Good Guys
by Steven Brust
Tor Books
Publication Date: March 6, 2018
From Goodreads:
Donovan was shot by a cop. For jaywalking, supposedly. Actually, for arguing with a cop while black. Four of the nine shots were lethal–or would have been, if their target had been anybody else. The Foundation picked him up, brought him back, and trained him further. “Lethal” turns out to be a relative term when magic is involved.
When Marci was fifteen, she levitated a paperweight and threw it at a guy she didn’t like. The Foundation scooped her up for training too.
“Hippie chick” Susan got well into her Foundation training before they told her about the magic, but she’s as powerful as Donovan and Marci now.
They can teleport themselves thousands of miles, conjure shields that will stop bullets, and read information from the remnants of spells cast by others days before.
They all work for the secretive Foundation…for minimum wage.
Which is okay, because the Foundation are the good guys. Aren’t they?
A big thank-you to Raincoast Books and Tor Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Although I enjoyed this book, I felt a little mislead by the synopsis. Maybe I read it wrong, but I thought it was going to be dealing with a team of super-powered people working for this mysterious Foundation in righting all the world’s wrongs. This was not the case.
That alone made it a little harder to get into, but not much. The personalities of the main characters pulled me in after a few short pages.
Donovan, the leader of the team, was smart and absolutely hilarious. The only thing about him that bothered me (other than the fact that he had no super powers) was that he always called the police to PO-lice. Written exactly that way: PO-lice. It got on my nerves.
I have mixed feelings about the writing style. It flowed well. But it jumped around, which was jarring at times. Especially with scenes that were from the perspective of a certain character, when the narrative switched over to first-person. It was the only character written in first-person.
The world building was very creative. Packed with magic, but still believable. A great mix of imaginative magic and gritty crime.
The main miss for me on this book was the plot. It seemed to be a little simplistic, without too many surprises. I like a plot that tosses me around, doesn’t give me much time to breathe, and keeps sneaking up behind me even when I think I’ve got it clearly in sight.
Great world, great characters, and a plot that left a little to be desired. Overall, fun book, absolutely worth a read.
The synopsis did sound pretty good. One more popsugar prompt down 😉
I just saw this one on another blog yesterday, it does sound interesting! But wait, I thought it was about that too? Or at least, about a superpower team working for some Foundation who may or may not be good. Do they not have superpowers?
Nope. One of the team members has psychic abilities. Another is a normy with a lot of combat training (which she doesn’t use much) and the main dude is just kind of a detective/team lead.