All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault and They Promised Me The Gun Wasn’t Loaded

Man. Great titles. Great covers. Just some fantatic pieces of business here.

The first two (of a presumably planned 4) books in James Alan Gardner’s “The Dark vs. Spark” series, these books are superhero pastiches. On a world where mad scientists build giant city destroying robots, and vampires offer immortality to anyone who can pay the right (very expensive) price, four college students are caught in a mysterious lab explosion and immediately gain superpowers.

They don’t have a whole lot of drama about the actual gaining of super powers, because everybody has seen an origin story before. Instead they immediately jump into the action.

These are great. The two initial protagonists, Kim and Jools, are both really interesting characters, and the plot moves along very quickly. There’s some judicious flashbacks to adversity that needs to be overcome, a few Faustian bargains, and plenty of intrigue and interesting characters.