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Young Sentinels Wearing the Cape Marion G Harmon Books

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Young Sentinels Wearing the Cape Marion G Harmon Books

I love Wearing the Cape and really enjoyed Villains Inc. There were tightly written stories with a well developed plot and good characters.

Wearing the Cape brings back Astra, and once again focuses on events in Chicago. This was a very nice change after the last book went to New Orleans and in my opinion tried too hard to play in the urban fantasy realm rather than stick with superheroes.

The returning characters remained the same fun group. So I found the story easy to get into and I definitely enjoyed the story.

HOWEVER, I nearly gave this book 3 stars. My love of the first 2 books, and the fact that I enjoyed seeing several characters return ended up with me at the 3.5-3.6 score range and I was willing to round up. The problems are not insurmountable, but they were considerable. Sadly, to explain them will require delving into the plot a little which I'll do a bit later in the review.

There was one other concern that caused me to nearly mark this down to 3 or even 2 stars. This story doesn't really end the plot thread. It's an introduction to several new characters as well as a way to mutate the purpose/position of a couple of other characters. This book is setup rather than the meat of the story. It's better at setup than some, but its still setup and at the ending I was left thinking that Marion could have done a lot more before publishing this story.

This story was difficult to give stars to because of that. In all honesty, the biggest feeling I had was that Marion rushed this story out to meet a deadline. And in doing so, he was unable to really develop the plot and consider what he was doing. The introductions to the new "Young Sentinels" was abbreviated and left two of them as mysteries. one is not much more than a name, a powerset and a very limited set of personal interactions. Only the two who play narrator give us much insight into who they are.

**** warning some might consider the rest of this to contain spoilers ****

And then I had 3 other concerns.

1) Marion has joined the legion of those writing superhero tales who can't stick with one main character. Marion had Astra start as the focal character, but later added Megaton and Grendel as narrative characters. This diluted the story, and in a couple cases ended up fogging up the plot threads. It was definitely intentional. I was willing to accept it for this story, but I hope he turns back to a single narrator character in future stories.

2) Power escalation abounds. This seems to be a popular trick with many authors who write superhero tales. In this case Marion introduces a villain who can enhance or depower characters. This is a cute plot twist, but after his skill in writing Wearing the Cape and Villains where the enemy was smart and crafty rather than just powerful, the escalation here seemed to eliminate much of the fun of the stories. The fight setups became beatdowns.

3) Teen angst and confusion. I don't mind a little angst. It happens, but here it seemed like Marion introduced some potential issues and characters just to give Astra reasons to go into angsty mental monologues. I absolutely hate these, and they did not add to the story. Some of the plot threads might add more in a future book, but I found that it really failed to make this story more interesting. It just made Astra seem far more immature than she should be after a year in the Sentinels.

___
TL & DR - Lovers of the first two books will enjoy seeing Astra return and will likely love the new villains, characters and plot twists. However, this story is not as good as the first two books and I felt that Marion rushed the writing of this, which limited the plot and character development.


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Young Sentinels Wearing the Cape Marion G Harmon Books Reviews

Ever since "Bite Me Big Easy Nights," the interquel to "Wearing the Cape" and "Villains, Inc." hit , I've been thrilled about "Young Sentinels." Not only does the Wearing the Cape universe fill all my "what if" specfic desires for a superhero universe that balances social realism (as Harmon puts it) and fantasy, but I have so much attachment to Astra and her friends that it's hard not to want to see more of them.

In "Young Sentinels," Harmon continues Astra's trajectory that has been clear since she first burst from the rubble of her breakthrough. While other universes that strive for a measure of social realism or satire take the superhero world to a dark, twisted place, obsessed with sex, corporatism, and cynicism, the heroes of Wearing the Cape inhabit a world full of as much hope (pun intended) as it is of pain and ugliness. Advertisement, merchandising, government control, secrecy, murder, corruption, shallowness, and abuse all exist in widespread measure for Hope Corrigan (Astra) and the Sentinels (the WtC equivalent of the Avengers or the Justice League), but the balance of power exists to punish the guilty and reward the doer of good, rather than merely pad its own pockets. And that's a breath of fresh air for those seeking a Watchmen without the nihilism.

This time around, Hope must deal with the consequences of her last two adventures, a whole new team of young heros (including an explosive boy, a Hulk-shapeshifter, a wind-controller, her friend Shelly-the-robot/ghost, and the hilariously powerful and insane Ozma from the Oz books). The camarderie and leadership are both thrilling, and the threats continue to force Astra to grow into the most powerful and likeable superhero this side of Superman (or Wonder Woman, but sadly the Once-Princess-Once-Goddess has PR issues, so I'm going with the easily recognizable one).

Here's looking forward to following that growth for years to come!
I love Wearing the Cape and really enjoyed Villains Inc. There were tightly written stories with a well developed plot and good characters.

Wearing the Cape brings back Astra, and once again focuses on events in Chicago. This was a very nice change after the last book went to New Orleans and in my opinion tried too hard to play in the urban fantasy realm rather than stick with superheroes.

The returning characters remained the same fun group. So I found the story easy to get into and I definitely enjoyed the story.

HOWEVER, I nearly gave this book 3 stars. My love of the first 2 books, and the fact that I enjoyed seeing several characters return ended up with me at the 3.5-3.6 score range and I was willing to round up. The problems are not insurmountable, but they were considerable. Sadly, to explain them will require delving into the plot a little which I'll do a bit later in the review.

There was one other concern that caused me to nearly mark this down to 3 or even 2 stars. This story doesn't really end the plot thread. It's an introduction to several new characters as well as a way to mutate the purpose/position of a couple of other characters. This book is setup rather than the meat of the story. It's better at setup than some, but its still setup and at the ending I was left thinking that Marion could have done a lot more before publishing this story.

This story was difficult to give stars to because of that. In all honesty, the biggest feeling I had was that Marion rushed this story out to meet a deadline. And in doing so, he was unable to really develop the plot and consider what he was doing. The introductions to the new "Young Sentinels" was abbreviated and left two of them as mysteries. one is not much more than a name, a powerset and a very limited set of personal interactions. Only the two who play narrator give us much insight into who they are.

**** warning some might consider the rest of this to contain spoilers ****

And then I had 3 other concerns.

1) Marion has joined the legion of those writing superhero tales who can't stick with one main character. Marion had Astra start as the focal character, but later added Megaton and Grendel as narrative characters. This diluted the story, and in a couple cases ended up fogging up the plot threads. It was definitely intentional. I was willing to accept it for this story, but I hope he turns back to a single narrator character in future stories.

2) Power escalation abounds. This seems to be a popular trick with many authors who write superhero tales. In this case Marion introduces a villain who can enhance or depower characters. This is a cute plot twist, but after his skill in writing Wearing the Cape and Villains where the enemy was smart and crafty rather than just powerful, the escalation here seemed to eliminate much of the fun of the stories. The fight setups became beatdowns.

3) Teen angst and confusion. I don't mind a little angst. It happens, but here it seemed like Marion introduced some potential issues and characters just to give Astra reasons to go into angsty mental monologues. I absolutely hate these, and they did not add to the story. Some of the plot threads might add more in a future book, but I found that it really failed to make this story more interesting. It just made Astra seem far more immature than she should be after a year in the Sentinels.

___
TL & DR - Lovers of the first two books will enjoy seeing Astra return and will likely love the new villains, characters and plot twists. However, this story is not as good as the first two books and I felt that Marion rushed the writing of this, which limited the plot and character development.