The Darklings vs. Sparks series:
Book 1: "All those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault" and
Book 2: "They Promised Me the Gun Wasn't Loaded"
by James Alan Gardner.Tor, 2017.
Reviewed by Robert Runté in N3F Review of Books, Nov 2019.
As soon as I read the titles, I knew I had to buy these two books, and they didn't disappoint. In fact, they were both much better than one might expect, given that the back cover description is completely accurate: They're novels about superheroes vs vampires, werewolves, ghosts and so on. That wouldn't normally might not be a promising premise, but James Alan Gardner is a writer I trust more than most and he pulls it off beautifully.
The story of the first book (All Those Explosions Were Somebody Else's Fault) is told seriously from the perspective of a newly created superhero and while less haha-funny then the title might suggest, there is a strong element of the absurd underneath it all that nicely balances the page-turning action and some pretty dark characterization. The story arc and the personal growth of the viewpoint character are way better than any comic while staying faithful to the form. There's even some depth to Gardner's examination of human motivation and the line between good and evil, morality and viewpoint. Gardner's love of comic books is obvious, but he raises the genre a step above anything from Marvel or DC.
The viewpoint character, Kim, is trying to cope with her new superpowers at the same time as sorting out her maybe trans identity, her dark backstory, and her relationships with her three undergraduate roommates—all of whom were turned into superheroes at the same moment. Personal reflection has to take a back seat, however, to doing battle with the supervillain currently attacking their city, and worrying about the international conspiracy of darklings who in this universe are also the superrich 1% (because only the superrich can afford to buy the magic that makes them both immortal and powerful magical beings).
My only very minor reservation is that Garnder occasionally breaks the fourth wall by having our narrator explain that the sometimes outrageous coincidences in the plot are actually part of the world-building, a natural consequence of the magic/super-science of this world--only I hadn't noticed the lapse in verisimilitude until Gardner pointed it out. I was going with it because the edge-of-your-seat action kept me from thinking about it too deeply and because it did all make sense within the rules of Gardner's universe. I suppose we can forgive Gardner these rare lapses if we accept that the novel is also intended as a meta examination of the superhero genre as a whole--those comments really aren't about his book, but about why we should accept superhero plotlines in general. All in all, a very satisfying romp!
The second book in the series (They Promised Me The Gun Wasn't Loaded) is every bit as good as the first and perhaps even more enjoyable as we already know how the world works, so there's a bit less breaking the fourth wall to explain things.
The story picks up exactly where book 1 left off, but the viewpoint character shifts to another of the four newly created superheroes. Shifting POV fleshes out that character nicely as the plot plows forward. Presumably, the next two books will cover the other two characters in turn, so that we'll end up with the whole set. The villains from the first book remain, with several more thrown in, as well as a lot more moral ambiguity around exactly who counts as a good/bad guy in this universe. The action is pure superhero adventure, but the text format allows for a lot more nuance, and better coverage of the viewpoint character's interior life. It all works very, very well.
Looking forward to the next two books in the series...and wondering what the overall story arch is going to turn out to be...
[I am reprinting some old reviews here so that I can link to them on my list of reviews.]
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