Book Review: The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson - Page 2

Even if the book struck the perfect balance between worldbuilding, character development, and plot momentum, you'd still be left with the idea that this is a book offering yet another take on a subject already explored in a major motion picture, as part of a successful cartoon series, and in the aforementioned thousands of pages of comic books — they've already obsessively covered the end of Krypton and the start of Superman's life as we know it. I don't think we needed yet another "reimagining."

It's hard to imagine who this book is meant to please; die-hard comics fans will only be questioning every other page based on the reams of material they've already consumed on the subject of Krypton, and the depth of detail Anderson delves into is enough to scare off more casual fans. I guess it could be aimed square at fans of literary science fiction who might be lured by the possibility of a more traditional speculative take on Superman's pulp origins. That's not me, but I could see that type of audience finding some value in this novel.

Otherwise, The Last Days of Krypton is a hard book to recommend; you either know too much already about Krypton to need yet another turgid take on the subject, or you know everything that's necessary from those eight little words, and another hundred thousand aren't going to help much.

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