They Promised Me the Gun Wasn't Loaded

This was another fun superheroes vs monsters story. The action picks up fairly immediately after the last one ended, but with a switch in narration; this gives the story a fresh new feel. It's very much a “chapter 2” sort of feel, compared to a book that still stands on its own. This makes sense given the comic book inspiration of the story, but is something readers should be aware of.

I should add, as well, that part of what makes this series fun for me, as well, is the Waterloo setting. It's been a long time since I lived in that city, but I can still recall a lot of the local landmarks that get featured and it creates an extra level of connection to the story.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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When I read the first book in the series, All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault, back in January, I said “the sequel can't get here fast enough.” I didn't quite expect to be reading it 11 months later, but I'm okay with that.

It's just a couple of weeks after the events of the previous book, and the newly formed team of superheroes has gone home for Christmas break. Now with just a few days before classes start up again, the team is coming back. In the last book we focused on Kim/Zircon, this time our protagonist is her roommate/teammate Jools/Ninety Nine.

Jools doesn't even make it out of the airport before she's dealing with the police and a powerful Darkling – and maybe a powerful Spark artifact.

(Quick reminder: In this world there are two super-powered groups: the Darks/Darklings and the Sparks. The Darks are all the supernatural-types you can think of (and some you can't): vampires, weres, etc. The Sparks are Super-Heroes and the like (although some have gone astray))

Jools, with a little help from her friends, gets out of that mess – only to find herself signed up for more.

Soon, in an effort to keep this artifact from falling into the wrong hands – Jools finds herself cut off from her friends and in the secret-hideout with a very maverick group of Sparks – a modern-day Robin Hood and his Merry Men. This gives her an opportunity to watch other Sparks in action, to see how they live and think – and come up with some ways to evaluate her new lifestyle. Also, there's a lot of fighting and nifty tech to read about.

I wasn't crazy about how little time we got with the rest of the team because of this, but I think in the long run, it'll work for the strength of the series. And when we get the team together again, it's even better to see than it was before.

Again, I had a blast with this book. Gardner's world is ripe with story-telling possibilities and I'm enjoying watching him develop these characters and this world. Jools is a great character – a solid combination of vulnerable and snarky, unwise and ridiculously intelligent – you'll probably end up with her as your favorite character in the series (at least until book 3). Go grab this (and the other one, too) now.