Shannon's Review - The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson

The Last Days of Krypton
Summary: Description from Amazon: "Everyone knows how Kal-El—-Superman—-was sent to Earth just before his planet exploded. But what led to such a disaster? Now, in The Last Days of Krypton, Kevin J. Anderson presents a sweeping tale of the pomp and grandeur, the intrigue and passion, and the politics and betrayals of a doomed world filled with brave heroes and cruel traitors."




My Thoughts: This book takes place about 2 years before the birth of Superman, a.k.a. Kal-el. We follow Jor-el and Lara (Kal-el's parents); Zor-el (brother to Jor-el); and General Zod, Aethyr and Nam-Ek (the main bad guys). It tells a story about people trying to survives through great crisis. I had not really read many comicbook-based novel, so this was new to me.

The flow of the book moves smoothly through each of the chapters, which are short but have a lot of action throughout. The characters are entertaining, the good guys likable and the bad unlikable in a likable sort of way. It was entertaining to see characters from movies and comic book react with each other, like an appearance of Brainac I wasn't expecting. I have not read many Superman comics, but in the ones I have read more recently, Superman tends to have a negative, "I am superior to all" ... I don't know, I actually prefer Batman. That said, I liked this book because it was not about Superman, but his family and where he came from, and thus where he's coming from.

I thought it was a little redundant to keep having all these catastrophes happen all at once, but I guess the action had to come from somewhere. There are many series I see clearly--like Jor-el creating the Phantom Zone and Lara saving him from it, which helped spark their romance.

I enjoyed this book a lot and will have my eyes out for more comicbook-based novels.

About the Author: Kevin J Anderson has written many science fiction books in the Star Wars universe and co-authored some Dune series. Growing up, he was greatly influenced by War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.