Book #1

As I mentioned in my last post, I will be writing about all of the books I read this year, and perhaps every year. I don't know how good it will come out because I'm not that good at reviewing any kind of media, other than "I liked it" or "I didn't like it." Perhaps I will get better as the year progresses. That would be nice.

Enemies and Allies, by Kevin J. Anderson

This book was given to me by my friend Adam for my birthday last month. I love Batman and have for a long time, but my exposure to Superman has only been through TV and movies, and of course general pop culture. I was looking forward to reading this book because I have a few Batman short story books that I read and enjoyed very much. It's kind of nice to read a story about Batman and not have to look at a lot of pictures. I know this is practically blasphemy to comics fans, but I have always been more of a story person. I catch myself quite a bit reading the story in a comic and barely glancing at the art.

The book is set in the 1950s and revolves around how Batman and Superman met and had to unite against their common foe, Lex Luthor. The basic tropes of each character are added along the way, and some of the aforementioned pop culture tidbits relevant to each character are mentioned. I did like that, and I didn't think it was overused to the point of corniness.

This being a superhero book set in the 50s, you can guess the outcome. It was an easy read and I enjoyed it very much. I usually only read books during my lunch break at work; what I read at home is usually just Entertainment Weekly or other magazines. But I did manage to get a few chapters of Enemies and Allies in at home as well, so that's usually a sign of a good book for me. My only complaint is that there seemed to be more chapters based around Superman than Batman (each chapter was headed by the Bat symbol or the Superman symbol, so you knew who the main focus of the chapter would be). Anderson really plays up the differences in the two superheroes; the almost goody-two-shoes alien Boy Scout Superman, and the dark, law-breaking Batman. That's probably why I prefer Batman, because he could actually exist, but in this day and age someone would be able to find his secret identity very quickly.

I would not hesitate to recommend this book to a comics fan or a Batman/Superman movie or TV fan. You don't really need to know the backstory of each character to enjoy the book, as Anderson basically gives all of that to you during the book. But if you're not a superhero fan, you should probably read something else.

Wow, this was a lot harder than I thought. I'm definitely not a book reviewer, so I'll have to come up with a different method of writing about the books I read. The next book is about the baseball player Ted Williams, so that will be interesting. I don't know much about him aside from the fact that he is one of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball. And he's angry.