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I came to the dark side & all I got was...
5 years ago
General
HENCH by Natalie Zina Walschots (Wm. Morrow, 2020, 978-006-2978578)
https://www.amazon.com/Hench-Novel-Natalie-Zina-Walschots/dp/0062978578/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1602188776&sr=1-1
What if it was up to the villains to save the world from the heroes? Call it a satirical impulse if you like, but what the author of this amazing debut novel is arguing is that we live in a world so far beyond satire that even our fantasies have become meaner and more desperate.
Anna, our narrator and millenial Everywoman, is living hand to mouth as a temp worker; her latest assignment, as an assistant to a second-rate supervillain, ends when the World's Greatest Hero steps in, leaving several people dead and Anna disabled, unemployed, and effectively homeless. With nothing to do except the math, she logs on, crunches the numbers for days, and asks: Aren't superheroes more like natural disasters than persons? Don't their actions literally create more problems than they solve?
The novel charts Anna's evolution from crackpot conspiracy theorist to arch-nemesis, and the quiet miracle of Hench is that it manages to make the choice of embracing the dark side seem perfectly reasonable (organized evil sure does have good medical benefits). Note, too, how Anna's supervillain name, first hurled at her as a sexist insult, then taken up as an office joke, eventually becomes a name even her enemies respect. You gotta love that.
There's a lot to enjoy here, not least the novel's diversity -- the cast is full of nonwhite, queer, and nonbinary characters -- but also the way the story is built on a philosophical foundation of the problem of evil. That's a problem (liberated from its theological context) of value judgments, free will, and right and wrong actions. Objectively: how many lives (innocent or not) and livelihoods do superheroes cost? Subjectively: what if the line between good and evil is a matter of marketing?
The geeky comic book fans of forty and fifty years ago now run the entertainment industry, and I'm surprised only at how few prose novels about the superhero milieu ever get noticed outside of an SF niche. The last one to get mainstream exposure that I remember, Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible (2007), still follows what you might call "the unwritten rules," in which superbeings can bust up a city block in a fight without inflicting a single civilian casualty, and there's certainly no one tallying up that story's property damage and job losses. Grossman's novel was probably supposed to be seen as a satire, but as I said, we live in a world beyond satire. Graphic novels like Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Wanted (I don't mean the insipid movies that went by those titles) demonstrate that when you do add up the civilian casualties, your superhero satire turns into a horror story.
Maybe the lesson of Hench is that nothing beats the power of rage, except rage coupled with brains. Or is it that nothing damns us more deeply than the longing for a better world? It's a grim little fantasy, perfect for our grim little times.
https://www.amazon.com/Hench-Novel-Natalie-Zina-Walschots/dp/0062978578/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1602188776&sr=1-1
What if it was up to the villains to save the world from the heroes? Call it a satirical impulse if you like, but what the author of this amazing debut novel is arguing is that we live in a world so far beyond satire that even our fantasies have become meaner and more desperate.
Anna, our narrator and millenial Everywoman, is living hand to mouth as a temp worker; her latest assignment, as an assistant to a second-rate supervillain, ends when the World's Greatest Hero steps in, leaving several people dead and Anna disabled, unemployed, and effectively homeless. With nothing to do except the math, she logs on, crunches the numbers for days, and asks: Aren't superheroes more like natural disasters than persons? Don't their actions literally create more problems than they solve?
The novel charts Anna's evolution from crackpot conspiracy theorist to arch-nemesis, and the quiet miracle of Hench is that it manages to make the choice of embracing the dark side seem perfectly reasonable (organized evil sure does have good medical benefits). Note, too, how Anna's supervillain name, first hurled at her as a sexist insult, then taken up as an office joke, eventually becomes a name even her enemies respect. You gotta love that.
There's a lot to enjoy here, not least the novel's diversity -- the cast is full of nonwhite, queer, and nonbinary characters -- but also the way the story is built on a philosophical foundation of the problem of evil. That's a problem (liberated from its theological context) of value judgments, free will, and right and wrong actions. Objectively: how many lives (innocent or not) and livelihoods do superheroes cost? Subjectively: what if the line between good and evil is a matter of marketing?
The geeky comic book fans of forty and fifty years ago now run the entertainment industry, and I'm surprised only at how few prose novels about the superhero milieu ever get noticed outside of an SF niche. The last one to get mainstream exposure that I remember, Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible (2007), still follows what you might call "the unwritten rules," in which superbeings can bust up a city block in a fight without inflicting a single civilian casualty, and there's certainly no one tallying up that story's property damage and job losses. Grossman's novel was probably supposed to be seen as a satire, but as I said, we live in a world beyond satire. Graphic novels like Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Wanted (I don't mean the insipid movies that went by those titles) demonstrate that when you do add up the civilian casualties, your superhero satire turns into a horror story.
Maybe the lesson of Hench is that nothing beats the power of rage, except rage coupled with brains. Or is it that nothing damns us more deeply than the longing for a better world? It's a grim little fantasy, perfect for our grim little times.
Sounds like it is right up my street!
The actual content of this book sounds like a version of its principal character could easily have been spawned by the reality surrounding the collateral damage caused by the PPG's in the aforementioned episode.
But when it comes to Reality, we demand our heroes to be flawless, and our villians 2-dimensional. And if our heroes (and historic figures) don't meet that standard, they are to be discarded immediately.
As geeks all, we've seen example of both in every shape and form. You'd think we should know better.
https://youtu.be/c-2Tjm2M2cg
It might present a different perspective