H.E.R.O. Metamorphosis by Kevin Rau
3 out of 5 stars
by Kevin Rau starts off in a world full of superheroes and super villains. All Stephanie, Rael, and Lance want is to change and gain some special abilities. They’ve trained and prepared their entire lives to be infected by that strange virus that occasionally rains down in a meteor shower from debris orbiting the planet. But when that finally happens, their world changes more than they realized it would. New abilities bring new temptations and new fears, new struggles and new enemies. They have been handed the power to affect history — will it destroy them instead?
This is an exploratory story of self-discovery and world-building. The author obviously had a good time generating the details of the three protagonists’ new lives, abilities, and costumes. They are examined in-depth, and it’s a fascinating journey. Although their aren’t many surprises, the book is enjoyable and engaging.
The writing is a bit choppy, but the annoyance wears off as you get drawn into the action. The author does take full advantage of the ‘super-hero-hotness’ idea; his characters are disgustingly good-looking! Whoever is narrating at the moment (viewpoint switches mostly between the three main characters) has their senses turned all the way up to nymphomaniac, and spends considerable amounts of time remarking on the prettiness of themselves or the others. (If you don’t know what nymphomaniac means, please don’t Google it. Go find a dictionary like a sane person.) While the characters show some restraint and don’t go into full-out orgy mode, the descriptions are uncomfortably specific in places.
It’s a fun superhero read, but as a result of the rampant sensuality and self-congratulatory prettiness, I rate this for Adults on the Aardvark scale. There is also the expected comic-book level violence and death.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in order to review it.
As an aside:
For a more mature superhero story, with more realistic characters, I highly recommend Playing For Keeps
by Mur Lafferty. (For adults, also, because of some adult situations and alcohol usage.) I’ll do a real review on that one sometime soon! Playing For Keeps
is also available as a free audio book from Podiobooks.com, a free audiobook podcast library.
Some of the above links are affiliate links to Amazon.com. See my disclosures here.
