
Like the headline says, the first book was better. Still, not a bad read. Oddly focused on the bad guys, you can actually empathize despite how awful they are. The themes are more down to earth, despite the fantastic powers. I felt some things came out of nowhere. Also, this one gives up any pretense of being a comedy, although there is humor.
Like the headline says, the first book was better. Still, not a bad read. Oddly focused on the bad guys, you can actually empathize despite how awful they are. The themes are more down to earth, despite the fantastic powers. I felt some things came out of nowhere. Also, this one gives up any pretense of being a comedy, although there is humor.
June 17, 2017
My review should be taken with a grain of salt for I did not finish this book.
December 4, 2018
Good escape
Good guys and guys which is which. The villains become the good guys. Need to read for a good comic book story.
Good guys and guys which is which. The villains become the good guys. Need to read for a good comic book story.
August 31, 2019
Interesting
Interesting, sorta like reading a long version of a comic book but without the illustrations. Who would of thought that this could be done and done well I might add.
Interesting, sorta like reading a long version of a comic book but without the illustrations. Who would of thought that this could be done and done well I might add.
August 13, 2021
3.5/5…Who woulda thought after book one, that a book about Sundancer and Pit Geek would be so interesting?
September 10, 2016
I read Maxey's "Nobody Gets the Girl" back in the early '00's and thought it was incredible after reading "Burn Baby Burn" I have to say this book is even better. Maxey is the rare author who gets the superhero prose novel. He is able to construct relatable characters who you care for and root for and he handles super powers and battle scenes like a comic book pro. He also does not ridicule the characters or the genre but treats it with the respect it is due.
Our two main characters, Pit Geek and Sundancer are not nice or good people but after Maxey explains who they are and what their backgrounds are you become sympathetic and see they are more than just super villains. Maxey also leaves you wanting to see more since he is such an incredible world builder; I wanted to learn more about Servant/Ogre, App and Skyrider who make up the Covenant because what little you see about them in this book makes them fascinating and you need to learn more about them.
This book makes me want to go back and read "Nobody" again since it has been so long. I know Maxey has had success with his fantasy novels but I would love for him to come back to this world he has created and to explore it more. It is utterly fascinating, romantic (which he also succeeds at just like he did in Nobody) and action packed. I hate to say it but some comic book writers could learn a thing or two from Maxey on pacing and world building.
Our two main characters, Pit Geek and Sundancer are not nice or good people but after Maxey explains who they are and what their backgrounds are you become sympathetic and see they are more than just super villains. Maxey also leaves you wanting to see more since he is such an incredible world builder; I wanted to learn more about Servant/Ogre, App and Skyrider who make up the Covenant because what little you see about them in this book makes them fascinating and you need to learn more about them.
This book makes me want to go back and read "Nobody" again since it has been so long. I know Maxey has had success with his fantasy novels but I would love for him to come back to this world he has created and to explore it more. It is utterly fascinating, romantic (which he also succeeds at just like he did in Nobody) and action packed. I hate to say it but some comic book writers could learn a thing or two from Maxey on pacing and world building.
July 28, 2012
James Maxey is a great author... Start with "Nobody Gets the Girl", and then get ready to root for the bad guys (and girls!) in this sequel... Have found a new favorite author! (this will last all of a month until I've read all his books - and I can see this distracting from my own writing!) Curses!
September 26, 2015
I am a big fan of Superhero and Supervillain stories and am real sorry to say this book disappoints. It starts off real well then just dies. Feel bad going against the trend here but that is how I see it.
July 10, 2020
Whoa. The last thirty pages of this book is like a non-stop rush of superhero super id. Highly recommended when drinking.
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