Fight Me Audiobook By Austin Grossman cover art

Fight Me

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Fight Me

By: Austin Grossman
Narrated by: Adam Sims
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Brought to you by Penguin.

THE THRILLING, ACERBIC AND HILARIOUS NOVEL FROM THE AUTHOR OF SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE
Middle-aged English professor Dr Rick Tower has a secret.

As a teen he was Prodigy – a kickass superhero.
He was given and wielded mysterious powers.

And as part of a superteam, he beat up bad guys.
They were gods – worshipped and feared.

Naturally, the government shut them down.

Now Rick’s in hiding, supposedly living a normal life.
Promising to never use his powers again.

Forgotten. Washed up. A no one.

Until the summons puts the gang back together –
to solve a disappearance from their past.

For superbeings, it should be easy.

But when have gods ever followed orders . . .
'The Avengers meets The Breakfast Club… wry and engaging' James Swallow, Sunday Times bestselling author of Nomad
'A spiky, fierce, erudite riff on the wonderful world of silver age superheroes' Charles Stross, bestselling author of The Atrocity Archives
'Hugely enjoyable… kept me up till 3am' Conn Iggulden, Sunday Times bestselling author of Lion

‘Combining a coming-of-age story with costume thrills . . . it has sly, smart things to say’ Herald
'Fight Me embraces the fun of the genre, while treating its battle-weary characters with heart and empathy. A noir-tinged Big Chill for the superhero set' Bob Proehl, author of The Nobody People
‘A treasure that manages to be sad, funny, and hilariously fun at all once. A thrilling adventure but also a searing, intimate look at what it would really cost to have such incredible power, and yet still be human’ Peng Shepherd, bestselling author of The Cartographers

'There is a vibrancy to the writing, and a beating heart, reminiscent of my favourite coming-of-age novels' Nick Cutter

'A sucker-punch of sheer delight, and couldn't be happier to be on the receiving end' Adam Christopher

©2024 Austin Grossman (P)2024 Penguin Audio

©2024 Austin Grossman (P)2024 Penguin Audio Adventure Fantasy Science Fiction Superhero

Critic reviews

'A treasure that manages to be sad, funny, and hilariously fun at all once. A thrilling adventure but also a searing, intimate look at what it would really cost to have such incredible power, and yet still be human.' (Peng Shepherd, bestselling author of The Cartographers)

'Fight Me embraces the fun of the genre, while treating its battle-weary characters with heart and empathy. A noir-tinged Big Chill for the superhero set.' (Bob Proehl, author of The Nobody People)

'Grossman's novel of wealth, power, fraught loves and friendships flexes epic muscles beneath its superhero costume.' (D.B. Weiss, co-creator of Game of Thrones)
All stars
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I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Grossman’s prior works. This one opens like “invincible” and then concludes more like “you”. It’s just not hitting for me as well as the others did, the protagonist is ultimately unlikeable and the ambiguity- of pretty much everything - leaves me unsatisfied by the ending. I guess that’s life, but it’s not what I look for in a novel usually. I will continue to read this author however.
Narrator is ok. His odd pronunciation of the word “hover” really takes me out of the story.

Unreliable narrator & time machines

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Very creative story about some unlikely superheroes/villains that any fan of Soon I Will Be Invincible — though no need to read that book first.

Very fun follow-up to Grossman’s first superhero novel - a page turner with compelling characters

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Alot of action is mentioned and not shown, characters seem to be the only focus of the book.

Great story; literature that happens to use superheros as a backdrop

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A novel about sad middle aged “gifted” kids wrapped in a loving and skillful homage to Bronze Age/ Iron Age comic books. The character bits hit a little too close to home for me to judge objectively, but the comic book bits are pitch perfect. Highly recommended.

Tenenbaums in Tights

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This is an objectively good science fiction novel (at least by any measure which includes things like: 'crunchy' LitRPGs; insecure 'girl collector' epics; or the Virtually Voiced) and I have no regrets about purchasing it, but it was a frustrating read.

Fight Me's characters proved very hard for me to empathize with (mostly due to the genre's skewed motivational palette of 'Agog Obdeience' through to 'Sociopathic Surprise Party!') This meant the character-driven plot was often quite impenetrable to me as well. I honestly still have no idea how any version of Shazam could be spending 75% of his time getting beat-up and bretayed and just doing nothing about it at all.

However, I still listened with relish and was kept engaged and guessing right up until the very last sentence. If you don't mind a bit of pastiche-induced cognitive dissonance this is a well-crafted and nuanced tale from a talented craftsman.

Sad-sack Shazam Throws Away his Shot

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Alan Moore has shown how much fun can be had playing with these tropes. But Grossman adds nothing new

I don’t want to write a review

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I loved the book right up to the very end, where almost nothing is resolved. it becomes just some lengthy allegory.

Performance and story

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