Book Review: Man of Steel by Greg Cox

Man of Steel: The Offi­cial Movie Nov­el­iza­tion by Greg Cox is exactly what it claims to be, a novel of the sum­mer block­buster. Mr. Cox has writ­ten other nov­el­iza­tion, includ­ing sev­eral in the super­hero genre.

On the doomed planet Kryp­ton a son is born to Jor-El and Lara-El, the boy, named Kal-El is the first Kryp­ton­ian nat­ural birth in cen­turies. Jor-El steals the genetic infor­ma­tion from which Krp­ton­ian babies are “made” of and sends it with his son shortly before the planet explodes. The only Kryp­to­ni­ans to sur­vive, besides Kal-El, are rene­gade sol­diers led by Gen­eral Zod who make it their mis­sion to find the infor­ma­tion Jor-El stole. Thirty-three years later, Clark Kent ( Kal-El) trav­els the world in search of his iden­tity, inten­si­fy­ing the myth of a sav­ing angel wher­ever he goes. In a truck stop he over­hears Cana­dian air­men talk about a UFO found in deep in the ice. Clark goes inves­ti­gat­ing, finds his roots but also sends out a mes­sage into space bring­ing the genet­i­cally engi­neered sol­diers to Earth.

When I saw Man of Steel: The Offi­cial Movie Nov­el­iza­tion by Greg Cox on sale I imme­di­ately grabbed it. I thought the movie was great and wouldn’t mind a quick read of the novel. The oppor­tu­nity to read this book came on Thanks­giv­ing week­end, when I didn’t want to read any­thing heavy or pro­found (and I got the Man of Steel DVD for Chanukah).

I thought the book was very good, a quick read and lots of fun. The book added onto the movie going into more details and into the char­ac­ter heads. For exam­ple, the story cov­ers more thor­oughly the genetic engi­neer­ing of Kryp­to­ni­ans which leads to the con­fronta­tion of Super­man with sol­diers who can feel no empa­thy or remorse.

I used to read many movie nov­el­iza­tions, mainly since I love films as well as books, but as we all know nov­el­iza­tions are some­times bor­ing, some­times sim­ply bad and mostly never bring any­thing new to the reader. For me, the nov­el­iza­tion helped enhance the movie and some of the aspects which I was unclear about (mainly due to the explosions).

Mr. Cox says that he wrote the book before see­ing the movie, read­ing how well he man­aged to cre­ate the fic­tional scenery and descrip­tions to match the movie is a tes­ta­ment to his skill as an author and observer.

The novel fol­lows the movie very closely, is fast paced and easy to read. If you’re look­ing for a fun and enter­tain­ing book, not too seri­ous and enjoy­able pick up this book.