Review: Dreams of the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

Dreams of the Golden Age is the second book in the "Golden Age" series. I read the first one quite a while back, I think at T's recommendation, and really enjoyed it - so I was excited when I saw the release date for a new one. For a little author-context, you might be familiar with Carrie Vaughn via her "Kitty Norville" series, which is a urban fantasy werewolf series. I read it for a while but I've found I'm much more enamoured with the superhero books and also the author's blog: http://carriev.wordpress.com/

Back to the present, Dreams of the Golden Age is a very clear counterpoint to Sanderson's Steelheart, which I recently read. Where Steelheart is set in a city where a supervillian reigns, Dreams is set in a nearly utopic equivalent where a group of superheroes protected the city a generation ago. Dreams has two main characters: Celia, the daughter of the superheroes (with no powers of her own: her story was largely told in the previous novel) and one of her daughters, Anna. I'd say this book was more about Anna, but that's probably a bit biased because of my poor memory: if I'd read the series one after another, I probably would have identified more with Celia. The chapters are a pretty even split, I think.

Anna is a teenager who has come into her inherited super powers, but not told her family. It's a coming of age with superheroes, but far from being a loner story, Anna has powered friends and Celia is watching over them while doing her job of heading up the largest company in the city. That saves it from being an emo mess, though it's definitely not all sunshine and rainbows. Personally, I was most pleased with the jaded reactions of everyone having grown up with legit superheroes around: no one is shocked at what they or other people can do, and there's a bit of a "been there, done that, of course we can fix this" vibe that I love.

I really like this series, and if you like superhero books, you probably will too.