League of Somebodies by Samuel Sattin

League of Somebodies Reviews

• 
  Richard Derus

  Rating: 3.25* of five
  
  The Publisher Says: Lenard Sikophsky’s father has been feeding him plutonium since the age of six in the hopes of making him the world’s first bona fide superhero. First, he must pass the unusual tests of manhood locked in the centuries old tomb, The Manaton, a secret relic passed down for generations. Falling in love with the beautiful, compulsively suicidal Laura Moskowitz doesn’t make his life any easier. But with the guidance of the Sikophsky men, the antiquated rulebook, and of course a healthy amount of plutonium, Lenard accepts his fate as an exactor of justice. . . .
  
  Twenty years later, Lenard’s son Nemo is introduced to the same destiny as his father, only this time the violent entity called THEY are in dangerous pursuit. Lenard’s life and the legacy of his family are put to the test when he is forced to defend everything he loves.
  
  My Review: Well! THAT was fun. I liked reading Sattin's just-slightly-OTT prose, I liked the comic-booky story, and I liked the relative absence of typos and mangled parallelisms.
  
  I thought I would scream occasionally...the women in the book are, well, how to put this diplomatically...girls. No other way to say it, they're girls, in the old-fashioned pejorative white-man-on-top sense.
  
  And Nemo is less introduced to his destiny than inducted into it. Like Geek Love, a disturbing book on similar themes of parental manipulation and dysfunction, each generation of Sikophsky boys has A Destiny and Will Follow It. Or Else. This being an evergreen theme, I was really looking forward to Sattin's trippy take on it.
  
  In this, I wasn't in the least disappointed. I offer this odd little passage from the book as evidence of Sattin's skill with trippy:
  

  In 2003, Lantana, The Savage, Zatkin, watched the sky over Kansas for signs of impending doom.
  In that forlorn sea of cattle, wheat, corn, and sorghum grain, he'd come to Finney, following the anonymous, electronic chortle of a villain calling himself The Brother who apparently had a nuclear bomb aimed and ready in the direction of the Sunflower State.
  Lantana watched the sky, his toga still in the humid Midwestern slough as the sun made hell of his retinas. He wasn't sure he even believed that The Brother existed, that this anonymous, self-proclaimed villain, in all probability, was some sex-deprived soul out of Ohio with a mouse pad and a pink, pimpled penis.

  
  Trippy, like I said. The image of a superhero named after a flowering vine standing in a cornfield with his glad-rags limp in the heat? Yes, priceless. Contrasting that with the old stand-by nerd stereotype, effective.
  
  But therein also the problem with the book. This is a good idea, told well enough to go over, and not an out-of-the-park homer for one big reason: A lot happens, and very little changes. As I've made this same observation about Neil Gaiman's works (and been trounced and screamed at for it), this problem isn't unique to Sattin. I do wish the ending hadn't been quite so...not rushed, exactly, but tacked-on feeling. The natural end of the book was earlier, in a wide and featureless sky. Then came a bad case of the knit-knit-knits as some future history was rammed down my throat, fitting about as well as a long woolen scarf would.
  
  But hear this: I enjoyed this weird and wonderful journey. I'm glad I took it, for all that I had reservations about it. Sattin deserves a shot at your eyeballs. He's got more to say.
  
  
  
  This work is licensed under a
  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
• 
  Lectus

  Via
  http://onlectus.blogspot.com/2013/07/...
  
  What an agglomeration of pompous diatribe. So numerous bound rectos and leafs filled with coded and highly superfluous parlance ostensibly designed to exhibit the author’s knowledge of such non-lexical vocables rather than to convey any real meaning or carry any meaningful augmentation to the chronicle narrative.
  
  Did you understand, but most importantly, did you like what I wrote above? Did it grip your attention and make you want to read 400 pages of the same type of writing? Then congratulations, you will enjoy reading League of Somebodies because Sattin's writing is just like that.
  
  I on the other hand, am of the belief that you don’t need to embed a science fiction book in a million-plus-one (and then some) sci fi references and jargon.
  
  I tried to like this book because the premise was such a cool one; really interesting and promising elements that should make this a raw and fresh take into the superhero genre.
  
  But the language really turned me off from the story. I don’t consider myself an idiot, but I felt like I needed a companion translation encyclopedia to read this thing. Couldn't Sattin have substituted at least some of the words from technical words to laymen’s terms? I didn’t know what exactly to focus on, I found the flow forced and… well, I guess it just wasn’t my style.
  
  About the book:
  
  The story opens with Lenard, 13, is standing in the middle of a railway bridge with his father because his father is convinced that his son was born to be… well, a super hero kind of boy. So his father is asking Lenard to run from an oncoming train to … help Lenard’s powers to manifest?? I guess. Through his life, Lenard manages some hero stunts and that is that.
  
  The second half of the book is about Lenard’s son, Nemo. Unfortunately or luckily, Lenard follows his father’s footsteps and is determine to make a true out of Nemo. Will he feed Nemo plutonium too? Will he test his son as his father tested him?
  
  There’s the mysterious Sikophsky men, a compulsively suicidal love interest (for drama), a rulebook, a violent entity called THEY… and Leonard has to defend everything he loves.
  
• 
  Matthew

  Sam's a born novelist, and this is a big, weird, wonderful story about family expectations and other monsters. Loved it.
• 
  Lori

  Read 5/26/13 - 6/26/13
  3 Stars - Recommended to fans of the underdog, superheros, and villainous nonsense
  Pgs: 400
  Publisher: Dark Coast Press
  Released: April 2013
  
  Good god it took me for-evvv-eerrrr to read this bad boy. And while there were many contributing factors to the tortoise-like speed at which I raced through this novel, two stand out more than the rest: my usual aversion to all things superhero-y and the cumbersome writing style of the author.
  
  Disclaimer: this is me trying to branch out and read things that I normally wouldn't because awesomeness is almost always uncovered in the unknown. Right? Well, how the heck would you ever know that if you didn't broaden your reading horizons and give it a go?! So a-go I gave.
  
  Or something like that.
  
  Anywhoo..
  
  What I held in my hands, I was pleased to discover, was the genre-defying story of how a real life superhero is born. League of Somebodies bends and bleeds science fiction, begging the reader to suspend all reality, but its power (and sometimes its downfall - more on this later) lies in the author's use of language to sell the story. This is not your typical POW BAM BANG story - there is very little action and quite a lot of set up and storytelling. It's literary at heart, and it has heart in spades.
  
  Imagine this: You're an unpopular, grossly deformed pre-teen, Jewish boy - huge upper body; stunted, small, and practically useless legs - and you're informed by your father that you have been spoon fed small amounts of plutonium in the hopes that you will become the world's first real superhero. And that now, you must complete a series of multiple, life-endangering tests to prepare yourself to fight against THEY - a villainous entity that is coming after your family to steal The Manaton - a sacred, secret rulebook of manhood. Oh, and that grossly deformed body, no worries, alright, cause those tests will bring out all the wonders that the plutonium has been building up inside you. You'll look awesome in no time, kid!
  
  That's basically what happened to poor little Lenard. Reluctant and pissed off (who wouldn't be?), he finds himself at the mercy of his trickster father time and time again, as he is shaped and molded into the man his father needs him to be, all the while falling deeply and madly in love with Laura, a family friend who is being groomed to become his wife.
  
  Fast forward 20 years: Laura and Lenard have a son, Nemo, and begin putting him through the same rigmarole when he comes of age - only now, THEY are in hot pursuit and nothing short of snagging that Manaton, and killing anything and anyone who gets in their way, will stop them.
  
  League of Somebodies is many things all at once. It's a tongue-in-cheek look at masculinity in all its superiority; it's a close study of fatherdom and the unending love, no matter how fucked up that father is, a son will always have towards him; and it's a tale of good vs. evil and just how difficult it is to sometimes tell who is on the side of good and who is on the side of bad.
  
  It captivates with its less-than-perfect characters, wildy absurd man-isms, and sheer quirkiness.
  
  Wordiness is this novel's true enemy. The story moved along so slowly at times that I actually lost the plot and had to go back and reread a page or two to regain momentum (you know how that goes, when you're reading along and suddenly you can't remember what you were just reading because it was going on and on and your mind started to wander and you lost the gist of where the author was going with it all?). Word economy can be your friend. That's all I'm saying.
  
  Clocking in at an overwhelming 400 pages, it also required a final read-through from its editor. There were grammatical and structural issues within sentences that, while not taking away from the story exactly, were mildly distracting and sometimes frustrating, especially when they popped up all over the place. Hell, I'm no professional, so when I catch things like missing words and conjunctions, and double half-sentences, I tend to get a little ragey towards the end.
  
  Dark Coast Press is a new-to-me press, so having never read them before, I don't know if this is a common issue of theirs, and it's certainly not one I blame entirely on the author. I'd happily be the final set of eyes to scrutinize their books before they hit the printers to help avoid this kind of faux pas in the future. (wink wink, cough cough, Dark Coast, are you listening?) Poor editing is not only damaging to the press, sadly, it's damaging to the author, too.
  
  So, my ultimate ruling is that, while awesomeness does exist in the unknown, it sometimes comes with rough edges that still need a little smoothing out. Check it out if you can overcome the stubborn grammatical boo-boo's and excessive wordiness to read a truly unique tale about the reluctant coming of age of a superhero.
  
• 
  Nickolas

  REVIEW SUMMARY: The most meaningful superhero origin story I've ever encountered.
  
  BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Raised on a steady diet of plutonium, Lenard Sikophsky grows up to become the world's first superhero. The key to Lenard's transformation? The Manaton, a sacred tome outlining the path to manhood. Now Lenard has a son of his own to teach, but an enemy exists that desperately wants to claim The Manaton as its own.
  
  PROS: Mature, funny, and unexpectedly moving.
  CONS: Don't buy this expecting an action packed, superhero thrill ride.
  BOTTOM LINE: For those looking for a story with something to say, look no further.
  
  Prior to reading Samuel Sattin's League of Somebodies I was stuck in a week long reading rut. I had picked up, started, and set back down six different books. There were no major problems with any of the books, I enjoyed each in varying degrees before giving them up, but each failed to hook me. Enter League of Somebodies, a coming-of-age story of dysfunctional families and uber-masculinity. I've read several superhero stories this year and strangely enough, my favorite is the least super of all. I've never been a fan of literature but League of Somebodies is interesting enough to carry mature themes without becoming too self absorbed to enjoy. It's the sort of book a bold English teacher might assign to students - likely offending some, confusing others, but managing to change the perspective of at least one student.
  
  Putting a label on League of Somebodies is difficult and describing it is even harder. Imagine Kal-El crash landed on Earth, not to be discovered by the kindly Kent family, but instead their misogynistic Jewish Scot neighbor. Imagine Bruce Wayne's father faked his death and Alfred was under orders to frighten Bruce at every given opportunity. It's a superhero novel that suggests nurture, and not nature, is the path to becoming a caped crusader. From an early age Lenard is fed plutonium by his father, and read to from The Manaton, a sacred book on manhood. The book praises masculinity, a man's place in the celestial hierarchy (the top), the proper way to fight a lion (hand-to-claw combat), explains the procedures of manscaping, and much more. This is all done in a satirical light, lampooning the mindset while providing a frame for the father-son relationships that drive League of Somebodies.
  
  "Heroes, of all sorts and series, are the children of darkness. Which is why they long so deeply for the light."
  
  It's a powerful story that examines the age old tale of fathers trying to prepare their sons for the world, and sometimes irrevocably damaging them in the process. It is a story of expectations and actualities, generational gaps and the progression of the 21st century man. The characters are larger than life, but undeniably down to earth. Lenard makes a compelling protagonist, indoctrinated as a child, he attempts to recreate the same conditions so that his own son Nemo might grow up to be a hero. Nemo though, bequeathed with his mother's intelligence, doesn't take to the teaching of The Manaton with the same dedication as Lenard. The cycle of misunderstanding continues. The cast is rather small, but the characterization is strong, from the brilliant-yet-suicidal Laura/Lily to Lenard's sidekick of sorts Carl. THEY, the villains of League of Somebodies, are underdeveloped and relegated to a short portion of the novel, though I can empathize with their motivation. Given the strength of the heroes the novel could really benefit from some added depth to the villains.
  
  Those of you who saw Shane Black's Ironman 3 and complained about the lack of Stark jetting around in his suit probably won't want to pick up League of Somebodies. This is a book about relationships above all else, and the superheroics is kept to a bare minimum. It's more about becoming a hero and the implications thereof, than fighting crime and villainy. I would love to see a low budget film adaption of League of Somebodies by James Gunn, director of Super (starring Rainn Wilson).
  
  With Father's Day approaching, as well as the release of Man of Steel, Samuel Sattin's debut struck a very strong chord. It is not the novel I expected but it is the novel I needed.
• 
  ManOfLaBook.com

  League of Som­bod­ies by Samuel Sat­tin is an irrev­er­ent novel which com­bines humor and fan­tasy to cre­ate a unique book. I h ave been read­ing a lot about the War on Men lately and this book just seemed to come in just in time for all the hoopla.
  
  Fearghas Mur­doch Sikoph­sky wants to raise the world’s first legit­i­mate super­hero – the can­di­date: his son Lenard. How­ever, before becom­ing a hero Lenard must pass sev­eral tests from an ancient book which teaches men how to be men. In the process Lenard falls in love with the men­tally unsta­ble Laura Moskowitz.
  
  Twenty years later Lenard, who is no men­tal giant, has his own son, Nemo, who is being trained to be a super­hero like his father. But before Nemo can take the men­tal, the Sikoph­sky men have to be put to the ulti­mate test.
  
  League of Som­bod­ies by Samuel Sat­tin is a book that needs close atten­tion and some back­ground in Jew­ish cul­ture to enjoy. I knew I would like the book the moment the author intro­duced Fearghas Mur­doch Sikoph­sky a Scottish/Jewish/Polish strong­man who feeds his child plu­to­nium hop­ing to turn him into a superhero.
  
  This book is unique, inven­tive and orig­i­nal. The char­ac­ters are absolutely nuts, quirky but strangely com­pelling. The plot was strange, zany and funny com­pli­cated by love sto­ries and strange rel­a­tives which pop-up every now and then.
  
  "Chris­tians had an entire uni­verse of the macabre to work with. Jews, they had mother-complexes. Hon­estly, Lenard found the for­mer more favor­able, even if for him, though his par­tic­u­lar com­plex involved a rav­ing, burly Scotsman."
  
  This novel is very wordy, which makes it tough to read but I found it to be part of the humor, either on the dim wit­ted Lenard or the reader. Some­times how­ever, the joke seems to last too long and the book didn't seem as tight as it should have been, espe­cially dur­ing the action sequences which I found a few to be dis­ori­ent­ing and last­ing pages instead of paragraphs.
  
  This book is not for every­one, Mr. Sat­tin offers a com­i­cal glimpse into the world of man­hood, becom­ing a man and your own per­son while deal­ing with exter­nal pres­sures from reli­gion, soci­ety and, of course, women. The book is full of pulp-style adven­tures, comic book like vio­lence, vul­gar­ity and social commentary.
  
  Dis­claimer: I got this book for free
  
  For more reviews and bookish posts please visit
  http://www.ManOfLaBook.com
• 
  Stephanie Ward

  'League of Somebodies' is a highly inventive and thoroughly entertaining science fiction/fantasy novel that follows Lenard Sikophsky, our main character whose father has been feeding him plutonium since a young age in hopes of turning him into the first legitimate superhero. In order to be considered an actual superhero, Lenard must first past several tests to gauge his abilities. Making matters even more difficult is Laura Moskowitz - a mentally ill woman with whom Lenard falls in love with. Now, twenty years later, Lenard's own son - Nemo - is being trained to become a superhero like his father before him. To make things worse THEY are officially after the Sikophysky men and Lenard will be put to the ultimate test.
  
  This was one of the most original and unique books I've read in a very long time - and not just in the science fiction or fantasy genres. The author creates a crazy family that is both quirky, strange, devoted, and loving. The family dynamics are interesting to learn about as we see how all the members interact with one another. The plot was fun and zany, complete with plutonium, superheroes, crazy love stories, and strange relatives. The writing was fantastic with a quick pace and an effortless flow that had me completely engaged from the first paragraph until the end. The characters in the story - especially Lenard - are very well written with individual personalities and quirks. They were a bit zany but realistic and incredibly likeable at the same time. Beneath the fun and intriguing main story are deeper issues of family, love, devotion, the battle between right and wrong, and ultimately about believing in yourself. These topics added a depth to the novel that I felt really rounded it out and gave it complexity. Highly recommended for those who enjoy fun and somewhat crazy science fiction or fantasy novels and also for those readers looking for something fresh and original.
  
  Disclosure: I received a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  Kurt Reighley

  Fantastic, winding story and vivid, characters. As a fan of comic books, science fiction, and the absurdity of human life (to say nothing of belief systems), I found this highly entertaining. But this book would benefit strongly from the firm hand of an editor. There are some passage of prose so purple and dense with look-at-me vocabulary words it renders them nearly unreadable, and the number of proofreading errors throughout infuriated me. A delightful tale, a distinctive author ... and a flawed book.
• 
  Ben

  A striking, Jewey, Kavalier and Clay-like swing for the fences swirl of togas, spandex, lions, and family.
  
  More -
  http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2013/07...
• 
  Jessica

  League of Somebodies I'm not going to deny that it took me a very long time to finish this. League of Somebodies is a book that seems to defy a genre categorization. It's wild, wordy, and at times I was all but lost as I tried to puzzle my way through what was going on with Lenard and his insane father. However for some reason I just couldn't put it down. Maybe it was because Lenard had so much heart, or because I'm a sucker for a superhero story, but despite any qualms I may have had I did ultimately finish this book.
   
  At the heart of it all, this is a story about the relationship between a boy and his father. It's also an ironic look at the superhero archetype and how it peddles superiority in masculinity. Be warned that if you can't deal with "in your face" male superiority, this probably isn't a read for you. Lenard's father wants nothing more than for his son to become all that is man. He's not afraid to push, prod, and even put his son in danger if it means achieving that end. Yet, at the end of the day, Lenard still loves him and even follows in his footsteps. I guess it's true that love is unending and unyielding, especially so in this case.
   
  Now I've said it above and I'll say it again, the wordiness of this novel is really what makes it so tough to read. There isn't a lot of action here, but there is a ton of storytelling. Scenes that most likely should have been paragraphs ended up as multiple page entities. As a reader it was extremely disorienting. Add in some grammatical issues, and now you see why it took me a bit to finish this book. I can't deny that League of Somebodies could have used some polishing.
   
  I don't know how else to explain my feelings about this book. It was odd, a little disorienting, and yet intriguing at the same time. It definitely is a unique take on the coming of age of a superhero. Check it out, but make sure you're willing to brave the wordiness.
• 
  Ea_colon

  It was literally hard for me to get through this. It delivered on only one promise it made, to be a stupid and myopic exploration of a passable premise. There is an epic level of misogyny only tentatively covered up in a light veneer of empty irony. The villain, teased in the dust jacket, is non-existent save for three weak chapters before the climax. The two sections of this book are essentially two superhero origin stories WITH NO USE OF THE SUPERPOWERS THAT OUR HEROES DEFINATELY HAVE! They only perform selfless acts "off-screen" so to speak. But worst of all is horrible style of "Sponge-bob" esque humor that permeates this entire text. It is not funny. It makes the very act of reading the book a tedious and confusing and frustrating and pointless exercise in disappointment. And you can't give this to a young kid who might be at the stage in life to enjoy that because of the graphic sex scenes; plus the "ironic but not really ironic" and aggressively misanthropic worldview.
• 
  Erik

  Samuel Sattin's League of Somebodies starts off as what appears to be a superhero origin story of the first true superhero. But what unfolds is a multi-layered analysis of the male machismo and tearing down the commonly held myths of what it means to be macho. Sattin's uses three pivotal characters to deconstruct these myths to redefine what it means to be brave, strong, and fearless. John Keating's narration could have been better as he seems to think all Jews sound like they're from Brooklyn and he does a poor job of accentuating pivotal moments in the book. However, Sattin's story overcomes this minor shortcoming and delivers a subversive story that at first seems like your standard superhero story, but ends up turning commonly held ideals on its ear. Great first novel from Samuel Sattin!
• 
  Jessie (Ageless Pages Reviews)

  I... do not know what to make of this.
• 
  S.W. Sondheimer

  Maybe I simply didn't get it. Powered through hoping something incredible would emerge. Bummed I wasted time I don't have. Great concept, irritating execution.
• 
  Brittneigh

  This book was just not my style.