Looking for some good super hero novels

[moonfly7]

I've already read steel heart, and I'm looking for some other good books about people with superpowers. Dont have to be heros, just superpower novels. Preferably thicker novels, but I'll read anything good.

[Kid Jake]

Soon I Will Be Invincible was pretty good as I recall.

[ElFi]

If you don't mind reading something in e-text form, I'll always recommend Worm, a web serial novel about a teenage supervillain. There's also it's ongoing sequel, Ward, which takes place two years after the original's end from the POV of a previous side character. Any more than that is serious spoilers if you intend to read either.

[The Glyphstone]

As far as novels, Wearing The Cape is a fun series about a new flying-brick superheroine. On the flip-side, the Dire Saga is a delightfully ham-tastic series about a blatant and unapologetic Doctor Doom expy trying to save the world from itself.

[Thomas Cardew]

The Wildcards series editted by GRR Martin is pretty decent. It gets a lot of hate mostly for not being the next Game of Thrones book. But I felt it was a much more interesting and modern take on superheros. Nations and international institutions matter and pop culture actually interacts with them.

[Tvtyrant]

The Wildcards series editted by GRR Martin is pretty decent. It gets a lot of hate mostly for not being the next Game of Thrones book. But I felt it was a much more interesting and modern take on superheros. Nations and international institutions matter and pop culture actually interacts with them.

Wildhearts is pretty decent, it also toned down the edgyness in the later books a bit (especially the ones set post 1990.)

I liked the Steelheart story, it dealt with the DC superheroes as Gods well and uses a modern feudalism setting.

[Ibrinar]

Hmm I liked https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...ing-hephaestus I think.
I liked Steelheart von brandon sanderson too.
Aimed at younger reader but I liked the don't tell my parents I am a supervillain series.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...14-dreadnought wasn't bad.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24885636-zeroes I should read the next book of this at some point.
I like https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21410/super-minion but it is far from finished.

[tomandtish]

Also aimed at younger readers, but enjoyable....

Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain
by Richard Roberts

5 books in the series and one spin-off book.

[Malphegor]

There is of course How To Succeed In Evil, by Patrick E Mclean. If you want to rest your eyes it even exists in podcast form.

Link to the tvtropes page as his own site is down at the moment: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...oSucceedInEvil

(I also recommend Soon I Will Be Invincible, the audiobook version of that in particular is really good, with multiple voice actors.)

(I also tenatively recommend Worm if only because the fanfic community for it is utterly VAST. On Spacebattles, Sufficient Velocity, and Questionable Questing (that one’s NSFW) some of us write so many stories about the Worm setting that the vast majority of us have forgotten canon and are building off of each other’s fanon. It’s worth looking at Wibbly’s best known work Worm, and its sequel, Ward, to familiarise yourself with the setting before dipping into such joys like Taylor Varga, the Intern and that sequence of slowly crazier ‘what if Taylor was an intern with x organisation’. If there’s a crossover possible, we’ve done it. If we can self insert ourselves, we’ve done it. You want AU? What flavour? CYOA fics? i think the official one is at version 6 by now)

[Nestitherapy]

Can anyone give me the best novel which creates interest to read.

[Evil DM Mark3]

Damn the Reckoners trillogy (Steelheart, Firefight and Calamity) and Soon I shall be Invincible have both been mentioned. Seconding both sets of recommendations, although I feel that Calamity doesn't quite stick the landing.

Spoiler

Show

A case of So The Adventure Continues feeling more like wrapping up the plot quickly and loosely to just be finished

[thompur]

The Wildcards series editted by GRR Martin is pretty decent. It gets a lot of hate mostly for not being the next Game of Thrones book. But I felt it was a much more interesting and modern take on superheros. Nations and international institutions matter and pop culture actually interacts with them.

I heartily agree with "Wildcards"! It's a shared world anthology, so there is a great deal of diverse styles and characters, but they all still fit together nicely.

[Eldan]

Can't say I much cared for Steelheart.

Worm is excellent, but it should be noted that it is a bit rough in places, especially in the very first chapters and a bit before the ending, where the author got experimental for a bit and it didn't work out. It's also really long and as the author notes "comes with all the trigger warnings".

[Dragonus45]

After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn is a good one, about the child of two of the worlds only four or so super heroes but who never gained powers. Now she is a forensic accountant. It’s pretty good. Mandatory go read Worm comment as well!

[Gurston]

Super Powereds series by Drew Hayes

[Curaced]

This is my first post on the Playground in years, and it's to add another recommendation for Worm. It's a very dark reconstruction of the genre, and it's the third-best thing I've ever read.

[hamishspence]

I have a soft spot for Jim Butcher's Spider Man: The Darkest Hours.

[moonfly7]

Soon I Will Be Invincible was pretty good as I recall.

Reading that now, took a bit but I finally got a hold of it. An E-book copy from my library. I am not finished yet so no spoilers, but I LOVE it.
I know it's cliche and will sound stupid, but there have been many moments in my life where I've been doctor impossible. Plans cooked up far in advance, little to no friends, being "betrayed" by the few I had, making myself the villain even though I know exactly why I don't want to and why it's wrong.
So far, it's exactly like how I think real supers would be. The "knowing most of them in high school" bit got me. Because you know this is exactly what would happen if classmates got powers.
I am currently routing for doctor impossible to slaughter all the haughty heros, blow the earth to pieces, and find a nice planet to settle down on.

[Kid Jake]

Reading that now, took a bit but I finally got a hold of it. An E-book copy from my library. I am not finished yet so no spoilers, but I LOVE it.
I know it's cliche and will sound stupid, but there have been many moments in my life where I've been doctor impossible. Plans cooked up far in advance, little to no friends, being "betrayed" by the few I had, making myself the villain even though I know exactly why I don't want to and why it's wrong.
So far, it's exactly like how I think real supers would be. The "knowing most of them in high school" bit got me. Because you know this is exactly what would happen if classmates got powers.
I am currently routing for doctor impossible to slaughter all the haughty heros, blow the earth to pieces, and find a nice planet to settle down on.

Oh yeah, Dr Impossible is the reason that the super genius/mad scientist has become my favorite comicbook archetype and I even sort of based Doctor Luvless (a character from an old campaign, soon to be introduced in the comic based on that campaign) on him.

I accidentally ordered the audiobook instead of the paperback at first and found it even more awesome that the guy that reads his lines sounds kind of like a snarky version of the (Pinky and) Brain; which colored the way I read his lines and saw him for the better.

[moonfly7]

Oh yeah, Dr Impossible is the reason that the super genius/mad scientist has become my favorite comicbook archetype and I even sort of based Doctor Luvless (a character from an old campaign, soon to be introduced in the comic based on that campaign) on him.

I accidentally ordered the audiobook instead of the paperback at first and found it even more awesome that the guy that reads his lines sounds kind of like a snarky version of the (Pinky and) Brain; which colored the way I read his lines and saw him for the better.

Yeah. I finished it and now I'm just sad. Never before have I rooted for the villain so hard. He puts in way more effort than the heros and second protagonist. He deserved a win.

[Lapak]

I'd second the rec for the Wearing the Cape series - it's a fun story that does a pretty good job of treading the balance of feeling like comic-book supers while also addressing some of the verisimilitude issues (heroes spend most of their time on disaster-relief or emergency services duty, military supers are addressed, the celebrity aspect comes into play sometimes, etc.) The main character is the type of earnest do-gooder I like in my super heroes, who has flaws and makes both mistakes and bad choices - some of which make me want to bang my head on a wall - but sincerely wants to help people.

In a broadly similar if slightly sillier vein, the Action Figures series follows a specifically junior set of new superheroes as they try to start a super-group. Dealing with school and parents as well as supervillains, established superheroes who can't decide whether they want to shut the kids down for their own safety or coach them towards success, and so on.

[Manga Shoggoth]

If you can find it, there is an anthology called Temps, which was a very ... British take on the superhero genre. It is a number of short stories (different authors), written around a national government superhero agency which matches up superheres with missions. Of course, the power levels of each hero differ quite radically...

The stories vary between whimsical, serious and downright parody.

[gomipile]

If you don't mind reading something in e-text form, I'll always recommend Worm, a web serial novel about a teenage supervillain. There's also it's ongoing sequel, Ward, which takes place two years after the original's end from the POV of a previous side character. Any more than that is serious spoilers if you intend to read either.

Speaking of web serials, Fine Structure has a good bit of deconstruction/reconstruction of the superhero genre in it:

https://qntm.org/structure