Book picks similar to
Don't Be a Hero by Chris Strange
superheroes
superhero
science-fiction
fantasy
The She-Hulk Diaries
Marta Acosta - 2013
Bank account almost wiped out. Many of my former associates have expressed a desire that I never darken their doorways again for legal and financial reasons.She-Hulk got us got us kicked out of the Avengers Mansion. People keep posting videos online of her New Year's Eve shenanigans: twirling, flaming telephone poles in Times Square, climbing the Empire State Building while dangling Anderson Cooper...Saying there are two sides to Jennifer Walters's personality is an understatement. When she hasn't morphed into a 650-pound, crime-fighting, hard-partying superhero, she's a single lawyer trying to get her act together. Hilarious and action-packed, The She-Hulk Diaries tells her story, as she juggles her intense legal career by day with battling villains and saving the world by night. Maybe bad guys will stop trying to destroy the planet so she can have a real social life and even meet a guy who isn't trying to take over the universe.
Flex
Ferrett Steinmetz - 2015
The most dangerous drug in the world. Snort it, and you can create incredible coincidences to live the life of your dreams.FLUX: The backlash from snorting Flex. The universe hates magic and tries to rebalance the odds; maybe you survive the horrendous accidents the Flex inflicts, maybe you don’t.PAUL TSABO: The obsessed bureaucromancer who’s turned paperwork into a magical Beast that can rewrite rental agreements, conjure rented cars from nowhere, track down anyone who’s ever filled out a form.But when all of his formulaic magic can’t save his burned daughter, Paul must enter the dangerous world of Flex dealers to heal her. Except he’s never done this before – and the punishment for brewing Flex is army conscription and a total brain-wipe.File Under: Urban Fantasy[ Magic Pill | Firestarter | Bureaucramancy | The Flex & the Flux ]
Forging Hephaestus
Drew Hayes - 2017
But when she's captured trying to rob a vault that belongs to a secret guild of villains, she's offered a hard choice: prove she has what it takes to join them or be eliminated. Apprenticed to one of the world's most powerful (and supposedly dead) villains, she is thrust into a strange world where the lines that divide superheroes and criminals are more complex than they seem. The education of a villain is not an easy one, and Tori will have to learn quickly if she wants to survive. On top of the peril she faces from her own teacher, there are also the capes and fellow apprentices to worry about, to say nothing of having to keep up a civilian cover. Most dangerous of all, though, are those who loathe the guild's very existence. Old grudges mean some are willing to go to any length to see the guild turned to ash, along with each one of its members. Even the lowly apprentices.
Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula
Elise Stokes - 2010
An alternate cover edition can be found here.Cassidy Jones is your typical teenager-- that is, until a seemingly harmless accident in the laboratory of a world-renowned geneticist turns her world upside down.Discovering incredible strength, speed, and enhanced physical senses that defy logic, Cassidy embarks on an action-packed adventure that has her fighting for answers...and for her very life.Don't miss the other action-packed books in Cassidy Jones Adventures! Cassidy Jones and Vulcan's Gift, Book TwoCassidy Jones and the Seventh Attendant, Book ThreeCassidy Jones and the Luminous, Book FourCassidy Jones and the Eternal Flame, Book Five
Paranormals
Christopher Andrews - 2006
Five years ago, a celestial event, dubbed the White Flash, bathed the Earth in its awesome glow. Almost immediately, some people began changing ... and the Paranormal Effect had no discernable pattern. Age, race, gender ... none of it mattered. Anyone can change ... At any time ... In any way ... Now, the world is trying desperately to adjust. The United States government has formed the Paranormal Control Agency to deal with the new breed of paranormal criminals - rogues - but with precious few paranormal agents of their own ... At the heart of the maelstrom stand four people: Vortex, a young man with a vision; Ensign Michael Takayasu and Shockwave, two agents of the PCA; Powerhouse, a new paranormal desperate to protect his family. Paranormals The world will never be the same.
Just Cause
Ian Thomas Healy - 2007
Mustang Sally runs. A third-generation superhero, Sally's life changes forever when she fights and loses to the notorious villain Destroyer, who killed her father just before she was born. She dedicates herself to tracking him down so she can even the score.When all you can do is run, you'd better be fast, but can even the fastest girl in the world run quick enough to save her teammates' lives from Destroyer and his growing parahuman army?
Other People's Heroes
Blake M. Petit - 2002
Imagine a world where people bend steel in their bare hands, where champions dart across the sky, where avengers step out of the shadows to protect the innocent. Imagine a man larger than life protecting the innocent, imagine a family of heroes, imagine warriors dedicated to the safety of mankind. Imagine you've worshiped them your entire life. Then imagine it's all a hoax. Imagine that your champions are actors, the fights choreographed... imagine the real heroes vanished a decade ago. Imagine you're the only one who knows the truth. And imagine what you would do to put things right...
Super Villain Dad
R.J. Ross - 2013
Well there's a reason. A really BIG reason. He's standing over there--no--to your right--no, THROUGH the fence. Yes, on the other side of the big, nasty looking security fence that is literally shaking because of electric jolts. Yes, him. He's pretty scary looking, right? He's got to be six five, and he's got the face of a serial murderer. It's all sharp and needing shaved. And that whole skin tight prison body suit thing--it's really not fashionable at all, I admit. What? Why's he got a streak of white in his hair? Well, see, that's why we're here.He's a super villain.So why is an innocent little freshman like me and her annoying twin brother sneaking peeks at him through a prison fence? Well...He's our father. At least, that's what we think.
Ticker
Lisa Mantchev - 2014
But soon it’s discovered that Warwick killed dozens of people as he strove to perfect another improved Ticker for Penny, and he’s put on trial for mass murder. On the last day of Warwick’s trial, the Farthings’ factory is bombed, Penny’s parents disappear, and Penny and her brother, Nic, receive a ransom note demanding all of their Augmentation research if they want to see their parents again. Is someone trying to destroy the Farthings...or is the motive more sinister?Desperate to reunite their family and rescue their research, Penny and her brother recruit fiery baker Violet Nesselrode, gentleman-about-town Sebastian Stirling, and Marcus Kingsley, a young army general who has his own reasons for wanting to lift the veil between this world and the next. Wagers are placed, friends are lost, romance stages an ambush, and time is running out for the girl with the clockwork heart.
The Girl Who Would Be King
Kelly Thompson - 2012
Maintaining order. Being good. These are all important things for Bonnie Braverman, even if she doesn't understand why. Confined to a group home since she survived the car accident that killed both her parents, Bonnie has lived her life until now in self-imposed isolation and silence; but when an opportunity presents itself to help another girl in need, Bonnie has to decide whether to actually use the power she has long suspected she has. Power that frightens her.Across the country, Lola LeFever is inheriting her own power by sending her mother over a cliff...literally. For Lola the only thing that matters is power; getting it, taking it, and eliminating anyone who would get in the way of her pursuit of it. With her mother dead and nothing to hold her back from the world any longer, Lola sets off to test her own powers on anyone unfortunate enough to cross her. And Lola's not afraid of anything.One girl driven to rescue, save, and heal; the other driven to punish, destroy, and kill.And now they're about to meet.
Liminal States
Zack Parsons - 2012
It is coming.It is 1874 and Gideon Long is dying. Wandering the savage desert of the New Mexico Territory, he craves a last drink before he bleeds out. On the brink of madness, he discovers a place best left forgotten and makes an insidious bargain: escape his fate and incur a debt too great for one man. His country will pay the price over the twisting course of more than a century and Gideon will learn there are worse things to bargain with than the devil.(Source: back cover)Liminal States is the debut novel from SomethingAwful editor Zack Parsons, and it's extraordinary. It begins as a grim, relentless western novel that describes a doomed love triangle between a simple lawman, the twisted scion of an land-baron, and a woman who has married one but thinks she might belong with the other. After a botched train robbery and an epic battle, Gideon (the rich man's son) finds himself gutshot in the desert, led by a mysterious spirit animal to a mystical pool that dissolves him and then reincarnates him, young and whole and vital and immortal. Gideon goes back for the woman he loves, only to discover that she has died in childbirth, and, enraged, he kidnaps the lawman who was her husband and throws him into the pool, too. And now they are both immortal. Every time they die, they are reborn in the pool, over and over, locked in orbit around each other like twin suns being drawn into a destructive nova. This first third of the novel is dark and bloody and remorseless, a story of revenge and tragedy that doesn't let up, until...
Trance
Kelly Meding - 2011
Fifteen years ago, Teresa “Trance” West was a skilled telepath and a proud member of the Ranger Corps. But ever since the Rangers were inexplicably rendered powerless at the climax of the devastating Meta War, she’s bounced from one dead-end job to another. Now her powers have reappeared just as mysteriously as they vanished— only they’re completely transformed and more potent than ever. And they’re threatening to destroy her. Trance heads to Los Angeles to track down the surviving Rangers and discover who restored her powers—and why—but a phantom enemy is determined to kill them before they can reassemble. As they dodge his deadly attacks and come to terms with their new role as heroes, Trance and the rest of the team set out to annihilate the sinister madman... only to discover their own powers are his greatest weapons.
The Shootout Solution
Michael R. Underwood - 2015
Well, not literally. Not yet.Leah's stand-up career isn't going well. But she understands the power of fiction, and when she's offered employment with the mysterious Genrenauts Foundation, she soon discovers that literally dying on stage is a hazard of the job!Her first assignment takes her to a Western world. When a cowboy tale slips off its rails, and the outlaws start to win, it's up to Leah - and the Genrenauts team - to nudge the story back on track and prevent a catastrophe on Earth.But the story's hero isn't interested in winning, and the safety of Earth hangs in the balance...
The Miranda Contract
Ben Langdon - 2014
Pop Star.Sometimes the life we're given isn't the life we'd choose for ourselves.For the past five years, Dan Galkin has been lying to everyone about just how ordinary he is. But Dan's the grandson of The Mad Russian: one of the world's most powerful, and insane, supervillains. And Dan has powers too. He's a living battery, able to absorb and discharge electricity with his mind. Normally he keeps his powers hidden, but when the old man returns with an offer to make his grandson heir apparent, any chance at an ordinary life is blown apart.Miranda Brody thought she wanted to be a pop star, but now she's got the international profile and the entourage, she doesn't recognize the Miranda she has become. After getting caught up in the cross-fire between Dan and his grandfather, Miranda realizes there's more to life than being famous. Staying alive, for example, becomes a high priority. And not falling in love with the pizza boy comes a close second.Labeled by society, trapped by expectation.Dan and Miranda might actually be able to change everything.As long as they don't kill each other first.
The Violent Century
Lavie Tidhar - 2013
Nations race to harness the gifted, putting them to increasingly dark ends. At the dawn of global war, flashy American superheroes square off against sinister Germans and dissolute Russians. Increasingly depraved scientists conduct despicable research in the name of victoryBritish agents Fogg and Oblivion, recalled to the Retirement Bureau, have kept a treacherous secret for over forty years. But all heroes must choose when to join the fray, and to whom their allegiance is owed—even for just one perfect summer’s day.From the World Fantasy and Campbell award-winning author of Central Station comes a sweeping novel of history, adventure, and what it means to be a hero.