Beyond Romance: Activating his abilities might be fatal

Blurb

Leon Lewis is essentially the reincarnation of Anubis, but the idiot street thugs don’t know what a jackal is, so they call him “Doberman” instead…

Which works out, because in this new age of superheroes, most names are copyrighted.

It all started thirty-one years ago…

Humans began being born with a new organ called the “facet gland,” which mutated their bodies and granted them superhuman abilities. Each person’s power is unique, but one fact quickly emerged: these abilities were subject to progression and advancement, much like building muscles through exercise.

Complex powers even follow a tier system with multiple improvement paths. And while some use their gifts to benefit humanity, others embrace unprecedented villainy.

Leon grew up idolizing heroes like Nova, Glitter Ninja, and Japan’s fan-favorite Shine Shine Hero. But his own abilities are dangerous, and could harm random people, so he lives in isolation in a cramped apartment.

That is, until his neighbor, Rachel Anderson, is targeted by the Kings in Yellow—a mysterious street gang infamous for making people vanish.

Leon can’t stand by and do nothing, but activating his abilities might prove fatal…

Because Anubis is death to friends and foes alike.

Excerpt

Two thugs waited in a dark alley behind a strip club and that was never a good sign.

Leon Lewis stood across the street, staring down the alleyway from a good fifty feet away, watching the two suspicious men. He waited, unblinking, in the safety of a moonlight shadow.

The Eclipse Lounge, one of the few high-quality strip clubs in Sacramento, only operated from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. because only the saddest of sacks went to an adult entertainment lounge in the middle of the day. That meant it was always dark when Leon came to visit, and he was extra familiar with the dank surroundings, neon flashing lights, and overstuffed dumpsters.

He also knew who usually came and went. These gangbangers weren’t on the regulars list.

Don’t get the wrong impression, though. Leon never, not even once, went inside the strip club. He had no idea what the interior looked like, and he didn’t care.

He only came to the Eclipse Lounge to make sure one of the girls made it home safely.

Rachel Anderson, who went by the stripper name of Stella Velvet, was Leon’s next-door neighbor. Months ago, she had returned to her apartment with bruises after a long night of work. Since then, Leon had gone out of his way to make sure she got home safely whenever her shift was over.

This would be the third time strange men came to bother Rachel since Leon took up his bodyguard duties. Something was clearly going on.

Review by Lisabet Sarai

Leon Lewis has superpowers – just like every person born within the past thirty-one years. A weird evolutionary glitch has given everyone a so-called facet gland that bestows highly specific, and sometimes quite odd, capabilities upon its owner. Society has developed a multi-level system of officially regulated and publicly compensated super-heroes, because of course some people have used their facet-derived talents to become villains.

Leon’s powers involve enhanced vision as well as the ability to sense the nature of other people’s super-endowments. In addition to these useful but not very exciting endowments, though, he also can transform himself into Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god of death. In his Anubis aspect, he can summon a much broader range of capabilities including super-speed, super-strength and super-endurance. Unfortunately, this hidden identity has a serious down side. Apparently, he is cursed. Any person who spends time in his presence dies.

Trying to use his powers for good while avoiding emotional entanglements, Leon lives a depressing and lonely life. Though he works to protect his beautiful neighbor Rachel from the criminal gang targeting her, he can’t allow them to become friends. His curse has already doomed his parents and several others who were dear to him. He desperately wants to avoid having Rachel become the next victim.

Leon is not an official hero, so he has to be careful to avoid being arrested as an illegal vigilante. When a genuine super-hero offers to train him and to guide him in applying for legal status, Leon dares to hope that his luck might be changing. Then his heroic mentor and friend is killed during a joint operation, leaving Leon vulnerable, alone and desperately guilty, sure that his Anubis-derived destiny is responsible.

I signed up to review A Super Hero Named Doberman at least partly because I previously enjoyed Shami Stovall’s Chronos Chronicles. This book has some of the same positive characteristics: original concepts and creative world building; distinctive and off-beat characters; clever dialogue; and a setting in a run-down, economically-depressed corner of California you’d never expect to see in a novel.

Overall, I enjoyed the novel, appreciating the factors above. I particularly enjoyed the elements of Egyptian mythology woven into the plot. However, I felt that the book spent far too much time describing elaborate fight scenes. The influence of computer gaming on the book is all too obvious. In fact the authors label the book at the end as “Lit-RPG” which I gather is a game-focused subgenre, though this was not how the tour company described it.

I am not a gamer, but I know enough to recognize the elements. Leon progresses through various levels of capability, earning upgrades to his various powers that allow him to fight ever more formidable opponents who are also “leveling up”. He constantly skirts the edge of survival. However, since he’s the main character, there’s never any real chance that he’ll be killed. As a result, I found all the battles a bit boring and repetitive, especially as I got closer to the end of the story.

In fact the final conclusion was abrupt enough to surprise me (though I suppose it should not have done so). Leon rather suddenly achieves his goal of becoming an official super-hero as opposed to someone who must lurk in the shadows. The villains aren’t really foiled, though. They live on, plotting ever more dastardly deeds which apparently are explored in the next book of this series.

About the Author

Shami Stovall was born in Utah, lived in California, and now resides in the wonderful state of Kansas. After graduating high school, she went on to earn her BA in History from Stanislaus State, and then her Juris Doctorate from the Laurence Drivon School of Law.

Stovall’s favorite novel as a child was Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell. It opened her imagination to possibilities she had never considered, and to this day she can still remember the impact it had on her.

As an adult (albeit still a kid at heart), her favorite novel is Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. Heinlein’s take on a perfect world again opened her mind to possibilities she had never considered, and Jubal Harshaw is the fictional character she most aspires to be.

Stovall loves telling stories, playing video games, John 3, John 4, and writing about herself in the third person.

If you want to contact her, you can do so at the following locations:

Website: https://sastovallauthor.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GameOverStation/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SAStovall/

Email: s.adelle.s [at] gmail [dot] com

John and Shami Stovall will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.