Book picks similar to
Born by Andrew Seiple


fantasy
superhero
science-fiction
sci-fi

Hero


Perry Moore - 2007
    Like that he has special powers. And that he's been asked to join the League - the very organization of superheroes that spurned his dad. But the most painful secret of all is one Thom can barely face himself: he's gay.But becoming a member of the League opens up a new world to Thom. There, he connects with a misfit group of aspiring heroes, including Scarlett, who can control fire but not her anger; Typhoid Larry, who can make anyone sick with his touch; and Ruth, a wise old broad who can see the future. Like Thom, these heroes have things to hide; but they will have to learn to trust one another when they uncover a deadly conspiracy within the League.To survive, Thom will face challenges he never imagined. To find happiness, he'll have to come to terms with his father's past and discover the kind of hero he really wants to be.

Zeroes


Scott Westerfeld - 2015
    They can do stuff ordinary people can’t.Take Ethan, a.k.a. Scam. He’s got a voice inside him that’ll say whatever you want to hear, whether it’s true or not. Which is handy, except when it isn’t—like when the voice starts gabbing in the middle of a bank robbery. The only people who can help are the other Zeroes, who aren’t exactly best friends these days.Enter Nate, a.k.a. Bellwether, the group’s “glorious leader.” After Scam’s SOS, he pulls the scattered Zeroes back together. But when the rescue blows up in their faces, the Zeroes find themselves propelled into whirlwind encounters with ever more dangerous criminals. And at the heart of the chaos they find Kelsie, who can take a crowd in the palm of her hand and tame it or let it loose as she pleases.Filled with high-stakes action and drama, Zeroes unites three powerhouse authors for the opening installment of a thrilling new series.

Baron Steele


Rhett C. Bruno - 2020
    As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even wear a mask. And he doesn’t even fight crime anymore. That’s for the guys with too much brawn and not enough brain.No, Steele works in consulting. After having his license revoked by the Guild of Masked Crimefighters, he decided he would scout talent instead. Match up heroes with their villainous counterparts, help the young bucks and buckettes discover their talents and abilities. That sort of thing.It’s all going fine and well until Steele gets a bad cup of coffee. No. Seriously. Day after day, the same little twerp gets his order wrong. From there, it’s a downhill spiral into chaos, and Steele finds himself fighting for his freedom in a court of law. Did he really kill a barista over a cup of joe?Don't miss this hilarious spin on the superhero genre from the number one Audible best-selling duo of Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle.

Soon I Will Be Invincible


Austin Grossman - 2007
    He's lost his freedom, his girlfriend, and his hidden island fortress. Over the years he's tried to take over the world in every way imaginable: doomsday devices of all varieties (nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological) and mass mind control. He's traveled backwards in time to change history, forward in time to escape it. He's commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies. Fungus army. Army of fish. Of rodents. Alien invasions. All failures. But not this time. This time it's going to be different... Fatale is a rookie superhero on her first day with the Champions, the world's most famous superteam. She's a patchwork woman of skin and chrome, a gleaming technological marvel built to be the next generation of warfare. Filling the void left by a slain former member, Fatale joins a team struggling with a damaged past, trying to come together in the face of unthinkable evil. Soon I Will Be Invincible is a thrilling first novel; a fantastical adventure that gives new meaning to the notions of power, glory, responsibility, and (of course) good and evil.

The Zodiac Legacy: Convergence


Stan Lee - 2015
    He'll have to master strange powers, outrun super-powered mercenaries, and unlock the mysterious powers of the Zodiac.

Hunter


Mercedes Lackey - 2015
    Some were terrors ripped from our collective imaginations, remnants of every mythology across the world. And some were like nothing anyone had ever dreamed up, even in their worst nightmares.Monsters.Long ago, the barriers between our world and the Otherworld were ripped open, and it’s taken centuries to bring back civilization in the wake of the catastrophe. Now, the luckiest Cits live in enclosed communities, behind walls that keep them safe from the hideous creatures fighting to break through. Others are not so lucky.To Joyeaux Charmand, who has been a Hunter in her tight-knit mountain community since she was a child, every Cit without magic deserves her protection from dangerous Othersiders. Then she is called to Apex City, where the best Hunters are kept to protect the most important people.Joy soon realizes that the city’s powerful leaders care more about luring Cits into a false sense of security than protecting them. More and more monsters are getting through the barriers, and the close calls are becoming too frequent to ignore. Yet the Cits have no sense of how much danger they’re in—to them, Joy and her corps of fellow Hunters are just action stars they watch on TV.When an act of sabotage against Joy takes an unbearable toll, she uncovers a terrifying conspiracy in the city. There is something much worse than the usual monsters infiltrating Apex. And it may be too late to stop them…

Red Rising


Pierce Brown - 2014
    "That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them.""I live for you," I say sadly.Eo kisses my cheek. "Then you must live for more."Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations.Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity's overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society's ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies... even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.

Meta


Tom Reynolds - 2013
    Before ‘The Battle’ the world had been full of metas, super-powered humans whose amazing abilities came from mysterious wristbands. Since that day one has never been seen again. Now 16 years old, Connor lives in Bay View City with his older brother Derrick, a meta-obsessed blogger, where he’s just trying to keep his head down long enough to survive high school. All of that changes the night he attempts to save a girl's life and wakes up to find the first new pair of metabands anyone has seen wrapped around his wrists. Connor soon finds an unlikely ally in Midnight, a masked vigilante who helps him learn how to harness his new abilities, while also trying to balance his summer job at the lake. As a meta, Connor becomes known as Omni, potentially the most powerful meta the world has ever seen, but it isn’t long before he finds out he's no longer alone...

The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind


Jackson Ford - 2019
    Sure, she's got telekinetic powers—a skill that the government is all too happy to make use of, sending her on secret break-in missions that no ordinary human could carry out. But all she really wants to do is kick back, have a beer, and pretend she's normal for once.But then a body turns up at the site of her last job—murdered in a way that only someone like Teagan could have pulled off. She's got 24 hours to clear her name—and it's not just her life at stake. If she can't unravel the conspiracy in time, her hometown of Los Angeles will be in the crosshairs of an underground battle that's on the brink of exploding... Full of imagination, wit and random sh*t flying through the air, this insane adventure from an irreverent new voice will blow your tiny mind.

Necroscope


Brian Lumley - 1986
    And what they tell him is horrifying.In the Balkan mountains of Rumania, a terrible evil is growing. Long buried in hallowed ground, bound by earth and silver, the master vampire schemes and plots. Trapped in unlife, neither dead nor living, Thibor Ferenczy hungers for freedom and revenge.The vampire's human tool is Boris Dragosani, part of a super-secret Soviet spy agency. Dragosani is an avid pupil, eager to plumb the depthless evil of the vampire's mind. Ferenczy teaches Dragosani the awful skills of the necromancer, gives him the ability to rip secrets from the mind and bodies of the dead. Dragosani works not for Ferenczy's freedom but world domination. He will rule the world with knowledge raped from the dead.His only opponent: Harry Koegh, champion of the dead and the living.To protect Harry, the dead will do anything--even rise from their graves!

Superheroes Anonymous


Lexie Dunne - 2014
    So when a villain attacks editorial assistant Gail Godwin and she’s rescued by superhero Blaze, it’s a great story, and nothing more. Until it happens again. And again. Now, the media has dubbed her Hostage Girl, nobody remembers her real name, and people are convinced that Blaze is just Gail’s boyfriend Jeremy in disguise. Gail’s not so sure. All she knows is that when both Jeremy and Blaze leave town in the same week, she’s probably doomed. Who will save her now?But when the villains miraculously lose interest, Gail is able to return to her life…until she wakes up strapped to a metal table by a mad scientist who hasn’t read the news. Escaping, and now more than human herself, she’s drawn into a secret underground world of superheroes. She’ll have to come to terms with her powers (and weakness) to make it in the new society, and it’s not easy. After all, there’s a new villain on the rise, and she has her sights set on the one and only Hostage Girl.

Wild Cards


George R.R. MartinBrian Bolland - 1986
    Most victims die, others experience physical or psychic changes: aces have useful powers, deuces minor maybe entertaining abilities, jokers uglified, disabled, relegated to ghettos.

Supervillainy and Other Poor Career Choices


J.R. Grey - 2019
    Survivor. Supervillain. When a down on his luck engineer ends up coming into possession of a rundown suit of power-armor, he sees an opportunity to make some quick cash by selling it off to the nearest supervillain. Unfortunately for him, what should have been a quick and easy sale to pay off his debts quickly grows into an ongoing series of events that serve only to drag him deeper and deeper into the criminal underbelly of the city he calls home. In no time at all, Erich finds himself fending off Neo-Nazi gang members, crazed capes, and the dangerous affections of his newest employer's criminally insane daughter. All he wanted to do was make a quick buck...

The Perfect Run


Maxime J. Durand - 2021
    Arriving in New Rome, the glitzy capital of sin of a rebuilding Europe, he finds the city torn between mega-corporations, sponsored heroes, superpowered criminals, and true monsters. It's a time of chaos, where potions can grant the power to rule the world and dangers lurk everywhere.Ryan only sees different routes; and from Hero to Villain, he has to try them all. Only then will he achieve his perfect ending... no matter how many loops it takes.

Illusive


Emily Lloyd-Jones - 2014
    A small percentage of the population developed superhero-like powers, and Americans suffering from these so-called adverse effects were given an ultimatum: Serve the country or be declared a traitor.Some people chose a third option: live a life of crime.Seventeen-year-old Ciere Giba has the handy ability to change her appearance at will. She's what's known as an illusionist. She's also a thief. After crossing a gang of mobsters, Ciere must team up with a group of fellow superpowered criminals on a job that most would have considered impossible: a hunt for the formula that gave them their abilities. It was supposedly destroyed years ago - but what if it wasn't?Government agents are hot on their trail, and the lines between good and bad, us and them, and freedom and entrapment are blurred as Ciere and the rest of her crew become embroiled in a deadly race that could cost them their lives.