Tag: Full Metal Superhero

Unstoppable Arsenal by Jeffery H. Haskell: Well, that escalated quickly . . .

Unstoppable ArsenalUnstoppable Arsenal

by Jeffery H. Haskell
Series: Full Metal Superhero, #2

Paperback, 286 pg.
2017

Read: January 28, 2019


This book is just pure entertainment — it’s not trying to be anything else. You’ve got a super-genius whose inventions and investments have made her super-rich (to fund further inventions, primarily) who has used this genius to turn herself into an Iron Man-like superhero. She’s pretty much done all this to enable her to find her parents — which she did at the end of the last book. She starts this book by going to retrieve them from their imprisonment.

But they’re not prisoners — they’re content, happy, hard-workers in a lab with utterly no memory of a daughter. Kate, Amelia’s friend and telepath determines their minds have been altered and the only one who can restore their memories is the one who altered them. Launching Amelia’s next big quest.

She soon discovers that there are a lot of powerful telepaths who are unaccounted for and maybe the conspiracy she’s been theorizing about isn’t a bunch of evil masterminds undermining the super-heroes of the US. Maybe, there’s some mind control shaping the questionable decisions.

As if all this isn’t enough, Amelia meets an actual, no fooling, mythological figure who forces her to realize there’s more than just science afoot in the world, and she’s told that literally the future of the human race depends on choices she’s making.

All this is told in the same fast, dynamic and engaging voice and style that characterized this first book. Haskell can tell a story in a way that seems effortless, which is too easy to overlook and take for granted. I put this down and had to fight the impulse to grab the next installment right away and not stop until I’d run out of books in this universe to read.

Oh, and there’s a killer last line, and I’m excited about what that development is going to bring.

I don’t have a lot to say really — this is just a fun series. Period. Great super-hero action, with just enough depth to satisfy, without going so far that it slows things down. I don’t know what Haskell’s long-term plans are, but I could read another half-dozen of these books, easily.

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3.5 Stars

LetsReadIndie Reading Challenge

Arsenal by Jeffery H. Haskell: A Fast, Fun Intro to the Southwest US’s Newest Superhero

ArsenalArsenal

by Jeffery H. Haskell
Series: Full Metal Superhero, #1

Paperback, 256 pg.
2017
Read: July 17 – 18, 2018

Amelia Lockheart lost her parents — and the use of her legs — in a horrible automobile accident when she was a child. However, she knows (or thinks she knows) that her parents survived, and that every adult and authority has been lying to her ever since. What’s a girl-genius to do? Become a metallurgist, engineer, computer designer and many, many other kinds of expert, patent a revolutionary aerospace tech — and become rich off the proceeds. Then you turn some of that wealth into developing an Iron Man-esque suit of armor and an AI to help you run it. Finally, using that armor, become a super hero so you can use the connections you’ll gain to investigate your parents’ disappearance. Double duh.

Amelia’s super-hero alter ego, Arsenal, gets recruited to join her state’s super-powered militia. This is one of the best parts about Haskell’s universe — the supers are regulated (but in a better way than DC or Marvel have ever managed to pull off), each state has militia, with certain laws governing the activities of the groups, and there’s a federal-level group as well — these would be the top of the top, the Justice League of almost every era, while the state groups are closer to the Giffen/DeMatteis run. They’re super, just not super.

Anyway, for the first time in her life, Amelia has friends — plural. She’s made one friend from her normal life, but she’s never found acceptance by more than him, between the super-intelligence and wheelchair. She has a job, friends, a dash of fame — and she gets to save the day.

Amelia has in infectious, energetic personality — it’s a first-person narration, so we get plenty of it — I can’t imagine a reader not enjoying the book just because of her. I enjoyed the rest of the characters, too (I’m going to be skimpy on names, because my copy is a few hundred miles away from me) — but I’m honestly not sure how many of them I trust (well, maybe the goofball from before she was Arsenal).

The action is fast, and plentiful. There’s not as much depth to these characters as I’d like, but I don’t think they qualify as shallow. There are also a four sequels thus far, so I think we’ll get there. The plot could be a bit tighter, the science is probably as accurate as, oh, I don’t know — the idea that exposure to gamma rays could make an angry wimp turn into a giant, unthinking monster. In other words, it’s a super-hero story — sit back and enjoy it. Which is really easy to do, Haskell’s prose is lean, the voice is charming and the you’ll find yourself grinning throughout.

I just had a blast with this — there are a couple of things I hope get improved in the books to come — I’d like to see some of Arsenal’s teammates do a bit more to save the day — they did a good job before she came around, it’d be good to see how she augments the team, not supersedes it. I’d like things to slow down a little bit and deepen with the relationships she’s developing with her new teammates — I like every bit of these, I would just like things to seem a bit more realistic on those fronts. I’m not saying I’m out if Haskell doesn’t do something along these lines, those are some thoughts I had while reading, y’know? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Haskell found a different and better way to address those topics than I listed, too.

Solid super-hero story, filled with action and characters you won’t be able to stop yourself from liking (not that you’d want to). This was just scads and scads of fun. I’m not sure what else to say, really. Bring on the sequel!

Disclaimer: I had a very pleasant chat with Haskell at Boise’s first Wizard World where I bought this book and he convinced my daughter and I to read our first Spider-Man comic since the end of the “One More Day” debacle. So I guess you could say I’m biased. But I don’t think so (but I’m very glad he brought me back to Spidey!)

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3.5 Stars

✔ Read a book written by an author from the state where you grew up.

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