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Dreams of the Golden Age
(Golden Age #2)
by
Like every teen, Anna has secrets. Unlike every teen, Anna has a telepath for a father and Commerce City's most powerful businessperson for a mother. She's also the granddaughter of the city's two most famous superheroes, the former leaders of the legendary Olympiad, and the company car drops her off at the gate of her exclusive high school every morning. Privacy is one lu
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Start your review of Dreams of the Golden Age (Golden Age, #2)
After the Golden Age
was a great superhero book, a satisfying read that didn't require a sequel, but, thankfully, Dreams of the Golden Age is a welcome return to Commerce City, another well told story of superheroics, this time with even more superpowered action!
It's twenty years later, and a new generation of superheroes is itching to take up the mantle, inspired by the now-retired Olympiad. One of them is Anna, Celia's daughter, and Vaughn alternates between mother and daughter so that we ...more
It's twenty years later, and a new generation of superheroes is itching to take up the mantle, inspired by the now-retired Olympiad. One of them is Anna, Celia's daughter, and Vaughn alternates between mother and daughter so that we ...more
Ideally the sequels should be written only if the author can maintain or improve the quality of the original and/or has something new to say. Neither of which was the case with this book. I read a lot, so I don't remember the exact details of the first book, but I remember liking it, it was fun, exciting, ebullient even, original and, despite my initial concerns, didn't slide into the abyss that is chicklit realm. This book has managed none of those things, moreover it had a distinct YA flavor t
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This dual review was originally published at Reading Reality
Cass: After the Golden Age was better.
Marlene: (refers Cass to Sidney Harris cartoon). Not that I don’t agree with you. After the Golden Age was better. But I think we need to be a little more explicit in our reasons. (and for anyone who is wondering, no, Sidney Harris is not a relative. And DAMN)
Cass: FINE. I can work with that. If you insist.
The primary issue with Dreams of the Golden Age was Anna. As a protagonist she left me utterly ...more
Cass: After the Golden Age was better.
Marlene: (refers Cass to Sidney Harris cartoon). Not that I don’t agree with you. After the Golden Age was better. But I think we need to be a little more explicit in our reasons. (and for anyone who is wondering, no, Sidney Harris is not a relative. And DAMN)
Cass: FINE. I can work with that. If you insist.
The primary issue with Dreams of the Golden Age was Anna. As a protagonist she left me utterly ...more
Good Superhero prose. I enjoyed the first book a lot more but this is a nice sequel. Easy read. Recommended
This is not a book about superheroes. It's a book about people and how they've been affected by superpowers...and that's what really lets it shine.
In several ways, this is exactly the opposite of a comic book. It's common for the costumed personas to hog the spotlight, with the secret identities barely figuring in. Not so here; these are quite clearly people first and superheroes a distant second, yet their powers are always there, quietly influencing everything. A family dinner is still a famil
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I loved the "regular girl among superhumans" setup of After the Golden Age. This sequel's next generation of heroes premise didn't hook me to the same extent.
Celia's solo moments stood out, but I found it difficult to warm up to Anna. Her story was more predictable, and none of the other teens were built up enough to make their friendship drama feel natural. Her romance was thin enough that it could have been ditched entirely without making a bit of difference.
The only moment that gave me the s ...more
Celia's solo moments stood out, but I found it difficult to warm up to Anna. Her story was more predictable, and none of the other teens were built up enough to make their friendship drama feel natural. Her romance was thin enough that it could have been ditched entirely without making a bit of difference.
The only moment that gave me the s ...more
Decades ago, an accident in a research lab led to a whole cohort of people getting superpowers. Some became villains, some became heroes, but altogether, they changed Commerce City. In After the Golden Age, the child of two of these heroes had to come to terms with her own place in the world after years of kidnappings and near-brushes with adventure. Now, the grandchildren of these superpowered people are coming of age, and some of them have acquired powers of their own.
I enjoyed this. Both the ...more
I enjoyed this. Both the ...more
I enjoyed this sequel to After the Golden Age, but not quite as much as the first one. Celia West, un-powered daughter of Golden Age heroes and star of the first book, now has two teenaged girls of her own. This story focuses on Anna, who has gathered a group of powered friends together and is trying to form a new crime-fighting team. Things never go easy for those who wear costumes, of course, but it eventually seems to work out after some interesting and unexpected twists and turns. Anna isn't
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This was really a 4.5 but I decided to round up because even though it was slow in places it was still a super story. This is a sequel to After the Golden Age but it skips the middle years. Instead, Celia West and Arthur Mentis have two teenage children and Celia runs the West Corporation with a tight fist. She is no longer the kidnap victim of the week. The Olympiad is no more and hasn't been since her father died protecting her. But Celia has carefully manipulated the children and grandchildre
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I wanted to love this book. The only other book I've read by this author was the first, After The Golden Age, which was a bit disappointing but I figured that an author with as many titles to her name had to be good so I tried again. The plot felt thin and contrived. The best aspects of these books are the characters who feel like they have deep and meaningful stories. Unfortunately the stories the author hints at are the ones she never tells. What determines the type of power a person develops?
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Lately, I’ve been complaining quite frequently about unexpected sequels, but, in this case, I was actually really excited when an announcement happened that the standalone After the Golden Age would have a sequel. Of course, Dreams of the Golden Age is somewhere between a companion and a sequel, with a new crop of characters, but it’s still a bit hypocritical of me. What matters, though, is that Dreams of the Golden Age is good, well worth the wait.
Read the full review at A Reader of Fictions. ...more
Read the full review at A Reader of Fictions. ...more
Second in a series, this continues the story of Commerce City's superheroes. Several years have passed and Carrie West os now the CEO of West Corporation. She keeps track of the children on the Olympiad, hoping they will manifest superpowers and grow into the same kind of vigilante team. I thought the whole thing was rather infantile and insipid.
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Now that I don't have the space, most all of my new books are e-books, while I get rid of most of my dead tree library. Carrie's non-Kitty books are exceptions.
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Not quite as strong as the earlier outing (After the Golden Age) but still very good. This volume takes place about 18 years after the first, with the next generation of heroes taking the stage. Mostly high school kids, they are trying to figure out both how to use their powers safely and where they fit in the world—all with a healthy dose of teenage angst. I especially liked how some of the powers the kids have aren't as easy to be heroic with as others, and the conflicts that arise as a res
I did not really enjoy this book. To start, it was a difficult novel to really get into. The book is sci-fi/fantasy which is a little different from what I normally read but I decided to give it a shot because a friend suggested it. However, the first half was extremely slow and at some points downright boring. I typically read a lot but during most of the book I could not will myself to sit still and just read it.
Now don't get me wrong, some parts were interesting, but the majority was slow. T ...more
Now don't get me wrong, some parts were interesting, but the majority was slow. T ...more
I picked this one up semi-randomly at the library during the last-day-open-before-the-library-closes-because-of-corona rush. All of the half-empty shelves scared me so I didn't look at this closely enough to realize that it was the second book in a series. Fortunately I didn't feel like there were any holes in my background knowledge or like I jumped into the middle of the story.
Celia is a middle-aged business woman in commerce city. Her parents were superheroes and she grew up immersed in the w ...more
Celia is a middle-aged business woman in commerce city. Her parents were superheroes and she grew up immersed in the w ...more
Really a 3 1/2 star book, as it's a step weaker than the first volume. I think that the difference was that this was more of a YA novel, but as a sequel to an adult novel it had to get sold as an adult novel, which was unfortunate.
The central character is Anna, but sometimes she's not really the star of her own story, which is also a minor weakness. Too often she is a witness to events that, to the reader, may seem to be the important ones. Also, Teddy and the other teen characters are just not ...more
The central character is Anna, but sometimes she's not really the star of her own story, which is also a minor weakness. Too often she is a witness to events that, to the reader, may seem to be the important ones. Also, Teddy and the other teen characters are just not ...more
'Dreams of the Golden Age' was an enjoyable, relaxing read, and I finished it in one evening.
What really endeared me most to Anna was that her superpower was nondescript. Poor Anna, her power is there just enough for her to be considered a superhuman but not cool enough to be on par with her other super friends who can shoot lighting out from fingers, turn invisible, and they get all the attention and glory. Teen angst ensues but it's, thankfully, not too overbearingly so.
Celia, the non-powere ...more
What really endeared me most to Anna was that her superpower was nondescript. Poor Anna, her power is there just enough for her to be considered a superhuman but not cool enough to be on par with her other super friends who can shoot lighting out from fingers, turn invisible, and they get all the attention and glory. Teen angst ensues but it's, thankfully, not too overbearingly so.
Celia, the non-powere ...more
Great follow-up to AFTER THE GOLDEN AGE although more of a Teen novel than the predecessor (my local library has the first as local fiction and the second as teen fiction).
A new set of problems arise with a new generation of supers. How do they hide their powers from their parents? Is there a hierarchy of powers? How do you deal with matching the achievements of parents (as noted, what do you do when your parents really ARE superheroes)? These are problems all parents and teens have to deal wit ...more
A new set of problems arise with a new generation of supers. How do they hide their powers from their parents? Is there a hierarchy of powers? How do you deal with matching the achievements of parents (as noted, what do you do when your parents really ARE superheroes)? These are problems all parents and teens have to deal wit ...more
"I am superhuman. I am a West and a Mentis, and this is what I was always meant to do."
The stakes are a little lower in Dreams of the Golden Age, but they're still interesting. Anna and her teenage friends have superpowers--some defensively-oriented, some offensively-based--in addition to exams, watchful parents, and curfews. The kids are desperately trying to keep their abilities secret while determining how best to help the city they love. On the other side of the coin, Celia is investigating ...more
The stakes are a little lower in Dreams of the Golden Age, but they're still interesting. Anna and her teenage friends have superpowers--some defensively-oriented, some offensively-based--in addition to exams, watchful parents, and curfews. The kids are desperately trying to keep their abilities secret while determining how best to help the city they love. On the other side of the coin, Celia is investigating ...more
Dreams of the Golden age
By Carrie Vaughn
The beautiful story of living in the shadow of family legacy. Like her mother before her Anna West is struggling to put her life in perspective. She is a teenager, but more than that she is a legacy the granddaughter of a set of superheroes. Her grandparents saved the city countless times, their daughter hundreds of times. Now Anna has to find a place for her unique power. She needs to solidify a team and find a mission. Her mother without super powers has ...more
By Carrie Vaughn
The beautiful story of living in the shadow of family legacy. Like her mother before her Anna West is struggling to put her life in perspective. She is a teenager, but more than that she is a legacy the granddaughter of a set of superheroes. Her grandparents saved the city countless times, their daughter hundreds of times. Now Anna has to find a place for her unique power. She needs to solidify a team and find a mission. Her mother without super powers has ...more
I enjoyed this second outing in Vaughn's superhero series. There is a lot of angst in these books, which got on my nerves a little bit, but Vaughn is able to ground it in realistic motivations, which I appreciated. I also liked seeing how the characters from the previous book ended up and getting to know about their children. I think she did a wonderful with the plot again, but the only loose end that nagged me was she never explained the superheroes from Delta.
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Vaughn returns to Commerce City, this time with the new generation of Superheroes.
Like the comics that inspired the story, the younger generation has grown up with
the stories about the Olympiad and are eager to prove themselves: faster and stronger than the
older generation.
A fan's tribute to the genre of comic book superheroes. ...more
Like the comics that inspired the story, the younger generation has grown up with
the stories about the Olympiad and are eager to prove themselves: faster and stronger than the
older generation.
A fan's tribute to the genre of comic book superheroes. ...more
Nov 06, 2017
Merrin
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fantasy,
read-in-17
I quite liked this, actually??? It's been so long since I read the first I wasn't sure if I was going to remember a thing about it, but it turned out not to have mattered. I love the backside of superheroing and coming of age tales.
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Not as good as the first one, but still quite good. I think the material in this just wasn't as compelling or as unique a take of super hero life.
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Love this world, but it doesn't immediately grab me.
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A great follow up volume, with new and interesting characters and a potential new direction for more.
Great sequel I liked the younger generations struggle to find there way in a City that is used by superhumans. I also liked the Father son dispute at the end.
Not as amazing as the first book, but I did love the parent-child dynamic.
Abandoning this at 20% because other more engaging books keep making me avoid it. Done ignoring the hints. :)
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Carrie Vaughn is the author more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories. She's best known for her New York Times bestselling series of novels about a werewolf named Kitty who hosts a talk radio advice show for the supernaturally disadvantaged. In 2018, she won the Philip K. Dick Award for Bannerless, a post-apocalyptic murder mystery. Next up for her: two collections connected to the
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