Powerless Against You is $2.99 at Amazon (for the Kindle edition) as of this writing, and it is worth shelling out $2.99 just for the introduction, which was written by Gail Simone.  The introduction is exciting and inspiring.  If only the short stories could keep up!

Powerless is an anthology of romance stories about superheroes.  I’ve been burned by romance short story anthologies before.  It’s very difficult to write a romance short story.  Both Ursula K. LeGuin (in “April in Paris” and Ray Bradbury (in “The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair”) have somehow managed to pull off compelling, touching, and believable short stories that follow a romance from the lovers’ meeting to a resolution, but in general, short stories about love seem to succeed when they keep their scope small.

Powerless is exciting as a concept because not only is it about superheroes, it’s about diverse superheroes.  There are lesbian and gay couples, a character who is severely disabled, and superheroes of various ethnicities.  It is thrilling to see such an array of under-represented groups in spandex getting to have the happy endings they deserve.  I’m so excited about the diversity in the stories that I feel like this anthology is akin to a puppy that just ate my only pair of shoes and vomited the remains onto my pillow – I’m disappointed and enraged by the mess yet the puppy is too cute to properly resent.  Also, did I mention that the introduction is fantastic?  Because it is!  Here’s a quote:

I want new voices, and I want a lot of them.  And I want them to look like the crowds I see at conventions all over the world.  Every color, every sexuality, all over the gender spectrum, all ages, all shapes.  That’s what I want.

Because I love comics, and if we have to burn down some of the old junk to make room for the next group, I am fine with that.   Here, you pour the kerosene and I’ll hold the match.

Because new voices bring their passion to the table.  They make beautiful mistakes and they rethink old routines and they write about what is meaningful to their lives and their experience and I get a little delighted just thinking about it.

It’s all I can do not to just type the whole introduction in here.  It makes me want to do my happy dance of excitement.

Sadly, every single story in the anthology is terrible – like puppy barf terrible.  The ideas are great – as a collection of writing prompts for books or comics, these are golden.  I would buy full-length work from almost all of these authors in a heartbeat in hopes that with more practice and page length they could bring their great ideas to better realization on the page.  But every single story, even the best of them, feels hopelessly rushed and unrealistic as a romance.  In fact, most of the stories feel inept as short stories of any kind – the pacing is off, the use of language is awkward, and the situations are contrived.

The best of the stories still feel more like concepts than like well-crafted short stories, but they did stick in my head.  “Even if the Stars Fell From the Sky”, by Jaclyn Baker, is a beautiful story about two superheroes, one human and one alien, who try to make their relationship work despite cultural differences.  It suffers from telling instead of showing, but that style lets the author cram a lot of narrative into a small space, and this was a couple I rooted for.  “Toeing the Line” had a disabled protagonist who can’t figure out if he’s a hero or a villain.  While I wasn’t crazy about the romance, the main character felt real and stayed with me for a long time.  “No More Mr. Bad Guy”, by Elizabeth Gannon, involves a villain who is romantically pursued by another villain in some pretty hilarious ways.  Whether you find this story funny or offensive will depend on your sense of humor at the moment you read it.

I wish I could recommend this book, because we so badly need more books like it (only better written).  I’m being nothing but sincere when I say that this book deserves an “A for Effort” in the sense of putting effort in coming up with a diverse cast of characters.  If only the stories worked.  Most of these authors are first time authors and I hope they improve because they have plenty of great ideas  – they just don’t work out so well on the pages here.  

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