I loved this book. I don't know whether it's the quirky story, the fact that it's set in Waterloo, of all places, the characters, or some mix of it all, but it's a really fun ride. ( )

Closer to 3.5 ( )

Gardner, James Alan. All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault. Dark/Spark No. 1. Tor, 2017.
Gamine geologist Kim always chooses none of the above when asked her gender. When she suddenly becomes a superhero able to harden her skin and shrink to the size of a virus, she adopts the name Zircon and joins other superheroes called Sparks to fight supervillains called Darklings. And suddenly the world is in a Marvell-DC Comics universe. There is just enough science speculation to keep the world from falling totally into anything goes chaos. I don’t consume a lot of superhero stuff, but those who do will probably enjoy the edgy humor here. I kind of expected to meet Deadpool somewhere along the line. Sorry it didn’t happen. ( )

This is fun brain candy and an interesting take on a superhero ‘verse, but that’s about all this has going for it. There’s not a whole lot to the mystery, there are a lot of coincidences and sudden acceptances of fact that Gardner tries to explain away but still seemed a bit much, and for all that there’s queer and Asian rep … there really isn’t. Straight white male author and it shows—more clueless than sexist, but still. It took until halfway through before Kim’s identity of “queer” was clarified to “genderqueer” and it wasn’t obvious from context.

Other things … this is fast-paced and has pretty decent characters, as in they’re distinct and interesting. Snappy narration, though there’s a font setting choice that was just weird. I dunno, I liked it okay but also kind of wish I’d read something else?

Warnings: Don’t read if you want solid queer or Asian rep. One recurring joke about superheroine breast sizes. Mind control.

5/10 ( )

Superheroes vs vampires, etc.

It’s fun and weird and complex and...not really the book you thought you were reading.

I enjoyed the craftsmanship involved in the world building. Not so happy about the price, but the author has earned my trust. ( )