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WORK TITLE: Sacred Band
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://josephcarriker.com/
CITY: Portland
STATE: OR
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/josephdcarrikerjr * http://josephcarriker.com/about-joseph-carriker/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born April 24, 1974.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author and game developer for role-playing games, including World of Darkness, White Wolf/Onyx Path, Dungeons & Dragons 3rd ed., Wizards of the Coast, and Blue Rose and Mutants & Masterminds, Green Ronin.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Joseph D. Carriker, wrote the contributor of a short biography to the Smashwords web site, “is the developer for Green Ronin’s A Song of Ice and Fire roleplaying,” a gaming system set in the world of George R.R. Martin’s series of novels. In a career that has stretched over a decade and a half, Carriker has coauthored and tested gaming systems and supplements ranging from World of Darkness to the third edition of Dungeons and Dragons. He is also the author of the debut novel Sacred Band.
Sacred Band is the story of a young man on the verge of discovering his super talent. Rusty lives in a world in which certain random people have received super powers, but have been forced into hiding by fearful governments. Rusty “remembers his idol, Sentinel, saving lives and righting wrongs–until he was outed in an incredible scandal that forced him into isolation,” stated a reviewer for Wrote: Written on the Edge. “When a gay friend of Rusty living in the Czech Republic goes missing, Rusty is forced to acknowledge that … there are simply some places where the law doesn’t protect everyone–so he manages to find and recruit Sentinel to help him find his friend.” “Their quest for information takes them around the world,” stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “and they uncover a bizarre secret.” “The team of characters Rusty assembles–the Spanish Llorna with her sonic powers; Optic, the ex-military-turned-action-hero; Deosil; and Sentinel–come across as people,” declared a contributor to Joyfully Jay. “While not themselves as fully formed as the world they live in, they’re still complex and engaging characters, each with their own motives, flaws and personality. The combat scenes–of which there are many–are beautifully, almost cinematically written. I could easily visualize the action and no character ever seemed to become too powerful just for effect.” “At the end of the day, Sacred Band is totally about a group of costumed superheroes righting wrongs and beating up bad guys. But I also hope it’s about putting into context the lived experiences that some queer folk have, in a way that makes them accessible and maybe even enjoyable to read about,” said Chuck Wendig in Terribleminds. “In a lot of ways, Sacred Band is one author giving himself over to that old `write what you know’ wisdom-nugget, and seeing what comes out the other side of doing so. Hopefully the end result is enjoyable and memorable.”
Critics enjoyed Sacred Band both as a story about the reemergence of superheroes into a world that has rejected them and as a story about queer characters who happen to have super powers. “This novel’s effective, understated worldbuilding is a treat, and the action is tight and fast-paced,” declared a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “but it’s the characters that really make the story exceptional.” “It’s a queer story, about queer characters, and it doesn’t hesitate to be or balk at being exactly that, without apologies,” Carriker stated in an autobiographical blurb appearing on his home page, the Joseph D. Carriker Jr. Website. “Characters experience attractions that are same-sex, folks discuss the ways in which identity and orientation impact their experience, and we see some of … [their] problems.” “I completely enjoyed Sacred Band,” said Nathan Burgoine in Out in Print: Queer Book Reviews. “The level of queer on the page was on par with the superheroics, the powers at play were intriguing, and the world-stage upon which everything was set just added to the high stakes. It was gritty enough to make me worry for the characters, and a tangled enough knot of a mystery at its core to make me enjoy watching the heroes unravel the mess. Frankly, I’d love to read Sacred Band again, in graphic novel form.” “I cannot recommend enough this fabulous superhero novel,” wrote Eytan Bernstein in a review posted on his eponymous web site, Eytanbernstein.com. “Everyone with an interest in superhero and queer fiction owes it to themselves to pick up and devour Sacred Band.“
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2017, review of Sacred Band.
Publishers Weekly, February 6, 2017, review of Sacred Band, p. 51.
ONLINE
Eytanbernstein.com, https://eytanbernstein.com/ (September 12, 2017), Eytan Bernstein, review of Sacred Band.
Joseph D. Carriker Website, http://josephcarriker.com (November 1, 2017), author profile.
Joyfully Jay, http://joyfullyjay.com/ (April 20, 2017), review of Sacred Band.
Out in Print: Queer Book Reviews, https://outinprintblog.wordpress.com/ (July 31, 2017), Nathan Burgoine, review of Sacred Band.
Smashwords, https://www.smashwords.com/ (November 1, 2017), author profile.
Terribleminds, http://terribleminds.com/ (April 6, 2017), Chuck Wendig, “Joseph D. Carriker, Jr.: Five Things You Didn’t Know about Life as a Queer Superhero.”
Wrote: Written on the Edge, http://www.wrotepodcast.com/ (April 17, 2017), review of Sacred Band.
Joseph D. Carriker, Jr. is a name well-known in the roleplaying game community for his exquisite storytelling and devotion to ensuring that gamers have a rich world to explore. Now he turns his own talents to fiction and a novel that shows what it truly means to be heroic.
Joseph Carriker is the developer for Green Ronin’s A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, as well as the adjunct Chronicle System line of game supplements.
He has been writing in the gaming industry for sixteen years now, and has worked on a variety of game lines over those years, including most of White Wolf/Onyx Path’s World of Darkness, Exalted and Scion lines, Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition line, and Green Ronin’s Blue Rose and Mutants & Masterminds in addition to his work on A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying.
He is an outspoken queer gamer, having helped organize and take part in the annual Queer as a Three-Sided Die panels at GenCon. He has also just published his first novel, Sacred Band. Joseph lives in Portland, Oregon with his two partners A.J. and Chillos, and likes to believe he does his part in Keeping Port
Is Sacred Band a story for me?
11, 2015
oakthorne
Blog
0
Sacred Band
A good friend of mine recently asked me an interesting question. Knowing that my novel Sacred Band is about a team of queer superheroes, he was wondering if there was anything in the book “for him.”
To be brutally honest, I wasn’t entirely sure how to answer that.
I mean, on one hand, it’s a story about superheroes solving a problem no one else wants to and fighting bad guys along the way. I’m biased enough to think it’s an interesting story, with good characters, and a likeable enough plot that anyone who does like supers could pick it up and enjoy it.
But on the other hand? It’s a queer story, about queer characters, and it doesn’t hesitate to be or balk at being exactly that, without apologies. Characters experience attractions that are same-sex, folks discuss the ways in which identity and orientation impact their experience, and we see some of the problems that face a small team of queer supers determined to be heroes in a world that claims to protect everyone but often leaves “those types” out in the cold.
Thinking about it, there are certainly straight characters in the story, but none of them are major characters. Does that limit the reach of my story? Does it reduce the “accessibility” of my novel? It’s a distinct possibility.
But the way I see it is this: I’ve been reading fiction involving straight, cisgendered males for nigh on three decades now. And I’ve loved those stories, even though their growing-up stories were not mine, their stories of self-discovery were not mine, and their stories of love, romance, and relationships were not mine.
Maybe it’s naive to think that if I’m able to connect with stories that never reflected me in their pages, my story can connect with readers who do not find themselves in its pages.
Name: Joseph D. Carriker, Jr.
Gender: Male
Born: April 24, 1974 (Age: 43)
Joe's official contributions for White Wolf include the following:
Contents[show]
AuthorEdit
2012/June 5: CTL: Victorian Lost Bullet-pdf Bullet-nip
2007/August 16: CTL: Changeling: The Lost Rulebook Bullet-pdf Bullet-nip
2007/March 21: PTC: Saturnine Night (book) Bullet-pdf Bullet-nip
2007/February 7: PTC: Magnum Opus (book) Bullet-pdf Bullet-nip
2006/November 28: PTC: Strange Alchemies Bullet-pdf Bullet-nip
2006/November 1: PTC: Pandora's Book Bullet-pdf Bullet-nip
2006/August 10: PTC: Promethean: The Created Rulebook Bullet-pdf Bullet-nip
2006/March 20: Exalted: Exalted Second Edition Bullet-pdf Bullet-nip
Concept and Design Edit
2009/August 13: GTS: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Rulebook Bullet-pdf Bullet-nip
Contributor Edit
2012/May 3: VTR: The Resurrectionists Collection Bullet-pdf Bullet-nip
Developer Edit
2004/May 10: SL: Edge of Infinity: The Scarred Planes Bullet-pdf
Playtester Edit
2006/March 20: Exalted: Exalted Second Edition Bullet-pdf Bullet-nip
Joseph Carriker is the developer for Green Ronin’s A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, as well as the adjunct Chronicle System line of game supplements.
He has been writing in the gaming industry for sixteen years now, and has worked on a variety of game lines over those years, including most of White Wolf/Onyx Path’s World of Darkness, Exalted and Scion lines, Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition line, and Green Ronin’s Blue Rose and Mutants & Masterminds in addition to his work on A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying.
He is an outspoken queer gamer, having helped organize and take part in the annual Queer as a Three-Sided Die panels at GenCon. He has also just published his first novel, Sacred Band. Joseph lives in Portland, Oregon with his two partners A.J. and Chillos, and likes to believe he does his part in Keeping Portland Weird.
Carriker Jr., Joseph D.: SACRED BAND
(May 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Carriker Jr., Joseph D. SACRED BAND Lethe Press (Indie Fiction) $22.15 4, 7 ISBN: 978-1-59021-520-3
Carriker evokes comic-book action and disturbing current events in this debut novel.Rusty longs more than most for the heady early days of superheroes. When he was a child, a mysterious event called the Shift granted some people superpowers, and unaffected Rusty was fascinated by them. But as years went by, things changed. The new heroes were outlawed by a fearful public who deemed superpowers (and vigilante activities) to be a net detriment to society. But echoes of the Shift were still felt in the post-hero world; soon, Rusty's own superabilities appeared--the power to manipulate magnetic fields--but they seemed to cost him more than they gave him. Growing up gay and superpowered in north Texas, Rusty faced bigotry, but he was mostly happy, and even now, he still believes in heroes. So when a friend named Kosma--whom he was just starting to get to know online--disappears in Odessa, Ukraine, Rusty can't let it lie. He also tracks down his idol, the hero known as Sentinel, to help him in his search. It feels like an unlikely partnership, at times, but people who fall through the cracks need heroes to band together to pull them out. This novel's effective, understated worldbuilding is a treat, and the action is tight and fast-paced, but it's the characters that really make the story exceptional. Rusty's bright, colorful disposition is a welcome change from the grim, brooding countenances that often dominate modern superhero tales. That optimism makes the story's harsher realities even more affecting. Readers also get to know a diverse ensemble cast, such as Rusty's best friend, Deosil, including their hopes and fears. The alchemy between the characters' chemistry, the story's action, and the world's pressing--and sometimes painful--similarities to our own make the book nearly impossible to put down.An engaging story that punches, kicks, and takes flight, just like its heroes.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Carriker Jr., Joseph D.: SACRED BAND." Kirkus Reviews, 15 May 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA491934094&it=r&asid=4bca6fd2f6fb6cc09548608d44ef3474. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A491934094
Sacred Band
264.6 (Feb. 6, 2017): p51.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
* Sacred Band
Joseph D. Carriker Jr. Lethe, $22.50 trade paper (408p) ISBN 978-1-59021-520-3
In this thoughtful take on comic book tropes, queerness and superpowers intersect. Game designer Carriker (Mutants & Masterminds) depicts the rise of a loose-knit team dedicated to helping those who fall between the cracks. After an online friend vanishes in Ukraine, magnetic hero Gauss recruits the retired legend Sentinel to help investigate. When they run into more trouble than they can handle, they call for backup, including the elemental Deosil and the former military operative Optic. Their quest for information takes them around the world, and they uncover a bizarre secret linked to one of the world's greatest heroes. The meat of this story and the worldbuilding look like standard superhero fare at first glance, but Carriker spices it up with the intelligent use of powers, keen descriptions of combat, and a diverse cast. The majority of Carriker's main characters are gay--there's a lovely chemistry between the world-weary Sentinel and the younger Gauss--and he also touches upon trans and bisexual concerns without it feeling forced or preachy. Everything comes together to create a real page-turning adventure in a setting that begs for further exploration. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Sacred Band." Publishers Weekly, 6 Feb. 2017, p. 51. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480593850&it=r&asid=0dacc6b2228bd3074c51ed5f1c959d4a. Accessed 8 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A480593850
Chuck Wendig is a novelist, screenwriter, and game designer. This is his blog. He talks a lot about writing. And food. And pop culture. And his kid. He uses lots of naughty language. NSFW. Probably NSFL. Be advised.
Chuck is the author of the published novels: Blackbirds, Mockingbird, Under the Empyrean Sky, Blue Blazes, Double Dead, Bait Dog, Dinocalypse Now, Beyond Dinocalypse and Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits. He also the author of the soon-to-be-published novels: The Cormorant, Blightborn (Heartland Book #2), Heartland Book #3, Dinocalypse Forever, Frack You, and The Hellsblood Bride. Also coming soon is his compilation book of writing advice from this very blog: The Kick-Ass Writer, coming from Writers Digest.
He, along with writing partner Lance Weiler, is an alum of the Sundance Film Festival Screenwriter’s Lab (2010). Their short film, Pandemic, showed at the Sundance Film Festival 2011, and their feature film HiM is in development with producers Ted Hope and Anne Carey. Together they co-wrote the digital transmedia drama Collapsus, which was nominated for an International Digital Emmy and a Games 4 Change award.
Chuck has contributed over two million words to the game industry, and was the developer of the popular Hunter: The Vigil game line (White Wolf Game Studios / CCP). He was a frequent contributor to The Escapist, writing about games and pop culture.
Much of his writing advice has been collected in various writing- and storytelling-related e-books.
He currently lives in the forests of Pennsyltucky with wife, two dogs, and tiny human.
He is likely drunk and untrustworthy. This blog is NSFW and probably NSFL.
You may reach him at terribleminds [at] gmail [dot] com.
Joseph D. Carriker, Jr.: Five Things You Didn’t Know About Life as a Queer Superhero
”In this thoughtful take on comic book tropes, queerness and superpowers intersect…. Everything comes together to create a real page-turning adventure in a setting that begs for further exploration.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
”Before you know it, Sacred Band builds a new reality around you – rich, detailed, with a seductive, immersive vernacular, it crosses the globe with confident, queer themes in a world of new media, new magic, and new metahumans.” — Steve Orlando, author of Midnighter, Justice League America
The golden age of heroes is decades past. The government could not condone vigilantism and now metahumans are just citizens, albeit citizens with incredible talent, who are assisted in achieving normal lives (including finding good fits for their talents employment-wise) by a federal agency. Rusty may have been a kid during that glorious age but he remembers his idol, Sentinel, saving lives and righting wrongs until he was outed in an incredible scandal that forced him into isolation. When a gay friend of Rusty living in the Ukraine goes missing, Rusty is forced to acknowledge that while the world’s governments claim that super teams are outdated and replaced by legal law enforcement, there are simply some places where the law doesn t protect everyone–so he manages to find and recruit Sentinel to help him find his friend. But the disappearance of the friend is merely one move in a terrible plot against queer youth. A team of supers may be old-fashioned, but this may be a battle requiring some incredible reinforcements.
Your Queerness is Magnified in the Public Eye
A super powered individual who happens to be queer will seemingly always have that queerness integrated into public opinion about who they are. When Sentinel — the flying, super strong leader of the Champions during the age of superheroes a couple of decades ago — was outed against his will, every narrative the media focused on from that point included the fact that he was gay. From very conservative talk pieces asking if he was truly a fit role model for American youth to liberal political groups who simply assumed that he was now a default part of their political activism, Sentinel was given no choice in his narrative from that point on.
Your Queerness Works Against You Sometimes
Though this particular point is something that nearly all queer people understand and have experienced to one degree or another, its effects are very pronounced with super powered individuals. In the wake of the international scandal involving Sentinel, Llorona feared that her queerness would only alienate her in her work. As such, she subsumed her personal identity into her efforts, becoming one of the best-known and most active members of the Golden Cross, an international relief organization that mobilizes super powered volunteers to deal with natural and wartime disaster mitigation and engages in missions of mercy, some of which take place where it is illegal or even dangerous to be openly queer. Of course, the grief attached to that past and to her super powered origins make that all the easier — there are some things that she wants to forget, and if philanthropic work helps her do that, then that’s what she’s thrown herself into.
Others Take Your Queerness as Permission to Intrude
The details of a queer super powered person’s private life become inexorably attached to their deeds. It doesn’t matter that Deosil is a very respected pagan blogger and public speaker, with a unique view about how her elemental powers fit into her spirituality and esoteric practices. An interview with her is all too often taken as carte blanche to ask about her private medical history as a trans woman and even the name she was assigned at birth, even by very well-meaning interviewers. The fact that none of these have anything to do with her calling — or with her later super heroics — is moot. Her personal queerness seems to always be taken for granted as an open topic because of her presence in the public sphere.
Your Queerness Can “Sully” Your Superheroics
Just as with celebrities, public super powered individuals’ youthful indiscretions are fodder for consumption and gossip. As a new adult, Gauss may have made some decisions he now regrets, but unlike so many others who’ve dabbled in adult entertainment, there is no way anyone is going to let him forget about that particular blue movie he made. After all, he was the first super powered individual to star in one! As a result, he knows that as far as the public is concerned, he’ll always have that one performance lurking in his background, despite what feats of heroism he may also perform.
Your Queer Activism Overwhelms Your Identity Sometimes
A super powered individual who does choose to engage in political discourse of some kind may find that work overwhelms who they are. When the action film star Optic was drummed out of the military’s Project: Seraph at the revelation of his queerness, he took up the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in the American military as his cause célèbre. And though he got to see success while acting as the poster boy for that effort — and even managed to leverage that public regard into a career in film — that activism has led to a lot of assumptions about the realities of his sexuality and identity, ones that he’s not even entirely sure how to manage.
At the end of the day, Sacred Band is totally about a group of costumed superheroes righting wrongs and beating up bad guys. But I also hope it’s about putting into context the lived experiences that some queer folk have, in a way that makes them accessible and maybe even enjoyable to read about. In a lot of ways, Sacred Band is one author giving himself over to that old “write what you know” wisdom-nugget, and seeing what comes out the other side of doing so. Hopefully the end result is enjoyable and memorable, and also true, in its own fashion.
(I am also willing to admit that though I did not set out to write a book that would allow me to use the hashtag #superqueeroes from the start, I take no shame in admitting a great deal of pleasure doing so ever since.)
* * *
Joseph Carriker is the developer for Green Ronin’s A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, as well as the adjunct Chronicle System line of game supplements.
He has been writing in the gaming industry for sixteen years now, and has worked on a variety of game lines over those years, including most of White Wolf/Onyx Path’s World of Darkness, Exalted and Scion lines, Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition line, and Green Ronin’s Blue Rose and Mutants & Masterminds in addition to his work on A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying.
He is an outspoken queer gamer, having helped organize and take part in the annual Queer as a Three-Sided Die panels at GenCon. He has also just published his first novel, Sacred Band. Joseph lives in Portland, Oregon with his two partners A.J. and Chillos, and likes to believe he does his part in Keeping Portland Weird.
Joseph D. Carriker, Jr.: Website
Sacred Band: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N
Review: Sacred Band by Joseph D. Carriker Jr.
Apr
20
2017
3 Comments
SacredBandRating: 5 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Rusty is a young man attending school in Portland and studying architecture. But there’s something a little different about Rusty. He’s not just an ordinary gay redhead, he’s also an Echo.
Years ago, an event occurred that created the first super powered humans. Ripples from that event called “echoes” spread out across the world and occasionally sparked a reaction in certain humans and either granted or awoke lesser powers of their own. These people aren’t as gifted or as strong as the first super heroes — called Originals, as they were the original powers — and their world isn’t as innocent or unprepared for them as it was forty years ago. Now the DTPA — the Department of Transformed Persons Affairs — is in charge of America’s super powered people, studying them, testing them, and protecting them from the rest of society.
Rusty more or less follows the rules: checking in when he should, attending the summer camps, keeping his powers hidden and not drawing overmuch attention to himself. But when Kosma, the Ukrainian architecture student he’s been flirting with online, vanishes without a trace, Rusty has to do something more than just sit and wait.
It’s not just Kosma, either. Gay, lesbian and transgender teens; homeless people; sex-workers;, and indigent people are vanishing all over the world and no one is looking for them. Frustrated and frightened for his friend, Rusty decides to do something about it. He goes looking for one of the Originals, a gay Original called Sentinel, to ask for his help.
In the late 1970s, Sentinel and his partner Radiant were the heart of the Champions, the first super hero team that, after the event, saved lives, averted disasters man-made and natural, and changed the world. But when Radiant was killed by fellow super Mata Hari, Sentinel came out of the closet, revealing his relationship with Radiant … and retired. The resulting scandal caused the Champions to break up and the government to step in. Echoes and Originals were registered, government agencies were created to deal with them, and super hero teams were no longer allowed or encouraged. If they wished to save lives, they could do so through normal means: become a doctor, a police officer, or join the army. No more heroics, no more attention, no more Champions.
Rusty has to find a way to convince Sentinel to come out of retirement to help save the people no one cares about, to rescue the people society has thrown away. But even as he’s pleading his case with the retired Original, Rusty finds himself fighting his own attraction to the man. Sentinel lost the love of his life, Radiant, and is determined to remain faithful to his memory. But even the deepest of wounds eventually start to heal.
First, let me say, I truly enjoyed this book. The depth and complexity of the world building is absolutely amazing. The mythology behind the creation of super powered humans is rich and unique. The research is meticulous and the action scenes are beautifully written. I would not believe this was the author’s debut book, considering how well-written it is.
Rusty is an engaging character, slightly shallow in the way many young men are. He’s rash, impulsive, and warm-hearted. Sentinel — or Mitch, as he prefers to be called, now — is a man still grieving for his lost love and yet, as lost as he is in his own grief, he can’t stop being a good person. Neither man is a stereotype, and neither are defined by their powers.
Speaking of powers, the super hero system the author created is amazing. Rusty has power over metal, but he’s nothing like Magneto. The way he uses his powers are inventive and logical and fun! With little more than the metal in his shoes, he manages to skate along train tracks like a maglev train. Deosil (Jesh-il), his best friend, is also an Echo. An elemental wiccan, her powers over fire, earth, air, and water are creative and — though it seems silly to use this word in a super hero story — realistic.
The team of characters Rusty assembles — the Spanish Llorna with her sonic powers; Optic, the ex-military-turned-action-hero; Deosil; and Sentinel — come across as people. While not, themselves as fully formed as the world they live in, they’re still complex and engaging characters, each with their own motives, flaws and personality.
The combat scenes — of which there are many — are beautifully, almost cinematically written. I could easily visualize the action and no character ever seemed to become too powerful just for effect. Even the other Echoes, Originals, and Empowered were interesting and had more motive than being just a stereotypical villain.
I wish there had been a bit more time devoted to the team building and maybe one or two fewer action scenes, but it’s a small quibble and goes to show you how good the book is. I read this book in one go and when it ended, I quickly went to see if there was a sequel. Unfortunately, there isn’t yet, though this is the first in a series and I hope the author has plans to revisit his world sometime soon.
Review of Sacred Band by Joseph D. Carriker Jr.
April 17, 2017ReviewApril release, featured guest, Jayne Lockwood book review, Joseph D. Carriker, Lethe Press, new novel, politics, power play, Sacred Band, superhero genreJayne Lockwood
I have been gifted an Advanced Reading Copy of Sacred Band in exchange for an honest review. Sacred Band is to be published by Lethe Press in April 2017.
The author is an experienced gamer, which definitely comes through in the book. There’s quite a lot to take in. For starters, at least four of the main characters had two different names. For a non-gamer, this has the potential for confusion, but for any hardened D&D, ComicCon or Marvel fans, this is familiar territory.
Once I had figured out who was who, and had learned their superhero names, it was much easier. And it made total sense. After all, when your superpower is being able to create lethal metal ballbearings and use them as bullets, then “Rusty” probably isn’t the first name you’d choose.
The author has brought the “supers trying to save the world’ theme bang up-to-date, starting with the disappearance of one of Rusty’s gay friends from the internet. Rusty suspects he has been kidnapped, along with others. There were obvious nods to the horrific problems LGBT people are suffering in Russia and other closeted countries, and he soon realises that the problem is far deeper, and far more world-threatening than he could have imagined. It’s a problem that needs extraordinary people to tackle it, and the government just aren’t up-to-scratch. He then has to pull together a super-team, and deal with all the issues those characters bring to the table. There are politics at play, some with familiar overtones, and complex diplomatic delicacies worthy of The West Wing. It gives the superhero genre a grown-up, satirical edge that makes it stand out.
Chock-full of superhero shenanigans
As I said before, I’m a non-gamer, so I thought that at times, all the mini-conflicts got in the way of central story. I had to pick through them to find the core of the book. Sometimes, it read a little busy and IMO the editing could have been tightened up in places, yet I liked the characters immensely, my favourite being Deosil (I just want that girl in my life right now!) I did get the sense that they were family, rather than friends, and Sentinel, the super who was exiled after the scandal that outed him, was more of a father figure than a love interest for Rusty. The sexual tension between them wasn’t convincing at first, but I kind of got it as the story went on. Personally, I would have matched Sentinel and Optic, but there you go.
I felt that the author was far more comfortable when choreographing the fight scenes, as they were fantastically drawn, and the political power play, than with the personal relationships, which seemed awkward in places. Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and it grew on me as it went on. At a generous 400 or so pages, Sacred Band is chock-full of superhero shenanigans to delight the most hardened of fantasy readers.
BLURB
The golden age of heroes is decades past. The government could not condone vigilantism and now metahumans are just citizens, albeit citizens with incredible talent, who are assisted in achieving normal lives (including finding good fits for their talents employment-wise) by a federal agency.
Rusty may have been a kid during that glorious age but he remembers his idol, Sentinel, saving lives and righting wrongs — until he was outed in an incredible scandal that forced him into isolation. When a gay friend of Rusty living in the Czech Republic goes missing, Rusty is forced to acknowledge that while the world’s governments claim that super teams are outdated and replaced by legal law enforcement, there are simply some places where the law doesn’t protect everyone — so he manages to find and recruit Sentinel to help him find his friend. But the disappearance of the friend is merely one move in a terrible plot against queer youth. A team of supers may be old-fashioned, but this may be a battle requiring some incredible reinforcements.
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July 31, 2017 · 6:15 am
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Sacred Band – Joseph D. Carriker, Jr. (Lethe Press)
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It’s possible anyone who’s met me for more than, say, a few hours will hear me wax poetic about the X-Men of my youth. When I was a kid, they were a much needed allegory to my own existence. Think about it: the mutants were people born different, but to normal families, and hated and feared for their difference by the world around them.
This isn’t hard to translate for a queer kid, especially one who knows things weren’t going to go well if anyone found out.
The difference, of course, is that the X-Men also had fantastic powers, which they used to try and prove to the world they weren’t a threat, and smacked down villainy wherever they found it—especially among their own kind.
So, years later, when here and there the various comic books did finally deliver a few queer characters, I was so on board. Finally, there wasn’t just an allegory, there were actual queer superheroes for me to enjoy.
Well, now and then.
Okay, maybe, like, two or three?
Sometimes, they even lived.
Yeah, mostly it was a frustrating wait with very little payoff. When I found Hero, by Perry Moore, I was over the moon. A superhero story with a main, queer, protagonist? Yes. Sign me up. From there? Steven Bereznai’s Queeroes was waiting for me.
Both were like reading back-in-time, where my young queer self could enjoy young adults who were not just queer, but powerful in a literal sense. I loved it.
Sacred Band does on a grand scale what books like Hero and Queeroes began. For one thing, the characters are older, and the ensemble cast lives in a world affected by superpowers, rather than more singular, smaller groups or locations. The sense of the contemporary world—with all it’s ugly politics—is much more centre-stage, and it brings with it conflicts unique to Sacred Band that I quite enjoyed: when the heroes attempt to find some missing gay men in the Ukraine, it becomes an international incident between varying government agencies involved in the tracking and policing of individuals with powers.
That sense of “big picture” comes pretty early on in the book, as the reader is nudged from place to place through the eyes of a few characters. At first, I found myself making a couple of notes to myself for the purpose of this review. The difference between, for example, an Original vs. an Echo vs. an Empowered (all of whom have powers) was a lot of information thrust into the hands of the reader to begin with, and if I do have one criticism—and it’s a very light one and by no means derailed my enjoyment of this book—it was that it could have been left for later. By the time you meet an Empowered and an Original, you’ve already been with two Echoes, and the story has naturally explained them. That first initial info dump wasn’t needed, and served only to make me wonder if I’d need to keep track right away, which wasn’t the case.
Beyond that, however? Everything about Sacred Band was a wonderful ride. There are so many parallels to the silver and bronze ages of comics that I found myself smiling on more than one occasion. The golden era of the Originals is gone, and the heroes that have come since have seen that first wave of powerful heroes falter in different ways, leaving the American youth of today in the position of having to ally with an organization that seems more intent on keeping them from being particularly special—or at the very least, controlled and useful.
The three voices that carry you through most of the tale are distinct and enjoyable. Gauss, a young architecture student with a gift of magnetism and a past with more than a few judgement call mistakes, is a great lens through which to learn about most of the world. He’s young enough to know what freedoms he has (and doesn’t quite have) in the US, and seeing atrocities go unpunished in the Ukraine would likely have him upset enough even without it involving an internet friend.
Then there’s Deosil, a trans woman with an almost pagan gift with the natural elements, who speaks at pagan retreats and considers her gifts something akin to magic, who is far more street-smart and aware than Gauss, and a good friend of his who knows far more of his motivations than he himself seems to be aware. She and Gauss are of an age, and have similar status as individuals who were just average folk before they were accidentally given abilities by the random echoing event that forms superpowered beings around the world. I really enjoyed her character, and in as much as I can be a judge, I think her representation was solid.
The third main voice of the book was Sentinel, one of the Originals who was the first couple of dozen people to gain powers in the original event that ever spawned abilities. Formerly closeted back in the day, he’s in his sixties (but through having Originals power, he ages very slowly, has a perfect bod, and is basically a wall of attractiveness and muscle). Super-strong through the use of a kind of short-range Telekinesis, he can fly, and previous to the events in the book had all but removed himself from society after the very public response to the death of his fellow Superhero partner, which also outed him to the world and ended the first (and only) team-up of superheroes to this day.
Brought out of retirement by Gauss, Sentinel has to face his own past, as well as coming to grips with many of the realities he’s chosen to simply avoid.
And when one of those realities involves a group of super-powered beings who seem perfectly content to “vanish” young queer kids in the Ukraine?
That’s where things take off.
In case I haven’t made it clear: I completely enjoyed Sacred Band. The level of queer on the page was on par with the superheroics, the powers at play were intriguing, and the world-stage upon which everything was set just added to the high stakes. It was gritty enough to make me worry for the characters, and a tangled enough knot of a mystery at its core to make me enjoy watching the heroes unravel the mess.
Frankly, I’d love to read Sacred Band again, in graphic novel form.
Reviewed by ‘Nathan Burgoine
Review of Sacred Band by Joseph D. Carriker Jr.
Posted on September 12, 2017 by Eytan Bernstein
I cannot recommend enough this fabulous superhero novel by friend and colleague Joseph D. Carriker Jr., a force in the gaming world. Everyone with an interest in superhero and queer fiction owes it to themselves to pick up and devour Sacred Band immediately. This is an expanded version of my review on Amazon.
Sacred Band follows the journey of Rusty, a young super who discovers that an online friend of his from the Ukraine has gone missing. Rusty must team with idols, friends, and former lovers to learn what happened, and in the process, exposes hypocrisy and truth.
The novel is a revelation in queer fiction. Joe has been writing wonderful games for many years and now we are all very fortunate that he has lent his voice to fiction. There is not nearly enough fiction with strong queer characters on the market today, especially in the area of speculative fiction. While there is a great deal available in the MM romance market, and that has its place, we need more fiction written by queer writers about queers characters, but where romance is not the sole focus.
This book delivers a story that is timely, entertaining, emotional, funny, and well written. Joe is on the front lines of the queer gaming and geek communities, fighting the good fight for representation and diversity, and his efforts are on display in full force here. He has a sense of what we want to read and what is at the heart of our struggles and delivers those things on the page. I can’t wait to see future installments (crosses fingers) in the world of Sacred Band and look forward to Joe’s other fiction endeavors.