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The Crimsonverse
II Crimsonstreak
Three years after the climactic battle at the Clermont Institution for the Criminally Insane, Chris Fairborne a.k.a. Crimsonstreak chases down escaped supervillains while working feverishly to reestablish world governments in the wake of collapse of the New World Common Wealth.
His father, Colonel Chaos, sits in front of a Heroic Legion tribunal to answer for crimes against humanity. His mother, Miss Lightspeed, doesn’t seem herself following her unlikely resurrection. To make matters worse, Crimsonstreak encounters a being of pure speed not even he can outrun.
Sounds like the perfect time for an alien invasion, an encounter with a group of snobbish space cops, and the mysterious return of a long-dead friend with an unbelievable secret.
War will strain friendships. A multiversal threat will test loyalties. And you will believe a man-bird can fly in II Crimsonstreak.
His father, Colonel Chaos, sits in front of a Heroic Legion tribunal to answer for crimes against humanity. His mother, Miss Lightspeed, doesn’t seem herself following her unlikely resurrection. To make matters worse, Crimsonstreak encounters a being of pure speed not even he can outrun.
Sounds like the perfect time for an alien invasion, an encounter with a group of snobbish space cops, and the mysterious return of a long-dead friend with an unbelievable secret.
War will strain friendships. A multiversal threat will test loyalties. And you will believe a man-bird can fly in II Crimsonstreak.
332 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 2, 2013
I was very excited to dig in to this book. A quick look through the blog here and you will see a lot of superhero type books. I enjoy the genre. And superheroes who aren't part of an existing comic book universe is intriguing to me. But I have to admit that I thought a superhero novel about a character with super speed would move along a little quicker than this did.
First...there doesn't seem to be much originality in the characters (are we tapped out -- is it impossible to create a new super power?). Super speed, wearing red...hmmm, like the Flash. With a crime-fighting associate from another planet, complete with wings...hmmm, like Hawkman? Okay...I can actually get around this bit of comic/literary thievery. It's a matter of convenience. But then our main character makes continued references to come of these other comic book superheroes. Author Adams refers to Green Lanterns so many times, I got annoyed with it. And the Orange Bands , who are some sort of Guardians of the Galaxy (as what...villians? heroes?), along with the Indigo Bands and Blue Bands and Yellow Bands, are a cheap knock-off of those same Green Lanterns.
This is a sequel, or follow-up book to I, Crimsonstreak, which I have not read. While there are clear references back to the first book, I did not get the sense that I had missed out on anything too crucial that wasn't explained in this book. The basic plot seems to be a cleaning up of the mess/affects from the first book, only to face an alien invasion, another speedster who runs faster than Crimsonstreak, and a paradoxical conundrum of colliding multi-universes. Yeah...seems a bit much, doesn't it?
It wasn't until I was about 50% of the way through my electronic Advanced Reader Copy, that I felt the actual plot started. Half way through before I came to a recognizable plot?! I understand the need to establish characters and set everything up, but this took way too long, with too many stabs at comic superhero humor (this came off as author Matt Adams trying to show his cleverness rather than a natural conversational tone of the character(s)).
Once I got to the 50% mark and recognized the plotline, I actually started to really enjoy the book, but it had been a struggle to stay with it and get to that point.
But here's the rub...the 50% mark was to the end of the e-data. There was a fair amount of 'bonus material' at the end of the book. So the 50% mark as to when I was actually interested in the book and story -- the book was more than half over already. Fortunately...the bonus material was enjoyable.
I enjoyed the latter part of this book, but not so much that I want to go back and read the first book, or Matt Adams' other published.
Looking for a good book? Portions of this are good, but you'll have to work hard to get there.
Review originally published in Looking For a Good Book
First...there doesn't seem to be much originality in the characters (are we tapped out -- is it impossible to create a new super power?). Super speed, wearing red...hmmm, like the Flash. With a crime-fighting associate from another planet, complete with wings...hmmm, like Hawkman? Okay...I can actually get around this bit of comic/literary thievery. It's a matter of convenience. But then our main character makes continued references to come of these other comic book superheroes. Author Adams refers to Green Lanterns so many times, I got annoyed with it. And the Orange Bands , who are some sort of Guardians of the Galaxy (as what...villians? heroes?), along with the Indigo Bands and Blue Bands and Yellow Bands, are a cheap knock-off of those same Green Lanterns.
This is a sequel, or follow-up book to I, Crimsonstreak, which I have not read. While there are clear references back to the first book, I did not get the sense that I had missed out on anything too crucial that wasn't explained in this book. The basic plot seems to be a cleaning up of the mess/affects from the first book, only to face an alien invasion, another speedster who runs faster than Crimsonstreak, and a paradoxical conundrum of colliding multi-universes. Yeah...seems a bit much, doesn't it?
It wasn't until I was about 50% of the way through my electronic Advanced Reader Copy, that I felt the actual plot started. Half way through before I came to a recognizable plot?! I understand the need to establish characters and set everything up, but this took way too long, with too many stabs at comic superhero humor (this came off as author Matt Adams trying to show his cleverness rather than a natural conversational tone of the character(s)).
Once I got to the 50% mark and recognized the plotline, I actually started to really enjoy the book, but it had been a struggle to stay with it and get to that point.
But here's the rub...the 50% mark was to the end of the e-data. There was a fair amount of 'bonus material' at the end of the book. So the 50% mark as to when I was actually interested in the book and story -- the book was more than half over already. Fortunately...the bonus material was enjoyable.
I enjoyed the latter part of this book, but not so much that I want to go back and read the first book, or Matt Adams' other published.
Looking for a good book? Portions of this are good, but you'll have to work hard to get there.
Review originally published in Looking For a Good Book
December 14, 2013
Matt Adams’ I Crimsonstreak introduced us to the fastest man on Earth who had been locked in an insane assylum for superheroes. Getting out he discovered that a version of his father from an alternate universe had taken over the US because he saved the Earth from an invasion of Kiltechs. In II Crimsonstreak ((electronic from Candlemark & Gleam) it turns out that the Kiltechs come from another alternate universe. They are opposed to the Yellow Bands. (Think green lantern). One of them wants to meld all of Earth’s parallels which would destroy the universe. The only way to stop this is to beat someone who may be even faster, Bluestreak. Filled with the same superheroics and bad movie references. However, unlike the first, this one ends in a cliff-hanger. I’m waiting for the third.
Review printed in the Philadelphia Weekly Press
Review printed in the Philadelphia Weekly Press
August 29, 2017
Ever hear the old saying, "If less is more, imagine how much more more would be?" This book personifies that ethos. Appropriately similar to its predecessor, it piles on the crises, subplots, characters breathlessly (as though a book starring a speedster could do things any other way) until the plot strains to the breaking. Like the last book, this one would have benefited from being even more experimental than the spare, pop culture-laden prose we have -- the appendices that expand the world would have been better served as interludes within the text itself, so that while Crimsonstreak races past explanations, others are there to pick of the slack in the various diegetic articles, journals, dossiers, and emails.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews