I saw this available for review after attending a reading by the author (this was in the pre-pandemic times, of course). The reading was amusing and intriguing, so I thought I'd give the novel a try. It's quite fun - not my favourite fantasy/sci-fi romp (despite the excellent title).

If you're looking for something a little different, then give this a try. It's like a lighter Wild Cards, maybe?

Superheroes have become super-popular. Yes, they’ve long dominated comic books, but now they are frequently at the movie theater and on TV. Strangely, superheroes, at least those with costumes and codename, are less prevalent in novels. One exception is Wildcards, the shared world series edited by George RR Martin, although one can argue that has long since transcended its superhero origins. All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault attempts to capture the fun of superheroes in prose form by creating a world in which monsters known as Darklings (vampires, werewolves, other dark creatures) fight
superheroes called Sparks.

The book takes a while to get going as it needs to cover the backstory. Elders of the Dark realize they can make money by selling mystical power and extended youth to billionaires. As a result, the superrich all become Darklings while still retaining their economic and political power. “When CEOs become vampires, Congress outlaws stakes.” This imbalance causes the Light to create Sparks, accidental superheroes, and Mad Geniuses like the Inventor. There’s a fun scene of the first resistance to the Dark when thinly veiled versions of Lex Luthor and Clark Kent confront a werewolf and vampire out for Alex’s blood. “In all the infinite versions of Earth, the farm boy with the cape must show up first.”

The book is focused on three roommates at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Kim, the main character used to call herself Kimmi when in high school. Just four foot ten, she is an academic achiever who reinvented herself as the androgynous Kim when she entered college after a bad breakup with a wealthy boy who became a Darkling, Nicholas Vandermeer. One night, Kim and her roommates -- Miranda, Shar, and Jools – are caught in a scientific experiment gone wrong that gives them super powers. Kim becomes Zircon with super-senses and the ability to shrink. Miranda gains sonic powers as Aria. Shar has light powers as Dakini, and Jools follows a hockey theme as Ninety-Nine with peak human skills and knowledge. As they are told, the powers work as long as they are not questioned too much. “The way you beat the friction is plausible deniability… The moment you say a thing’s impossible, it becomes impossible for you.” And costumes, codenames, and masks create the superpower of anonymization, although one character does figure out a constumed character’s secret identity. <So Lois Lane still has no excuse.>

Instead of saving ordinary citizens from evil Darklings, the roommates find themselves trying to save Darklings from a Mad Genius’ attempts to give superpowers to Darklings that winds up overloading them.

Much of All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault falls into the same trap as many superhero movies in focusing so much on the origin story (and in this case the extensive background) that the actual story suffers. But this still kept my interest. There is very strong characterization, especially for Kim and for Jools. If you like superheroes but think you have outgrown DC and Marvel comics as kid’s stuff, give this book a try.

Tonight, or if that doesn’t work out probably this weekend, I’ll be off to see the latest in a series of superhero movies, one that has been highly anticipated and relentlessly hyped for months. In a couple of weeks, the previous iteration of that series of superhero movies will be released on home video. Then, a little while after that, another superhero movie will be released in the theatres, one that isn’t part of the same series, but sort of related to another movie series that would have been part of the first series if the rights weren’t currently held by different movie studios.

You can probably figure out which movies I’m referring to. But I could have written the above paragraph a few months ago, or a few months from now, and I’m not sure I would have to change a word, because superhero movies are coming out all the time. (It’s not just movies: I’m leaving out all the different superhero TV series.) We’re in the midst of Peak Superhero, and it does not seem to be on the verge of exhausting itself any time soon.

Given this superhero-saturated environment, it’s difficult to take stock of a novel like James Alan Gardner’s All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault (Tor, November 2017). A book that won me over with its title alone, before I knew anything about its contents. It’s a novel about four roommates at the University of Waterloo—one of my almæ matres: I got my M.A. there—who unexpectedly get superpowers and have to figure out what to do with them. It’s a tremendously enjoyable read: let’s get that out of the way first. But in the context of Peak Superhero, a fun novel playing with superhero tropes wouldn’t be enough to rise above the crowd. Comic books are already capable of producing their own meta-narratives, thank you very much.

Fortunately it does something rather more than that: it’s a book that addresses a major contradiction in the various comic book universes: the intersection of “science” (the scare quotes are necessary) and magic-based power systems.

What I mean is that existing comic book universes are an uneasy mix of “science-y” explanations for superpowers and the mystical and magical. Superman is an alien; the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man were exposed to radiation; the X-Men are mutants: the science is ridiculous and implausible, but the origin of their superhuman abilities is vaguely science-ish: it came from a lab, or from outer space. Now compare that to Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider or Thor, whose magical or godlike powers are inconsistent with the rest of the legendarium: this wasn’t a problem when they were all sequestered in their various comic book series, but when you try to assemble them under one roof—when you assemble Avengers—things get … messy. Hand-wavy. Thor becomes an alien, his powers simply extremely high tech. Doctor Strange is basically running computer programs.

With All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault, Gardner addresses this inconsistency by positing a conflict not between good and evil, but between the magic-based Darklings—an elite caste of vampires and other undead monsters—and the superhero (and mad scientist) based Sparks, whose powers aren’t quite based on science, but on science-adjacent wish-fulfillment. Physics based on drama and spectacle, as though the TV Tropes wiki had the force of the Rubber Bible. It’s a bit like the Narrative in John Scalzi’s Redshirts. Gardner calls the Dark and the Light “non-overlapping magisteria”: your powers belong to one side or the other, and they’re mutually exclusive. Or at least they’re supposed to be: as the four young UW students discover, their powers are an accidental side-effect of a diabolical plot (naturally) to break that rule.

The viewpoint character, Kim, a nonbinary Asian-Canadian university student who has had a past romantic history with Darklings, shares a townhouse with three other science students, Miranda, Shar and Jools. When the four of them stick their noses into Darkling activity on campus, they’re caught up in an incident that leaves each of them with an assortment of superpowers that reflect their personalities, and quickly throws them into an investigation of some serious things going on. They don’t get much of a chance to breathe, much less figure out their powers or choose their superhero names and costumes (which for Sparks is more important than you might think), before they’re called to the next incident, and the incident after that. The explosions, they are many; the book’s title, it is earned.

So yes, All Those Explosions is absolutely entertaining: light, funny and readable, the kind of crossover book that young readers and adults can both enjoy, especially if they’ve been steeping in a superhero brew for decades. (But then again, who hasn’t, and where is the rock they’ve been living under?) But it’s also more interesting than you might expect. Gardner has done the work in this book. He’s put a lot of thought into how the existence of Dark and Light would mess around with our world—particularly in terms of Darklings and their stranglehold, so to speak, on power and privilege—and his characters are as aware of the inherent absurdities of a superhero/vampire universe as they can be without breaking the fourth wall. And with Kim he’s created a distinctive and engaging voice that draws us through the book (though at some cost to the voices of Kim’s teammates). I’m not sure I’m well positioned to evaluated how well he pulled that (or going with a nonbinary/female superhero team) off, but points for doing it all the same.

There’s going to be a sequel: They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded is scheduled to come out from Tor in November 2018.

Brilliant and laugh out loud funny I love the strong female and non gender binary protagonists, the cheeky banter and wicked humor. I couldn't stop reading this book from the moment I started reading it I was hooked.

This book is a mashup of superheroes and monsters in a battle of good versus evil.

In Gardner’s novel, the world has become aware of the existence of Darklings, which are basically anything that might go bump in the night—vampires, werewolves, demons, etc. The humans who become Darklings are the crème de la crème; they are the rich and powerful who control businesses and governments. Because the universe prefers balance, Sparks—humans who transform into superheroes (and, occasionally, supervillains)—are also brought into existence to counter the power of the Darklings.

All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault is the story of four Canadian college students who become Sparks after they are exposed to a device created by a Mad Genius supervillain. The narrator is Kim, a genderqueer geology student who becomes Zircon (not zirconium, thank you very much, that’s different) with powers that include supervision, shrinking, and mineral-hard skin. The four newly transformed superheroes have to learn to use their powers to defeat both Darklings (who want to use the device for their own purposes) and the Mad Genius villain.

Gardner has an interesting writing style. I’ve read other books by him, and he always writes with the narrator’s emotions at a slight remove. Not that they don’t have emotions, but he doesn’t dwell on them, preferring to focus more on the action. However, the action here gets interrupted frequently by the narrator thinking about or explaining what is happening. For example, the first major fight scene includes a description of the effect of tranquilizer guns on humans, the relationship between mass and air resistance, and the anatomy of the Eustachian tube in the ear. It creates a choppy effect in the narration, which is heightened by the author’s choice to break each chapter up into segments headed by a bolded title statement. (Check out a sample of the book to see what I mean.)

If the style of narration works for you, what you get in this book is a unique take on superheroes and monsters. I enjoyed exploring Gardner’s world and learning how it works. The story is often funny, with some pretty funny lines and events played to comic effect. However, there are some more serious moments, too, because of dark events in Kim’s past. Kim also spends some time trying to figure out who Kim really is and wants to be as a person, not just a superhero, which also lends itself to a more serious tone.

Overall, though, this is a relatively light fantasy. If you enjoy superhero stories, you should definitely give this book a try. The next book in the series is narrated by Jools, whose superpower involves being the “human-max” in every possible way—strength, speed, intelligence, etc. Name a skill, and she can do it, and do it well. She’s the source of some of the funnier moments in the book, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Gardner does with her character.

A copy of this novel was provided by the publisher through NetGalley for review; all opinions expressed are my own.

"In a world with magic and superpowers, reality gets hard to pin down." Ain't that the truth. In the alternative earth the is the setting for James Alan Gardner's All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault, the world of magic and vampires coexists with the world of superheroes. They are the Light and the Dark, the Sparks and the Darklings. Magical powers are there for the buying, so the wealthy and powerful have all become Darklings. But a few people with superpowers provide a bit of balance in this crazy world.


When four friends get caught up in an explosion at their university lab, they obtain superpowers and quickly get called on to use them to fight Darklings and villains. The four friends take on superhero personas and gradually become accustomed to their new skills, learning to work together as they fight and hunt down the bad guys.


All Those Explosions is aptly named, as the young ladies frequently tend to be around big explosions. Gardner does actually develop the characters a bit, and he does string together a somewhat feasible plot, but mostly the book is about superheroes figuring out how to use their powers, using their powers to fight bad guys, and dealing with the explosive results. True to the comic books that inspired Gardner, he writes about lots of fighting and explosions.


The mix of Light and Dark, and the Sparks' occasional use of magic, sets All Those Explosions apart from other superhero stories, as does telling the story from the perspective of the college girls. It has a definite feminine/YA feel to it. Gardner keeps it light, injecting the story with plenty of humor. It's a fun read, like a comic book without pictures, but not a book that leaves me itching to pick up the sequel.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Both monsters and superheroes are real. Sparks are the superheroes (the term superhero has already been trademarked) with costumes and awesome super-powers that don't really make a whole lot of sense if you think too hard about them, and they fight for truth and justice - mostly. Darklings are creatures of magic and they warp reality with their presence - doors creak and cobwebs gather. They are creatures you might know as vampires, demons, weres, ghosts, and more. Kim Lam was a regular college student until a freak accident turned her and three friends into Sparks - forcing them into the unending battle between the Light and the Dark - but first they're going to have to master their new powers and come up with cool hero names and costumes. Turns out, though, that the "accident" was the first act in a Mad Genius's latest scheme and now these four newbie superheroes have to save the day - and they haven't even picked their team name yet.

As soon as I heard about this new release from James Alan Gardner, I knew I had to try it - I mean, superheroes and monsters? Yes, please! I have never read a book with a combination quite like this before, but it sounded perfect since I love superhero movies and can't get enough urban fantasy. Luckily, All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault lived up to most of my expectations. I loved watching Kim and her friends figure out their newfound powers and all the bells and whistles. It's so much fun exploring a world in which both superheroes (or should I say Sparks) and monsters exist together. The world-building in this is outstanding and we're thrown right into the mix. The science (80%) and magic (20%) system that controls the world and defines powers and abilities for both Light and Dark creatures. Even though we're dealing with so many sci-fi and fantasy elements mixed together, the story never gets too silly or inconsistent. My favorite part is actually the relatability of Kim, our Spark narrator. Kim is an Asian-Canadian gender-fluid person who is still in the process of self-discovery and reinvention (she mostly uses she/ her pronouns). Her voice is incredibly refreshing and admirable - plus, just the right amount of nerdy. Kim might just be one of my new favorite characters of the year, by the way.

Overall, if you're looking for a sci-fi urban fantasy novel with monsters and superheroes that packs quite a punch and fits in so much in just under four hundred pages. Plus, the formatting is unique and is reminiscent of comic book pages, making you speed through the story that much quicker. If you're a fan of fast-paced adventure, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (this novel is incredibly visual), a strong cast of characters, and can't resist all sorts of urban fantasy worthy creatures, you absolutely need All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault by James Alan Gardner in your life. I will definitely have to check out more of his work in the future.

I've been known to complain that supers novels are often not very good.

I'm going to have to start easing back on that complaint. I've read several excellent supers novels lately, and this is one of them.

Four college roommates end up with superpowers thanks to a brush with a supervillain's plot, in a world where the wealthy and powerful elites have mostly become "darklings" - vampires, weres, and demons - for the sake of the longevity and the power. Only the advent of "sparks" (the word "superhero" has been trademarked by some darkling trademark troll) is keeping them in check.

I have one and a half complaints. My one complaint is that a world, even a Canada, ruled by a dark supernatural elite should maybe seem more dystopian than this, though goodness knows wealthy elites are pretty dystopic already, and we seem to manage. My half a complaint is that the protagonists are just a touch too powerful - though given what they have to face that's understandable, and they certainly use their powers with intelligence, not just whaling away at their adversaries.

Apart from those small niggles, this is a thrill-ride of tension and cool set-pieces that aren't just meaningless action, told with verve and cleverness in an appealing voice. Bonus points for showing us a pair of people who are clearly recognisable as DC canon characters without ever using their exact names, the name of their town, or even the name of the state; and for lampshading the aversion of the trope where someone pointlessly conceals important information and is killed or captured before they can pass it on.

I also have to admire any author who's capable of this passage: "On a scale of ambition from one to ten, where one was a doorknob and ten was a great white shark, Elaine would use the doorknob to beat the shark to death."

Superhero novels can easily be cheesy, trope-ridden, overly derivative, filled with dull slug-fests, or just amateurish in their execution. None of those things apply here. The narrator (a genderqueer character of Asian ancestry) and the other three main characters ring true, bicker realistically, are appropriately nerdy, and display interesting and original superpowers (itself quite an achievement). Based on the sample at the end, the next book will be narrated by a different member of the group, the one who's human maximum at everything, and it'll be interesting to see how the author keeps that from being boring, makes the character still relatable, and maintains the tension. I have every confidence that the author of this book is capable of pulling off that difficult feat.

The editing is, in general, good (apart from an occasional "may" that should really be "might").

I received a review copy via Netgalley.

All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault is the latest novel from Canadian science-fiction author, educator and tech writer James Alan Gardner. In it we follow Kim, a university student at the University of Waterloo, a school near to where I live, and the author’s alma mater, as they and their friends Jools, Miranda and Shar come to terms with suddenly finding themselves in possession of super powers, just in time to fend off a scheme from one of the world’s most notorious super-villains. Tons of fun, with a really interesting system of magic and powers, and absolutely fantastic characters, All Those Explosions was a super fun read.

All Those Explosions has absolutely the best system of creating and defining super heroes that I’ve ever read. Equal parts wish fulfillment, and creative rules lawyering, newly created Sparks tend to become an exemplar of their own internal qualities and personality. But their powers aren’t locked it right away. They have the ability to basically declare how their powers work for a short time, but even that malleable system has some rules. Our superhero squad is advised shortly after they become Sparks that it is vitally important to never insist that their powers couldn’t possibly work a certain way, because that would become true. And when it comes to expanding or refining their powers, it has to stay at least pseudo-science logical. IT’s described as a balance between the actual laws of the universe and the ability for Sparks to exercise their will arbitrarily. The Earth on which they live is closer to the physics side than the pure will side, so they don’t have long to suss out exactly what they can do.

The protagonist, Kim, who becomes Zircon, a superhero with the ability to shrink while retaining human strength and who also becomes incredibly physically resilient while any smaller than their natural size, is given to consider what happens to stuff that isn’t them when they shrink, and ends up just declaring out loud “I have an omnimorphic field. When I change size, anything I’m wearing or holding also changes size with me” and even though that is pretty ridiculous, it’s internally consistent and also awesome, so it works. Later, Zircon throws an object that was shrunk, and oops, it stayed tied to Zircon’s size. Trying to argue “Actually, when anything leaves my omnimorphic field, it returns to normal size” was too late and didn’t work, but then changing size later caused the object to change as well. Things may not work according to proper science, but they follow logic well enough that it never feels ridiculous, always consistent. When Zircon shrinks too small, their voice becomes inaudible, except the fellow Spark with sonic powers can hear Zircon anyway. The ability to hear any frequency of sound was a power that made sense and so it works. I actually think this setting would make a fantastic RPG system. A lot of room for customization, but with pretty consistent internal rules to avoid flagrant abuses. It would also be wicked fun to create characters.

Speaking of characters, Kim is definitely one of my favourites now. Formerly Kimberlite, Kimberley and Kimmi, Kim is a fairly rare example in SFF of a gender non-conforming character that hasn’t just also completely sorted out exactly what they are/feel. They mostly use she/her pronouns, but specifically calls out trying deliberately to be ambiguous, seems largely but not entirely asexual, and actually hasn’t completely settled on exactly where, if anywhere, they fall on any of those spectra. There’s a scene where they are making their superhero costumes, and Jools, whose superpower is being human-maximum-ability at absolutely everything, including fashion design and tailoring evidently, asks ‘how ambiguous do you want it?’ and Kim answers “Ambiguous isn’t the point…Ambiguous can just be a tease. I want out of the game completely.” The process of reinvention and self-discovery Kim makes throughout the book, both in portrayals of the past and their adventures in All Those Explosions put Kim and Zircon high up my list of SFF characters. Fantastic stuff.

For a novel about superheroes that starts pre-origin, and includes dealing with a major super-villain, it takes place over a shockingly short span of time, and so much happens that it could easily have felt rushed, but Gardner manages to strike the perfect balance of action, dialogue and introspection to keep everything moving at a fast clip, but keep it all manageable. The team of Sparks is very definitely new to their powers, and make a number of mistakes and winning doesn’t come easily, but they also grow very quickly into their strengths and make a great team. Gardner’s background in science shines through in the careful crafting of the rules of how superpowers work, and watching the team, science majors all, logic their way through defining and testing their abilities was also very enjoyable.

A second book in this series They Promised Me The Gun Wasn’t Loaded is slated for release November of 2018, and from the excerpt at the end of this one, appears to switch PoV character from Kim to Jools, which I’m definitely also looking forward to. Thoroughly enjoyable, highly recommended.