The 10 authors Super Powered Fiction writers should read

Everyone loves Top 10 lists, right? And as I slowly reveal the Top 10 Wrestlers of 2015 over at The Wrestling Weekday, I thought it would be fun to pull out an old list I wrote. It was over a year ago that I spent some time brainstorming the ten authors I thought writers of super powered fiction should read, but the list still holds strong for me as 2016 dawns.

Not everyone on the list regularly writes super powered beings, but don’t let that scare you away from some great fiction. Some are just great at simple things like dialogue or the combination of amazing wonder with a real world setting. All of them can be great inspirations for any writer of super powered fiction and come with the highest recommendation from this author. Here they are presented in no particular order.

1. Madeline L’Engle – L’Engle had an amazing ability to ground the most insane idea in reality. A Wrinkle in Time is built around crazy ideas presented with an air of the normal.
2. Adam Troy Castro – His Sinister Six novels that came at the end of the 90s Marvel novels showed how to juggle a ton of characters in super powered prose, a trait shared by…
3. Van Allen Plexico – Van’s Sentinels series juggles a huge cast in compelling tales about a unit somewhere between the Avengers and the Defenders. One of the first true independent creators of super powered fiction, Van in many ways built the archetype for how to create a super powered prose universe and I learn from his work every time I read it. 
4. Stephen King – Several of King’s earliest works very much fall into the super powered fiction category: Carrie, Firestarter, The Dead Zone, etc.
5. Robert Parker – No one does dialogue as well as Parker. Anyone can learn from reading his stories.
6. Orson Scott Card – Card has an ability to build big ideas around human stories, both in his solid Ender series and his far stronger Alvin Maker fantasy tales.. I argue it is a tact he learned from…
7. Robert Heinlein – Heinlein is a master of the art of interweaving his ideas into a human narrative, even if it is one of the future. He’s also great for challenging social contracts decades before the present day.
8. Diane Duane – Duane’s Spider-Man and Venom trilogy taught me that a superhero like Spider-Man could be a compelling lead in prose at a time when such things weren’t really done. Her trilogy also shows exactly how to use Mary Jane as Peter’s wife and make her compelling, something Marvel Comics writers and editors found so hard they used a demon to end their marriage.
9. George R. R. Martin & the Wild Card Trust – For obvious reasons, the creatives behind the Wild Cards series all deserve every ounce of praise they receive. Some of the best minds in super powered prose ever.
10. Octavia Butler – Butler deserves to be on the top of this list for Wild Seed alone, but every novel she wrote is a master class on short, tight narrative. Wild Seed is a major inspiration for the historical metahuman stories still developing in the Quadrant Universe while its sequels build an interesting narrative of secret super powered beings among us.

I still routinely pull out books by all these writers when I need a bit of inspiration. I highly recommend any lovers of great fiction to do the same. 

Looking back at 2017: 10 best graphic novels

Much like my list for the five best novels, the ten best graphic novels list covers any graphic novels I've read in 2017, whether they were published this year or not.

Scott McDaniel rocked Daredevil during his
great run with D.G. Chichester.

1. Howling Commandos of SHIELD
   
   A great monsters meets adventure yarn quickly derailed by Marvel's obsession with publishing twenty too many titles.
   
   
2. Karnak: The Flaw in All Things
   
   Warren Ellis' entry into the Inhumans line of comics was easily the best, though a change in artists at the beginning derailed it from the beginning and made this the first and only collection.
   
   
3. The Nameless City
   
   Faith Erin Hicks' all ages fantasy tale was incredibly well put together and left me excited for more.
   
   
4. Dark Knight: The Master Race
   
   Brian Azzarello teamed with Frank Miller for an epic sequel to The Dark Knight. Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but as a personal fan of this future DC, it was an epic continuance as Batman took on a team of Kryptonian psychopaths.
   
   
5. Throwaways
   
   I loved Caitlin Kittredge's excellent Coffin Hill. Her Image Comics follow up with a story mixing superheroes with super spies. It's one of my favorite books to come out of nowhere in a long time.
   
   
6. Secret Empire
   
   Though it in no way was about a secret empire, the limited series offered an interesting new tale of the Marvel Universe. Unfortunately, the lead up to it was such a disaster, I doubt this final book will ever get much credit as Marvel fights to keep from faltering in 2018.
   
   
7. Red Wolf: Man Out of Time
   
   The only collection of the post-Secret War series was a lot of fun and seemed to be the start of a truly fascinating new corner of the Marvel Universe. But like Howling Commandoes, it had no chance to get off the ground at all.
   
   
8. Daredevil: Fall From Grace
   
   The classic D.G. Chichester and Scott McDaniel swan song to Daredevil was a great series that could have set up an intriguing new future for the character. Instead, it was quickly thrown away for a return to a lighter funner look at Daredevil.
   
   
9. Bandette: Stealers Keepers
   
   The second volume of the Colleen Coover and Paul Tobin series is every bit as good as the first. This book needs more issues desperately. I am hard pressed to find a comic as fun as it.
   
   
10. Deathstroke: The Professional and The Gospel of Slade
    
    The first twelve issues of Christopher J. Priest's run on the character have defined Deathstroke for a new generation. I strongly respect DC for making Deathstroke an important character in the DCU again. With his future in the DC movie universe, here's hoping this series continues for several more years.

Deathstroke Rebirth & Deathstroke: The Professional cover art by ACO.

Looking back at 2017: Top 5 articles on Super Powered Fiction

I did not publish as much this year as I have in the past. Things came up that derailed just about everything, from battles with intestinal issues (three times) to depression and money issues. It's been a rough go and that meant sometimes this blog suffered. But here are the five high points of my 2017 blog publishing schedule, even if they came as sometimes low points for my life.

I rarely need a ton of excuses to post a picture of beautiful women, but I'll use this one 
to give another look at the lovely (and inspiring) Ginary Suicide. Imag: SuicideGirls.com.

• Where I've been, or when life leaves you with no lemonade
  
  This is the post where I covered some my issues in the first half of the year. I won't pretend they're all fixed, but a job change and (relatively) better health have helped a lot.
  
  
• A few thoughts on Wonder Woman
  
  I didn't catch the Gal Gadot vehicle until it hit VOD, but I threw out a few of my thoughts on why it succeeds while other DC releases have not.
  
  
• Succubi and sucky jobs
  
  I still haven't quite wrapped my urban fantasy project, but this article talks about a few of my plans there as well as those aforementioned positive job changes.
  
  
• Star Wars, divisive pop culture and entitlement
  
  Because it needs to be said again and again, I wrote this article on why it is okay to not like the new Star Wars while still letting everyone else love it and it continue in the direction Lucasfilm has chosen.
  
  
• On Cornell
  
  I wrote this one after Chris Cornell took his own life. I have to be honest that while I was never at that point, I was certainly spiraling towards it. His suicide was a sobering moment for yours truly and it still leaves me with a spirit to fight. Godspeed, Chris. 

We will end the week of looking back (with one last article on 2017 in the wings for next week) with Chris Cornell's last major hit, one whose Old West music video has been removed from online. Featuring Cornell escaping a hanging, it seems it was deemed too dark in the wake of his death. But "Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart" is an amazing song from an immense talent that needs to be heard.

Looking back at 2017: the top 10 songs

This year I've strangely become much more of a radiophile than ever before. I split a lot of time between pop and rock radio and I'm pretty show it shows with perhaps my least expansive list of ten songs ever. But with lots of solid pop music on the radio, it certainly wasn't hard to make this list.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

• "Heavydirtysoul" - Twenty One Pilots
  
  
  
• "Everybody Knows" - Sigrid
  
  

THE TOP TEN

1. "Homemade Dynamite" - Lorde
   
   
   
2. "Honey" - Kehlani
   
   
   
3. "Love Galore" - SZA featuring Travis Scott
   
   
   
4. "Heavy" - Linkin Park featuring Kiiara
   
   
   
5. "Feel It Still" - Portugal. The Man
   
   
   
6. "RX (Medicate)" - Theory of a Deadman
   
   
   
7. "Kiwi" - Harry Styles
   
   
   
8. "Wild Thoughts" - DJ Khaled featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller
   
   
   
9. "Believer" - Imagine Dragons
   
   
   
10. "...Ready For It" - Taylor Swift
    
    

Looking back at 2016: Top Five Graphic Novels

While I buy plenty of monthly books, I also like to grab trades now and then because some stories just read better that way. So here is my list of favorite trade paperbacks or original graphic novels from 2016.

Image credit: Michel Fiffe and Bergen Street Press.

1. Vision: Little Worse Than A Man: Tom King may be a DC exclusive creator now, but before he made that change he produced his absolute finest work for Marvel with this series. The story of Vision building his own family and the problems that causes in suburban Washington, D.C. is probably the finest superhero deconstruction in years.
2. Copra Round Three: Copra is one of the few books I purchase in trade. The series continued early this year with this tome and it expertly expands the universe after the events of the first year's ongoing story arc. I cannot wait to crack open the fourth volume, which came into my library right at the end of 2016. 
3. Wonder Woman: Earth One: I actually expected a bit more from Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette's re-imagined Wonder Woman, but their take is still one of the best the character has ever received. Hopefully subsequent volumes will continue to explore this character in ways she's deserved for years. 
4. The Discipline: Peter Milligan's Image series seems to have been short lived but the first trade offered an intriguing tale of a woman turned into a monster tied to bondage. It's basically a strange mix of 50 Shades of Gray and a monster hunter book, and that combination under Milligan's pen is just superb. 
5. All New Wolverine: Four Sisters: I would have never guessed I would enjoy this volume so much, but Tom Taylor's work on Laura Kinney as Wolverine is nothing short of stupendous. With a completely different attitude than her "dad", the former X-23 and four imperfect clones of her take this book in a direction unlike any other Wolverine book that had me champing at the bit to read more in a way I haven't with Wolverine in nearly two decades. Here's hoping he gets time to do a lot more with Laura over the next couple years. 

My Top 10 Authors for Super Powered Fiction writers & readers

Everyone loves Top 10 lists, right? And as I slowly reveal the Top 10 Wrestlers of 2015 over at The Wrestling Weekday, I thought it would be fun to pull out an old list I wrote. It was over a year ago that I spent some time brainstorming the ten authors I thought writers of super powered fiction should read, but the list still holds strong for me as 2016 dawns.

Not everyone on the list regularly writes super powered beings, but don’t let that scare you away from some great fiction. Some are just great at simple things like dialogue or the combination of amazing wonder with a real world setting. All of them can be great inspirations for any writer of super powered fiction and come with the highest recommendation from this author. Here they are presented in no particular order.

1. Madeline L’Engle – L’Engle had an amazing ability to ground the most insane idea in reality. A Wrinkle in Time is built around crazy ideas presented with an air of the normal.
2. Adam Troy Castro – His Sinister Six novels that came at the end of the 90s Marvel novels showed how to juggle a ton of characters in super powered prose, a trait shared by…
3. Van Allen Plexico – Van’s Sentinels series juggles a huge cast in compelling tales about a unit somewhere between the Avengers and the Defenders. One of the first true independent creators of super powered fiction, Van in many ways built the archetype for how to create a super powered prose universe and I learn from his work every time I read it. 
4. Stephen King – Several of King’s earliest works very much fall into the super powered fiction category: Carrie, Firestarter, The Dead Zone, etc.
5. Robert Parker – No one does dialogue as well as Parker. Anyone can learn from reading his stories.
6. Orson Scott Card – Card has an ability to build big ideas around human stories, both in his solid Ender series and his far stronger Alvin Maker fantasy tales.. I argue it is a tact he learned from…
7. Robert Heinlein – Heinlein is a master of the art of interweaving his ideas into a human narrative, even if it is one of the future. He’s also great for challenging social contracts decades before the present day.
8. Diane Duane – Duane’s Spider-Man and Venom trilogy taught me that a superhero like Spider-Man could be a compelling lead in prose at a time when such things weren’t really done. Her trilogy also shows exactly how to use Mary Jane as Peter’s wife and make her compelling, something Marvel Comics writers and editors found so hard they used a demon to end their marriage.
9. George R. R. Martin & the Wild Card Trust – For obvious reasons, the creatives behind the Wild Cards series all deserve every ounce of praise they receive. Some of the best minds in super powered prose ever.
10. Octavia Butler – Butler deserves to be on the top of this list for Wild Seed alone, but every novel she wrote is a master class on short, tight narrative. Wild Seed is a major inspiration for the historical metahuman stories still developing in the Quadrant Universe while its sequels build an interesting narrative of secret super powered beings among us.

I still routinely pull out books by all these writers when I need a bit of inspiration. I highly recommend any lovers of great fiction to do the same.