So, I adore superhero stories; and particularly the dark or twisted variety.  I grew up reading kids comics but my world and my brain were flipped upside down when Jack Kirby made the “New Gods” comics.  And it happened again a couple years later when Chris Claremont took over the X-Men #94.  Suddenly, superheroes were flawed and had personalities; which weren’t always good.  So while plenty of writers have used that premise, I still find Walschots stories to be both darker and unique.

The Auditor, once known as Anna, is firmly ensconced in Leviathan’s organization but she’s not at all sure about her future there or her relationship with Leviathan.  Since his rescue and the incapacitation of Supercollider (Quantum Entanglement turned him inside out), he’s been very distant and uncommunicative; not even all his employees know he’s alive.  Auditor is desperate to get him to connect again both with her and with his organization but finding a way to reach him may be beyond her.  Gradually, she is able to make Leviathan understand her feelings and gradually they repair their relationship.

Both of them then have to deal with their post-mortem feelings once the news is out that Supercollider is actually dead.  Quantum’s responsibility for making the superhero a meatsack is known to the Draft (the popular term for the organization that makes, trains and markets superheroes) but not to the public; they are told that the villainous Leviathan killed him.  Actually, the Draft killed him with the medical procedures they tried to use to fix him.  So Quantum doesn’t even get recognized for her actions; no more than she had ever been properly recognized when she still worked with the superheroes.  Quantum is a sad, frustrated person and of intense interest for the Auditor; there might be some unrequited crushing going on.

With Supercollider finally gone, the Auditor is looking for ways to re-establish a plan to bring down the whole of the Draft.  She fixes on a trio of young up-and-coming superheroes and focuses all her considerable resources to finding ways to basically fuck them up.  This brings her into contact with the Draft’s Chief Marketing Officer who just may be her personal nemesis.  She’s not the only one who can imagine dire ways to mess someone else without actually killing them.  Unfortunately, her deepening relationship with Leviathan (yes, I mean sex) causes him to be rather more protective and even though the digs and embarrassments are no more than that to Auditor, Leviathan takes a longer view.  If just anyone is able to pull up old incidents to ridicule her, then she won’t be as feared which makes her more vulnerable.  His actions almost cause a major rift between them.  Of course, it might also have been him spying on her that cause her to turn to Quantum (now known as Decoherence) for help. Or it might have been her deciding to take a step beyond the low-key villainy she’d been doing and do something that would forever put her squarely in the Villain category.

In a final stereotypical confrontation, the Draft sends all their heroes to Leviathan’s lair; determined to raze it to the ground.  Since Leviathan didn’t make a habit of personally destroying anyone or anything, it appeared they still didn’t quite understand what he was capable of.  It didn’t go well for them.  But both Leviathan and the Auditor still desire to topple the Draft and not actually kill everyone; so instead, they show the surviving heroes what really happened to Supercollider which will, hopefully, shatter their faith in the Draft.  The trouble is, Auditor isn’t completely sure that Leviathan ever knew exactly what happened and now there’s no hiding it from him.

Leviathan was an interesting character and despite his presence needed to move the plot, he wasn’t a main character.  I was intrigued by Walschots’ efforts to make him inhuman in spite of the fact he was once an ordinary little boy.  He is a bundle of contradictions; both full of human emotions but also weirdly out of touch concerning emotions in others.

This book was five years in the making and the author confesses it was very hard to write.  I totally get that.  It was hard to read; and I mean that in a good way.  It went down roads I didn’t expect and it was actually painful to watch Auditor’s choices and be there for the consequences.  In the first book, she had a best friend, June, with whom she broke at the end of the book.  June had trouble reconciling the changes in her friend, Anna.  Throughout this book, Auditor mentions missing June but has come to the realization that they can never have that friendship again and that June is safer away from her.  Her personal interest, possibly a crush, in Quantum indicated to me that she was still craving a friend that wasn’t someone who worked for her – or worse, that she had to sacrifice.  The farther that Auditor got from being Anna, the closer she got to being a true villain – hence the title of the book, I’d bet.  Her almost desperate need for a close relationship with Leviathan seemed, to this reader, to be marked for a disaster.  It didn’t happen in this story and there’s no indication that the author intends there to be a third book. I suppose it could happen; they haven’t yet destroyed the Draft or made it so that superheroes are accountable for their actions. 

I find I don’t quite have the words to say whether I liked it or not.  I definitely respect it.  Most of it was unpleasant even while every step Auditor took was logical or necessary at the time.  Like I said…it was hard to read.  But that’s a damn sight better than mindless fluff and I’ll take this one every time.  ~~  Catherine Book

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