Ronin Games by Harmon: Book review

Ronin Games by Marion G. Harmon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a superhero story about Americans in Japan. In this case, the POV is Hope, an American teenager who has been given responsibility beyond her years, and she ends up having to go to Japan to figure out how to stop a potentially very dangerous person, who happens to have diplomatic immunity and there are several levels of deniability that need to be established.

This can be read as a set of four stories: first is straight up superhero story (which has a spy story as a prologue). Second is a ghost story. Third is a horror/magic/superhero/martial arts story. Last is a superhero/kaiju(monster) story. (I read this once myself, then a second time with my 5 yr old son, so I actually skipped the horror story part for him)

Things I liked:
1. Characters where rounded out. Everyone has a different set of motivations based on their different backgrounds. While much is made of the cultural concept of duty in Japan, it leads each person in a different direction in subtle ways that drive the story. If anything, the Japanese characters are guilty of stereotype here when some of them don't recognize that within the culture there are many ways that duty can play out. This discussion of what is duty shows up repeatedly.
2. The hero is NOT the one with all of the answers. Something I like about the entire series. Hope, the hero of the story, is at times being carried along by her teammates and friends. And sometimes said teammates are consciously trying to help her without telling her (and they had good reason). In this case, the teammates are not token, they are legitimate heroes in their own right, with their own characterizations, motivations, strengths and weaknesses. And a big part of the series is that to be the best they can be, they have to work in combination.
3. I start loosing my suspension of disbelief when the story consequences start rising out of control. They suddenly find themselves in a position where the fate of nations ride in the background of decisions and becoming myth.

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Small Town Heroes by Harmon: Book Review

Small Town Heroes by Marion G. Harmon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So the main character of the series, Astra, gets herself taken away from Chicago, her home, and her friends, because she sees a vision of something she should not know anything about. She makes new friends, learns how to work with others who are extremely competent, and her old team gets to meet the new ones.

I liked this book because it maintains that in the world of superheroes, the most dangerous ones are the ones that can plan. Astra is depicted as someone who is learning how to do this, and she spends the book recognizing she is around people who do it well. A team of third-string supersoldiers is depicted as being a match for a first-string villian because of teamwork, and these opponents are the most dangerous, not because they are the most powerful that Astra has faced, nor because the Young Sentinals are weaker than the main Sentinal team, but because this group works well together. All of the supers (and other leadership figures) are highly competent and dangerous, and that makes for a better story than many.

The book can get a little corny/sappy occasionally, and that may be because the main character is a pixie teenage girl. But it helps that everyone is competent, and the main hero, while competent and universally accepted, still has much to learn and the others around her have much to teach

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