Okay,
As some of you know, I'm not so much a game buff as a superhero buff (but don't get me wrong, I likes me a good game, I'm here aren't I?).
In the last year or so I've been spreading out my consumption a bit from just comic books and into books.
I actually picked up Web of Arachnos and Freedom Phalanx when I found them available.
From there, I found a lot of the Marvel/DC movie adaptations. But those are...meh.
I've also read (and reread) my way through VV's "Secret World Chronicles". BUY! BUY NAO! READ! READ NAO!
And, while I was out-of-house last year after the flood, some evil, evil person who shall remain nameless (CENDE! CENDE! CENDE!) turned me on to
Worm. Which immediately ate up every moment of my free time (oh yeah, when I find something I like, I archive binge like NOBODY'S business). The sheer volume put out by that author warmed the cockles of my heart. Maybe below the cockles. Maybe in the sub-cockle area. Maybe in the liver. Maybe in the kidneys. Maybe even in the colon, I dunno. It's generally well written, though, given the volume of text the author puts out, it can be somewhat rushed and a bit obtuse in sections. And it has probably one of the most inventive "official" powers classification systems outside of a game system.
At the same time I also quickly binged through
Legion of Nothing. His style takes a bit more effort to grow on you, but it does grow. The chapters are relatively small and quickly consumed (says Mr. Voracious Reader).
After that, not finding a lot of superhero fare on the web itself, I started digging into Amazon's Kindle section.
My first pick was a villain/antihero piece called
"Malevolance" (Now The Machinist Book 1: Malevolance" by Alexander Maisey. I actually enjoyed it. It's about a villain who finishes out a term in lockup, and then goes looking to dive back into the life long enough to build himself a nest egg. Things, sorta don't go according to plan. And it's REALLY not a good idea to steal his stuff and tick him off. And yes, before anyone makes note of it, I'm thinking Alex was a CoH player. Several of the characters HEAVILY parallel CoH NPCs. A second book is apparently in the works already.
My next pick was
Meta by Tom Reynolds. This one is actually a self-publish, so it's possible to get either Kindle or paperback. This one was significantly less gritty than Maisey's stuff. It reads more like young adult fiction. It's a little hackneyed (possibly deliberately so), and coincides with the beginning of a second wave of superhumans, after the first more or less beat themselves into oblivion.
The third, which I picked up pretty much everything for last night, based on a freebie. Marion G. Harmon's "Wearing the Cape". It's DEFINITELY aimed at the Young Adult (female) demographic. and can be a bit rushed in places. But it reads fairly well, has fairly good characterization, a well defined world (mostly Chicago), and a fair amount of humor.
As I mentioned you can
read the first couple chapters for free. And most of it is available in either Kindle or Paperback form. There are currently 4 novels and a short story.
Well, I dunno. This is about as far as I've gotten. If you're a voracious reader, looking for something worthwhile to read, I hope these help out.