Legacy by Tom Sniegoski

Back in February, I included Legacy by Tom Sniegoski in my post of 2009 YA Releases Guys Should Get. Now that the book has officially been released, I hope you will all pick it up and give it a read. To encourage you to do so, I come bearing three things:

1) A guest blog from the author himself
2) My review of Legacy
3) An easy way to get the book for free!

First up, some words from Tom:

Comic Book Junkie

Hello, I'm Tom.

Hello Tom.

I'm Tom, and I'm a comic book junkie.

As long as I can remember, comic books . . . or superheroes have been a major part of my life.

Before I even got my hands on my first comic book, I had been exposed to television shows featuring strangely costumed heroes with amazing powers that helped save the world from evil.

These heroes inspired me. I can remember running around the house wearing a bath towel pinned around my neck, a large S or the symbol of a bat drawn crudely by my mom on the back of the towel. And this was all before I even knew the terms "superhero" or "comic book."

But it wouldn't be long before I did.

I think my first exposure to comic books, and the wonders found within their colorful pages came as a result of my brother winning a stack of them at some local street carnival. Between the pages of these wonderful books - these comic books - that he'd brought into the house I found things that made my eyes bug out, and to this day, still fill me with excitement.

Oh, how I pitied my friends who didn't understand the glory of The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Batman, or The Amazing Spider-man. If only they knew what they were missing. I tried to tell them . . . to show them, but that just helped to label me as that weird kid who liked the weird things.

Yep, that was me; the weird kid.

And I still am to this day.

So you can just imagine my absolute joy when finally given the chance to work in the comic book industry, getting the chance to write stories featuring characters that I had idolized since childhood. It's hokey as all get out, but it was a dream come true.

Which leads me to my latest novel, Legacy.

Legacy asks the question, what if the deadbeat father that you never knew, suddenly came into your life and so happened to be one of the worlds most powerful superheroes . . . and oh yeah, he wants you to carry on the family tradition because he's dying.

Legacy is me taking my fixation of comic book lore, my love of heroes and villains, of good vs. evil, and shades of grey, and mixing all these concepts and ideas that have filled my head since childhood into something nostalgically familiar, and yet different.

Think of Legacy as my attempt again to show people how cool superheroes can be. That weird kid again who likes the weird stuff is at it again.

And loving every minute of it.

-- Tom Sniegoski


Little Willow's Review

Legacy explores good and evil and that murky gray area in-between. At the age of 18, Lucas, a high school dropout learns that his estranged, dying father is a superhero - and expects his son to take up his mantle. Lucas is understandably reluctant to do so, not only because the world of superheroes (and villains) is so different from his own, but because he doesn't want to connect with his deadbeat dad. He's never been there for Lucas before -- why should Lucas be there for him now? Meanwhile, Lucas is content with his life as an auto mechanic, and while he's not lazy or ignorant, he doesn't really have any aspirations to do more or less than what he's already doing. These universal themes transcend the sci-fi aspect of the story and will pull in readers who like stories about family struggles and characters who feel lost after high school, while the superhero storyline will attract those after action and adventure, good guys versus bad guys, and climatic showdowns.

Tom Sniegoski always does a great job with reluctant heroes, especially those who are teenaged. There's a lot of shaky ground you have to navigate when you're stuck in that limbo period when you're not a kid any more but you don't feel like an adult yet. In Legacy, Sniegoski uses that to his advantage, contrasting Lucas' admittedly dead-end but comfortable life and lack of motivation with that of his father, an ailing billionaire who is secretly acting as a vigilante superhero known as the Raptor. If you enjoyed Sniegoski's previous books, especially The Fallen books, you should definitely check out Legacy.

Free Book Alert!

How would you react if you discovered your parent was a superhero? The first five people to leave their answers (with their email addresses and mailing addresses!) at this matching post at my blog, Bildungsroman, will get free copies of Legacy.

It's as simple as that - and that's way simpler than learning how to fly.