Indie Author Spotlight: The Miranda Contract By Ben Langdon

Supervillain. Pop Star.

Sometimes the life we're given isn't the life we'd choose for ourselves.

For the past five years, Dan Galkin has been lying to everyone about just how ordinary he is. But Dan's the grandson of The Mad Russian: one of the world's most powerful, and insane, supervillains. And Dan has powers too. He's a living battery, able to absorb and discharge electricity with his mind. 

Normally he keeps his powers hidden, but when the old man returns with an offer to make his grandson heir apparent, any chance at an ordinary life is blown apart. 

Miranda Brody thought she wanted to be a pop star, but now she's got the international profile and the entourage, she doesn't recognize the Miranda she has become. After getting caught up in the cross-fire between Dan and his grandfather, Miranda realizes there's more to life than being famous. Staying alive, for example, becomes a high priority. And not falling in love with the pizza boy comes a close second.

Labeled by society, trapped by expectation.

Dan and Miranda might actually be able to change everything.

As long as they don't kill each other first.

To snag your own copy of this superhero adventure, click the link below!

AMAZON

I mostly write speculative fiction, particularly in the superhero or neo-pulp genres, but I also turn my author’s hand to literary and mainstream short stories. Writing is a big part of my life, and one that I really enjoy. As well as writing fiction I’ve also been a freelance columnist for The Age newspaper and the editor and publisher for This Mutant Life, a ‘zine for superhero fiction.

I’m from Portland, Victoria, and when I’m not writing, I teach English and literature at the local high school, grow three children who are my favourite heroes-in-training, and enjoy reading.

Want to keep up with all things Ben Langdon?

Goodreads / Blog 

NEO-PULP vs. COMIC BOOK

(A journey to writing superhero fiction)

A Guest Post By Ben Langdon 

There's a lot of differences between comic books and superhero fiction, and it's not just about the number of words and pictures. They are bound together in eighty years of tradition, and share origins from even before that time - but they're not the same thing. 

I see comic books as a link to my teenage past. Back then I read stories of mutants and altered humans because I was fascinated with the serial nature of the stories and the way you could just disappear into another world for half an hour or so. You could also pick up a new instalment every month, or twice a month during cross-over events or over the American summer months. There was the obsessive element of collecting 'every single issue' which had me digging in the backs of second-hand bookstores and trawling through stalls at markets and garage sales. At one time I had the complete run of the Uncanny X-Men, albeit with reprints of the very early issues. I displayed the issues on a designated shelf: neat piles of bagged and boarded comics, lovingly read more than once, maybe even ten times on occasion. 

I followed the Uncanny X-Men, mostly, and was immediately sucked in to the soap opera drama of their families and extended families. Everyone was connected in some way - through blood, marriage, bitter feuds, betrayals, teams or alternate realities. The intricate web of characters kept my brain spinning through endless nights, and even today I've got a fair chunk of my brain dedicated to the minutiae of the X-Men. Characters developed powers and backstory, sometimes being ret-conned or replaced. Things seemed always in motion. Every issue followed an arc with cliff-hangers and other direct attempts to hold on to the reader. It worked. I shudder to think about how much money went into my collection. 

But there were problems. It wasn't a perfect world. As I got older I noticed patterns emerging. The characters never got old, never really changed at all. Sure, there was a bit of a fan-developed formula for calculating Marvel Age (something like adding a year for every three years, but even that got too much.), but the X-Men were introduced in 1963 - fifty years later they're still in their thirties at the very most. Storylines also got old, even though each new creative team promised new directions and new interpretations. Stories were recycled, repeated, rehashed. Villains returned with the same plan and were defeated again and again. Creators tried to shock the audience with deaths, but these were rendered pointless with just as many resurrections. In more recent times creators haven't even pretended that deaths are permanent, and large scale death and destruction have been used to grab for sales with limited (or no) success. 

So I became weary. I wanted to explore the stories behind the heroes, not read the same stories told every few years. I was interested in minor characters who only graced the pages for a few months and weren't heard from again for years. Peter David's 'X-Factor' brought back some of the great stories and characters, but even then I hankered for more. And that's when I came across superhero fiction. 

Rob Rogers' 'Devil's Cape' and Austin Grossman's 'Soon I Will Be Invincible' showed me that superhero stories could be told in extended, written forms. I could rely on my imagination for the images (and, seriously, comic art fluctuated in quality quite a lot, especially during the 1990s). Unfortunately there were also some superhero books which were truly cringe-worthy - parodies of the genre or unflinching rip-offs of the comics. For every serious look at a potential superhero world, there seemed to be three or four flimsy and sometimes insulting explorations of the genre. Batman knock-offs, mutant schools and invincible beings with no flaws (and no personality). 

There's a term which captures the essence of good superhero writing. It's neo-pulp, and the best explanation I've come across is from Adam Ford who wrote a manifesto on neo-pulp and its influences. In short, neo-pulp respects the form and the genre - it doesn't present overly serious or dark renditions of the superhero worlds, but it does give them some 'gravity'. Writers create worlds where superheroes may exist, but they don't turn their back on the heritage of comics and the pulps which preceded them. There is a love for the quirky stories and implausible situations, but above all there is a dedication to writing stories with both plausibility and nostalgia. It's looking beyond the capes into the personal stories of heroes and villains, monsters and madmen. 

I like to think of it as looking between the frames of a comic book. 

My short story, 'The Scoundrel's Wife', examined a regular day in the life of a super villain's housebound wife. The comic book histrionics occur off the page as the reader observes the unnamed wife's routine, tinged with sadness and a stifling sense of ennui. I've edited and published two anthologies of neo-pulp fiction: 'This Mutant Life' and 'This Mutant Life: Bad Company' which has brought together nearly 40 authors from across the globe. Each story takes the idea of superheroes or supervillains and brings it into prose. 

Comic books are still providing serialised escapism to thousands of people and there are creators doing amazing things with visual storytelling as well as innovative concepts and approaches. Superhero novels are providing that audience with something more, perhaps filling a need for aging comic book fans (or junkies!) who want to read beyond the surface, who want to follow the characters back to their houses and see what life is like when the punches aren't flying and the villains aren't plotting. 

There is a definite progression from the pulp stories of the early 1900s, the war comics of the Second World War, through to the superhero comic book renaissance of the 1960s-1990s and now into this new world of superhero fiction. When it's done well, comic books and superhero fiction can provide escapism, social commentary, great characterisation and rewarding storylines. 

If you haven't tried a comic book lately, take a look at 'Saga' by Brian K. Vaughan or 'Hawkeye' by Matt Fraction. And if you haven't tried superhero fiction, you'd be crazy not to pick up a copy of my YA novel 'The Miranda Contract'. There's a whole neo-pulp genre out there waiting for new readers.

Look for my review of The Miranda Contract, coming soon!