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palerider37 's review for:
Sidekick
by Jaime Castle, C.J. Valin
This is an absolutely brilliant story, following the adventures of a young (16yrs – well he is about 6 and a half minutes into the story anyway) boy, who has a form of Visual or Intuitive Mimicry, the ability to watch another person perform any action, from cooking, to advanced combat techniques, as well as having a type of Eidetic memory (the ability to remember basically anything he reads or sees).
These abilities mean that he is able to do basically anything he wants, as long as he has seen someone else do it first.
The story follows our young hero in both his life as a troubled teenager, and as the sidek…. sorry, ‘Partner’ of the Legendary Superhero ‘Black Harrier’, who is the Guardian of New York City.
This is a Dystopian future, in which there are multiple Superhero’s and of course, wherever there are Hero’s there are Villains.
Before I go too much further, I should mention that this audiobook was so good, that I finished it in a single sitting. I couldn’t stop listening it was just so exceptional, with such brilliant characters.
The story is really well done, there are reminders of a lot of other Hero based series, the book has a real ‘The Boys’ feel to it, with some of the other Heroes in the story having a lot of similarities to the characters in that series (Homelander and Eaglestar both have the same level of Self-indulgent arrogance and superiority). There are several heroes that are similar, as well as the Leadership of the Guild being similar to the Seven, again, that Superiority and thinking they are better than everyone else, even other Supers. There are also elements of series like X-Men and Marvel, with a wide range of Superheroes and Supervillains all with a rather fascinating range of powers and abilities.
The real difference in this series is just how the main character of Sawyer, or Red Raptor, tells the story and relates to the reader. The narrative and dialogue are just so well done, there is a constant element of humour that really adds to the overall series. This is a highly intelligent and creative story, with an in-depth, gritty and highly realistic story, which is impressive given the genre.
Sawyer is a really fascinating character, with his mimicry ability, he is able to learn basically anything, but this leaves him in a difficult position of how he fits in without giving himself away. The story covers his life at home, where he lives with his Mother, who is an alcoholic smoker who drinks herself unconscious most nights. We also get to see his school life, in which he has a crush on the head cheerleader Fabiola, but is constantly tortured by the school bully, Logan. He is trapped with Logan, he can’t pound him into next week without giving himself away, but he also doesn’t want to be bullied by some dumb gorilla with the intelligence of a fresh roadkill.
To make things worse, his relationship with his actual Mentor and Superhero basically revolve around sentences of less than 5 syllables, and are usually less than helpful.
Whilst he loves the Superhero game, at the start of this book, we find Sawyer/Red Raptor kind of torn, as he does not know if he wants to continue to be this thing he has become, and it is here that we get a really good look at the psychological aspects of Sawyer, a Teenage boy with incredible gifts, no parental figures to speak of, (A drunk for a mother, and the only Father figure is a womanising vigilante who if he’s lucky, he gets 6 syllables instead of 5 a night.
It is whilst pondering his future that several events occur, and this is what really sets the main story in motion. The first is the introduction of Osprey, another Superhero, with a Black Harrier fetish, who Sawyer immediately starts crushing on, and as a result, loses focus on the bigger picture.
The other main story line, is that Black Harrier, Frank Douglas, goes missing.
This results in a stunning series of events that is going to rock New York City to the core, but more to the point, is going to change the young life of Sawyer Willian Vincent, alias Red Raptor, to his very core.
The character building in this series is beyond exceptional. The series starts with the main characters already fully evolved, having been active Superheroes in their current set up for over 3yrs, and we come in to this and get to learn about Sawyer and Frank (through Sawyer’s eyes) from this mature perspective. As stated previously, Sawyer is such a fascinating character, but there are also some other really amazing characters as well, such as Osprey, and many others who I am not going to mention to avoid giving away spoilers. I will only say that Osprey is just sensational, and brings so much to the story.
The world building in this book is incredibly detailed, covering every aspect of the story. Castle and Vailin have crafted this multifaceted, and beautifully crafted, Dystopian world for their characters to tell this story in, one in which there are numerous Supers, both good and bad, with a spectacular array of abilities and powers. These range from the organic, such as Sawyer’s abilities, but some of them are technological (think Batman and all of his wonderful toys).
There is so much detail, but the Authors have been clever, whilst we learn a lot of this world in this book, we don’t get all. They have left things for future books.
This is a series that is going to be so worth getting lost in, as the characters are not only utterly enthralling, but very intelligent, and have the best dialogue, making this such a fun story. The Main Villain is someone who would give The Joker a run for his money, and is just brilliant in how vicious he is.
I will give the Authors credit though, whilst there is a lot of violence and aggression in this book, it is not over the top, it has been very cleverly done, so that it is at a level that is still Older ‘Young Adult’ friendly, as there is not a lot of gratuitous violence or language. The language has been very cleverly taken care of (You’ll see).
This is like ‘The Boys’ meets ‘Monty Python’, and the outcome is just exceptional, you won’t be disappointed.
If you like a good superhero story, action, adventure, even just a good Sci-fi story, this is one you will not want to miss out on, as it will be one of the best books of 2021.
These abilities mean that he is able to do basically anything he wants, as long as he has seen someone else do it first.
The story follows our young hero in both his life as a troubled teenager, and as the sidek…. sorry, ‘Partner’ of the Legendary Superhero ‘Black Harrier’, who is the Guardian of New York City.
This is a Dystopian future, in which there are multiple Superhero’s and of course, wherever there are Hero’s there are Villains.
Before I go too much further, I should mention that this audiobook was so good, that I finished it in a single sitting. I couldn’t stop listening it was just so exceptional, with such brilliant characters.
The story is really well done, there are reminders of a lot of other Hero based series, the book has a real ‘The Boys’ feel to it, with some of the other Heroes in the story having a lot of similarities to the characters in that series (Homelander and Eaglestar both have the same level of Self-indulgent arrogance and superiority). There are several heroes that are similar, as well as the Leadership of the Guild being similar to the Seven, again, that Superiority and thinking they are better than everyone else, even other Supers. There are also elements of series like X-Men and Marvel, with a wide range of Superheroes and Supervillains all with a rather fascinating range of powers and abilities.
The real difference in this series is just how the main character of Sawyer, or Red Raptor, tells the story and relates to the reader. The narrative and dialogue are just so well done, there is a constant element of humour that really adds to the overall series. This is a highly intelligent and creative story, with an in-depth, gritty and highly realistic story, which is impressive given the genre.
Sawyer is a really fascinating character, with his mimicry ability, he is able to learn basically anything, but this leaves him in a difficult position of how he fits in without giving himself away. The story covers his life at home, where he lives with his Mother, who is an alcoholic smoker who drinks herself unconscious most nights. We also get to see his school life, in which he has a crush on the head cheerleader Fabiola, but is constantly tortured by the school bully, Logan. He is trapped with Logan, he can’t pound him into next week without giving himself away, but he also doesn’t want to be bullied by some dumb gorilla with the intelligence of a fresh roadkill.
To make things worse, his relationship with his actual Mentor and Superhero basically revolve around sentences of less than 5 syllables, and are usually less than helpful.
Whilst he loves the Superhero game, at the start of this book, we find Sawyer/Red Raptor kind of torn, as he does not know if he wants to continue to be this thing he has become, and it is here that we get a really good look at the psychological aspects of Sawyer, a Teenage boy with incredible gifts, no parental figures to speak of, (A drunk for a mother, and the only Father figure is a womanising vigilante who if he’s lucky, he gets 6 syllables instead of 5 a night.
It is whilst pondering his future that several events occur, and this is what really sets the main story in motion. The first is the introduction of Osprey, another Superhero, with a Black Harrier fetish, who Sawyer immediately starts crushing on, and as a result, loses focus on the bigger picture.
The other main story line, is that Black Harrier, Frank Douglas, goes missing.
This results in a stunning series of events that is going to rock New York City to the core, but more to the point, is going to change the young life of Sawyer Willian Vincent, alias Red Raptor, to his very core.
The character building in this series is beyond exceptional. The series starts with the main characters already fully evolved, having been active Superheroes in their current set up for over 3yrs, and we come in to this and get to learn about Sawyer and Frank (through Sawyer’s eyes) from this mature perspective. As stated previously, Sawyer is such a fascinating character, but there are also some other really amazing characters as well, such as Osprey, and many others who I am not going to mention to avoid giving away spoilers. I will only say that Osprey is just sensational, and brings so much to the story.
The world building in this book is incredibly detailed, covering every aspect of the story. Castle and Vailin have crafted this multifaceted, and beautifully crafted, Dystopian world for their characters to tell this story in, one in which there are numerous Supers, both good and bad, with a spectacular array of abilities and powers. These range from the organic, such as Sawyer’s abilities, but some of them are technological (think Batman and all of his wonderful toys).
There is so much detail, but the Authors have been clever, whilst we learn a lot of this world in this book, we don’t get all. They have left things for future books.
This is a series that is going to be so worth getting lost in, as the characters are not only utterly enthralling, but very intelligent, and have the best dialogue, making this such a fun story. The Main Villain is someone who would give The Joker a run for his money, and is just brilliant in how vicious he is.
I will give the Authors credit though, whilst there is a lot of violence and aggression in this book, it is not over the top, it has been very cleverly done, so that it is at a level that is still Older ‘Young Adult’ friendly, as there is not a lot of gratuitous violence or language. The language has been very cleverly taken care of (You’ll see).
This is like ‘The Boys’ meets ‘Monty Python’, and the outcome is just exceptional, you won’t be disappointed.
If you like a good superhero story, action, adventure, even just a good Sci-fi story, this is one you will not want to miss out on, as it will be one of the best books of 2021.