NOVEL NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

I don't yet own a Kindle (waiting for 3rd generation, when they'll probably have sorted it all out), but I've made use of Amazon's Digital Text Platform to make THE SUPERHERO'S CLOSET available for purchase through Kindle.

Purchase the Kindle version of THE SUPERHERO'S CLOSET here.

PORTRAIT OF A SUPERHERO

Vernon Hood -- known publicly as Strongarm -- is a major character in The Superhero's Closet. He's devoted to loved ones and doing the right thing. Some of the book's readers don't like what I put Vernon through, but it felt right to me. To take an ordinary man with extraordinary powers and subject him to heartbreak. If Vernon's a real man, he'll survive, right? Be stronger for the ordeal. Right?

My dear friend Erik Secker (of the Austin Seckers) captured Vernon Hood in this powerful portrait, done with oil on canvas.

THE NOVEL IS NOW FOR SALE: update

Earlier this month, the novel appeared for sale at the publisher's site, Xlibris. I'm happy to announce that it's now available at the big web stores: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders.

If you're looking for a competitive price, Xlibris sells the novel at a 10%-15% discount. If you prefer one of the other web stores, use these links:

• Paperback: Amazon | B&N | Borders
• Hardcover: Amazon | B&N | Borders

If you buy the book from one of the big stores, please -- after you're done reading -- return to the book page for that store and submit a rip-roaring review. I want to get the word out far and wide -- you can really help.

Bookmark Superheroaction.com and stay tuned for upcoming news about signings, readings, and other superheroic events.

Thank you so much and happy reading.

WHO OWNS THE WORD 'SUPERHERO?'

SciFi.com's Sci-Fi Wire is today reporting a story that appeared on Newsarama more than two years ago. According to the article, GeekPunk, makers of an independent comic-book series called Super Hero Happy Hour, received a letter from the counsel of DC and Marvel which says that they (DC and Marvel) own the trademark for the term "'super hero' and variations thereof." In response, GeekPunk changed the name of their series to Hero Happy Hour.

The GeekPunk site features a letter from the creators dated February 23, 2005, indicating that "for now" Hero Happy Hour is no longer being published. This hiatus, as they call it, has nothing to do with DC and Marvel.

When I first read the Newsarama article, I was elated at the possibility that DC or Marvel might send their lawyers after me. There's no better kind of free press than being on the receiving end of a law suit or the threat thereof. But after poking around, I realized that DC and Marvel don't have much of a case and, at least in 2004, were selectively exercising their authority.

The term "superhero" appeared in the Springmaid ad shown here. This is an ad I clipped from a magazine in 2000, one of many images that I'd pin to the wall while I was writing The Superhero's Closet. Like "thermos," the term's common use can be defended on a number of fronts, with a little preparation and common sense. Try the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, or Merriam-Webster, or the card catalog at your local library. There's no attribution to DC or Marvel in any of these examples. Let's not forget the screenplay for Brad Bird's The Incredibles, which happily uses "superhero" 11 times.

Poor little GeekPunk got noticed, but Pixar and Springmaid didn't? Actually, I don't know that Pixar and Springmaid escaped DC and Marvel's grip. Perhaps they, too, received letters from litigious little worker bees. If so, it wasn't news, and it doesn't matter, because "superhero" is one of those words that belongs to people, not corporate offices.

DOWNLOADS

In anticipation of the book's publication, I wanted to offer downloads. If you're interested in converting these sample chapters to another format, please let me know. I'll happily post your version here.

PDF | 247KB | US Letter | First 5 Chapters

HTML | 101KB | First 5 Chapters

Plain Text File | 89KB | First 5 Chapters

WELCOME TO SUPERHEROACTION.com

My name is Andrew Lynch. I'm the author of The Superhero's Closet, a tale of superhumans set in modern-day San Francisco. Superheroaction.com is HQ for The Superhero's Closet, as well as for various posts about narrative superhero fiction (or the lack thereof).

My book is currently in production at Xlibris and will be available this spring through the web or special orders at your favorite local bookstore. I plan to make a large portion of the book available as a free download on this site, but don't let that deter you from buying a gorgeous hardbound or paperback edition for your library.

The site is under construction. It will be officially live when the book is available for sale.

IF YOU'RE ANY GOOD, WHY SELF-PUBLISH?

That's an easy question to answer, actually. Two words. Control and control.

I'm not terribly impressed with the cautionary nature of the modern publishing industry. They're cautious for a reason. To make money, they have to anticipate selling thousands and thousands of copies. If you write a novel without pictures about superheroes who are old, fat, gay, neurotic, or self-destructive -- well, where's the "mass" appeal? A valid question for a big business. I respect it and want nothing to do with it.

Wikipedia cites William Blake, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, and William Morris as authors of self-published works, would that I were in their company. Andre Breton's Surrealism army yielded a lot of work that bypassed the publishing institutions of the early 20th Century. Anything worth reading will be read, no matter what, so long as it finds an instrument for public consumption.

Am I vain? An egotist? Above the "law" of commercial publishing? Arrogant in my assumption that there is a market for novels about superheroes? No. Perhaps. No. And who knows?

That's for you to decide.

The most important rule for me as a writer is to write what I'd really like to read. I love superheroes, their mythology, their intersection with the common man. I can find such stories only in illustrated monthly issues of comic books or in Hollywood intepretations of such. Both are fine -- probably preferable -- vehicles for the superhero's tale, but I'm an old-fashioned prose guy. I like words alone on blank white pages and their power to ignite your imagination, which is equipped with its own arsenal of illustrations and cinematics.

Did I try to publish The Superhero's Closet through traditional channels? Yes. I pursued agents because you're never supposed to submit blindly to a publishing house when you're a nobody. I met the usual and utterly predictable assortment of responses: "I can't sell this, but wish you the best of luck." "If you tried this instead, we might reach a wider audience." "If you consider our Editing & Marketing Package, we can polish you book like a pearl."

Frankly, I like my story. In fact, I really dig it. I spent three years and four drafts tanning it in the sun to achieve the lustre I prefer in works I like to read. As a perfectionist with lots of writing experience, I had a good sense of what constitutes fat, when I'm being a pompous ass, when I'm just using the novel to work through a backstory problem that is of no relevance to the story or interest to the reader. Purportedly objective readers had a crack at the "final" draft, exclaiming all sorts of things like, "Nooooo, you can't do that to a main character," or "Do you have a problem with happy endings?"

I left the book alone for two years to reclaim my own objectivity. That helped enormously, let me tell you. Patience. A good novel is like a garden or a freshwater aquarium. A child, if you will. It takes time. Sometimes, you have to let it go before you can really appreciate it.

Would I self-publish again? Absolutely, but ask me that question after we see how The Superhero's Closet does.

Soon, I'll write about what a pleasure -- and a learning experience -- it was to work with photographers, models, bookstore managers, and Xlibris, my "publisher," who, for some money, made this an extraordinarily exciting venture.

WHO'S H. ANDREW LYNCH?

I'm a long-time writer who dips into and out of view every several years or so. My comic-book collection consists of 3,000 pieces. My novel collection consists of about 1,000. I've been writing since I dropped out of college. I'm an interaction designer and information architect. It pays the bills while I concoct short films, short stories, and other hair-brained schemes.

I've written some fifty stories, about twenty of them published in small and major presses. My first short film, Her Last Interview, screened at the New York International Film and Video Festival in 2001. I followed that with 7.1, a short about a man who tries to shoot himself at the moment an earthquake strikes.

Most of my published fiction lives in the realm of dark fantasy, outright horror, or soft science fiction. My biggest literary influences are long-dead writers, but I get a lot of off-ramp muse love from illustrators and symphonic composers.

I live in a beautiful Victorian apartment near Dolores Park in San Francisco with my beagles, Woody & Darwin. We're meat eaters.

SO, WHAT'S THE BOOK ABOUT?

I'm tired of living in a world without original literary novels about superheroes. And, frankly, I'm tired of books about "people like you and me." There's a moral war going on in literature, and the side I've chosen is H.P. Lovecraft's. Drawing from the absurd, from a well of dreams, this side concludes that wow, man, life consists of dreadful forces...that often win. Good people do things that are unspeakably irrational: psychoanalysis, religious sanctuary, and the comforts of family have throughout man's existence done very little to stamp out dread, disappointment, and villainy. The collusion of vengeance and moral superiority is at the heart of The Superhero's Closet. It's that contest that interests me. More specifically, it's the fights you lose that make for interesting reading.

A fairly standard narrative convention looks something like this: protagonist faces an insurmountable obstacle (of any shape, size, or quality) and by the end overcomes it, or at least comes to peace with it. But what if protagonist doesn't overcome it? What if protagonist doesn't come to peace with it?

The Superhero's Closet is a fairy tale for grown-ups. Some of its subject matter, even by today's standards, jangles against the sides a popular art more commercially disposed to redemption and the innate goodness of man. The luxury I have as a novelist is that I can plumb the inner life until I'm blue in the face, which a visual medium, by its nature, will not tolerate.

The question is, do superheroes have an inner life worth exploring? I think they do, no more or less than Holden Caulfield or Tyrone Slothrop. The answer is, depends on what kind of inner life you're talking about?

I don't think I answered the question, "So, what's the book about?" That would have been too easy.

Here's the dust-jacket blurb:

When the first superhero went public during World War II, the world responded with wonder. We treated the original superhero like a famous writer or singer, heaping on him the riches of international celebrity. Others came after him, as noble, as mighty. Committed to a fate that set them apart from normal humans, the new superhumans eventually became as natural as pop stars.

Today, long after the retirement of the original superhero, hundreds of extraordinary individuals grapple with their place in society. Are they heroes? Villains? Are they volatile or do they contribute to the betterment of mankind?

Lain Grey is just such a person, but at 16, he’s far less moved by his budding powers than he is by sexuality, or his natural mother, who died when he was an infant.

And there are others. Kathleen, the young woman who channels dead philosophers through her dog. Or Vernon Hood, the most powerful man alive, who ducked out of public life to raise normal kids.

Then, there’s Geoffrey Gilman, the original superhero himself, who’s finding that retirement is an uncomfortable stepping stone to the grave. In more ways than one.

Enter The Superhero’s Closet, where secrets, lies, and the shadows of the past fester, giving life to new dangers, new villains, and tragic surprises for everyone.