Book review: Seven Wonders

Seven Wonders by Adam Christopher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Seven Wonders by Kiwi author Adam Christopher is a superhero novel set in the fictional city of San Ventura. The city, once plagued by supervillains, is now mostly peaceful thanks to the Seven Wonders, a team of superheroes. However, there is one remaining supervillain causing trouble in San Ventura: The Cowl. When Tony, an ordinary citizen of San Ventura, starts to manifest super powers, he decides to do what the Seven Wonders have been unable to do – defeat the Cowl once and for all.

Seven Wonders is a story about the unexpected paths that personal journeys can take. The reader is kept guessing about the motivations of certain characters right until the end of the book.

I enjoyed Seven Wonders, although not as much as Empire State. I liked how the characters were not black and white, despite how that is often the case in the superhero genre. It relied on cliches, but not so much as to remove the fun from the book.

As much as I enjoyed the story, I wish that it could have been packaged and delivered in a different form. In my opinion, it doesn't quite work as a novel. The story is too episodic. Some people have said they would have preferred this book to be a graphic novel. I don't think it would have been necessary to illustrate it: Christopher's descriptions are detailed enough that the visual cues wouldn't have been necessary. But I do think that the story would have worked better if delivered in an episodic format, e.g. a podcast series or a chapter-by-chapter release on subscription.

Seven Wonders is a fun read for anyone interested in the superhero genre.

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This is the last of my posts for SpecFicNZ Blogging Week 2012. See the list of other Blogging Week posts here.