Austin Grossman

When Doctor Impossible, an evil genius and ambitious wannabe world dominator, launches a new plot to seize control of the world, Fatale, a woman built by the NSA to be the next generation of weaponry, joins a group of misfit superheroes in their quest tod

Soon I Will be Invincible

The Incredibles meets The West Wing meets Marvel: Agents of Shield - the list goes on! Doctor Impossible - evil genius, mad scientist, diabolical time-traveller, wannabe world dominator - has just broken out of prison. Again. After twelve foiled ploys (doomsday devices, mass mind-control, robot armies, insect armies, alien invasions, etc.), he's not about to be foiled again. Fatale, a patchwork woman of skin and alloy built by the NSA to be the next generation of warfare, is suddenly given the chance every superhero dreams of: to join the Champions, the once-famous group of beautiful young superheroes who have been newly reunited to stop Dr Impossible. We watch as Fatale becomes part of a team - its greatest hero missing, its members struggling with their damaged pasts as they come together in the face of unthinkable evil. Soon I Will Be Invincible is a wildly entertaining adventure about good and evil, bursting with attitude and humour, that features a cast of superheroes and supervillains with remarkably human emotions, and who inhabit a world strangely similar to our own. About the author: Austin Grossman graduated from Harvard University in 1991 and became a video game designer at Looking Glass Studios. He is currently a freelance game design consultant and is studying for a PhD in English literature. He lives in Brooklyn.

This book wasn't even a page turner, I just felt like I fell through the story.

Such a great summer read, some lovely relationships all tangled and tied into one another, and a charming superhero world that makes itself simultaneously easy to understand and obviously much more vast than the glimpse you're allowed.

August Stone

This book wasn't even a page turner, I just felt like I fell through the story.

Such a great summer read, some lovely relationships all tangled and tied into one another, and a charming superhero world that makes itself simultaneously easy to understand and obviously much more vast than the glimpse you're allowed.

Grossman has a superpower himself - it's called writing... winning, smart and funny... terrific' Douglas Copeland 'This morning on planet Earth there are 1686 enhanced, gifted, or otherwide-superpowered persons. 678 use their powers to fight crimes, while 441 use their powers to commit them. 44 are currently confined in Special Containment Facilities for enhanced criminals. Of these last, it is interesting to note that an unusually high proportion have IQs of 300 or more - eighteen to be exact. Including me...'

Bryan Alexander

A very enjoyable superhero novel. I don't know how non-comics-readers would respond to it, but fans of superhero stories should have a blast.

Soon I Will Be Invincible follows a supervillain and superhero through a nicely imagined world based on Marvel and DC comics. There are analogs to Batman, Superman, the Flash, Wonder Woman, etc.

The two protagonists are Doctor Impossible, a mad scientist, and Fatale, a cyborg. The book takes turns telling the story from each of their perspectives.

Fatale's story reads a bit like a young adult novel, with an orphaned young heroine trying to make sense of the world and her identity. Fatale joins a Justice League sort of supergroup, learns the ropes, struggles to fit in. Very sweet and convincing.

Doctor Impossible's story is quite different. He's much older, and the world's most notorious bad guy, so he's already established. Much of his narrative is introspective, looking back over his uneven career with a great deal of self-deprecation lacing the nyahahahaha villainy. You might be reminded of the movie Megamind (2010).

Both protagonists are very sympathetic and well realized.

The plot is a familiar one, with an evil scheme being met by the forces of justice. What's interesting is how much world-building Grossman accomplishes, and what we learn of the two main characters' interiors. The conclusion is a bit weak, though, lacking resolutions for Fatale and Dr. I., and feeling a bit perfunctory. 

Recommended as fine entertainment for comics readers.

PS: words of wisdom from Doctor Impossible:
When life gives you lemons you squeeze them, hard. Make invisible ink. Make an acid poison. Fling it in their eyes. (48)
[T]his is what my empire would be founded on, on raw computation and rage. (75)
There has to be a bit of crime in any theory, or it's not truly good science. (130)
Heroes don't concern themselves with things like libraries and research. Once they've had their origin, they don't try to think anymore, just fly around. Books, inventions, discovery - they leave that to us. (142)
He could fly, which was reason enough to resent him. He didn't even have the decency to work for it, to flap a pair of wings or at least glow a little. He seemed to do it purely out of a sense of entitlement - something about it suggested that the rest of us had simply knuckled under to gravity. (171)
My first act will be to demand the surrender of all the governments of Earth, via the United Nations Security Council. You have no alternative. Legal details of this process can be found on my web site. (265)

Soon I Will be Invincible

Reviews