What is Almost Infamous?
Eighteen-year-old Aidan Salt isn’t a superhero. With his powerful (and unpredictable) telekinetic abilities, he could be one if he wanted to, but he doesn’t. He’s unambitious, selfish, and cowardly, and he doesn’t want to have to deal with all the paperwork required to become a professional superhero. But since the money, fame, and women that come with wearing the cape are appealing, he decides to become the first supervillain the world has seen in more than 20 years: Apex Strike.
However, he soon finds villainy in a world where the heroes have long since defeated all the supervillains. While half the world’s heroes seem to want him dead, the other half want to hire him as their own personal villain to keep them relevant. Choosing the latter course, Aidan enters a world of fame, fortune, and staged superhero fights that is seemingly everything he ever dreamed of…at least until he sees what truly hides behind the cape-and-mask lifestyle.
Review
ALMOST INFAMOUS by Matt Carter is a supervillain novel loosely inspired by the movie ALMOST FAMOUS starring Kate Hudson and Billy Crudup. For those who aren’t familiar, it’s a story about a teenager getting pulled into the life of a band where he is exposed to massive amounts of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Valuable lessons are learned, romances occur, yada, yada. As a huge fan of supervillain fiction, narrow superlative as that may be, I was always intrigued by this book but only recently got around to reading it.
The premise is that this is a superhero world that has largely resolved its problems of supervillainy. History went in an extremely different manner in this world and the book opens by giving a short summary rang from Atlantis existing, R’lyehian cultists taking over Hawaii, Canada being annexed by the USA after it was part of a massive colonialist uprising during WW, and the Villain War where the heroes killed every single supervillain alive. This is treated as a good thing but anyone who is suspected of being a supervillain is sentenced to permanent stasis in prison. This has left a lot of superheroes with nothing to do but self-promote.
Aidan Salt is a teenage boy who just wants to be rich and get laid. Which is at least two statements redundant. Born with the mutant ability of extremely powerful telekinesis that he’s only now developing, he makes the ill-advised decision to become a supervillain and steal some cash. It’s a situation that goes from bad to worse when a superhero shows up, plans to kill him rather than take him in, and then ends with Aidan crushing said superhero like a bug. Aidan soon ends up grabbed by shadowy forces and is told he is now part of PROJECT: KAYFABE. If you know anything about wrestling, you might now realize what the superheroes want from him.
What follows is a fascinating journey as Aidan Salt, now known as Apex Strike, finds himself trotted out to be the world’s most dangerous villain. The heroes are quite willing to hang out and share in their groupies, drugs, as well as obscene wealth. Aidan and the others are still criminals with the threat of being turned into the Tower at any point but get to enjoy life until then. It doesn’t hurt that Aidan is still incredibly young and crushing on two of his teammates with Ghost Girl (A disfigured but athletic antihero) and Nevermore (A French Goth girl).
The book is full of fantastic concepts, interesting side characters, and a plot line that is somewhat predictable but still enjoyable to follow. So do I recommend it? Eh, with caveats. The book is, uh, well, it’s a lot of sexism. It’s deliberate because Aidan is a teenage boy but it’s still there. He’s constantly objectifying the women around him, spying on them in the shower, and genuinely behaving like a creep. There’s also some sadistic stories in the past that are played for humor that doesn’t really land like a Robin equivalent’s family getting murdered before he went into porn.
In conclusion, it’s a book I recommend but with a lot of caveats. I just don’t find the edgy humor and sexism as fun as the book wants me to do. On the other hand, it is definitely a labor of love for the genre.
