Tommy and the Order of Cosmic Champions

By: Anthony D. Grate, Anthony J. Rapino

Narrated by: Jon Vertullo

When life supplies 11-year-old Tommy Grant with some unfavorable circumstances intruding on his otherwise tranquil life in 1980s Ohio, he retreats into the spell-binding Order of Cosmic Champions. When he discovers that the largely successful animated program and toy line is holding a nationwide "Create-A-Character" contest where applicants submit their action figure designs, Tommy knows he has to enter as surely as he knows his own name. But when Tommy's character design fails to win the contest, he finds his world crumbling from all sides. And there is only one way he knows to fix it.

What follows is a whirlwind coming-of-age adventure of righting wrongs, overcoming perilous obstacles, confronting our inner demons, and challenging the limits of reality. In this waxing nostalgic and imaginative fantasy, listeners will discover what excitement lies waiting when you take risks and conquer your fears. Only one question remains: In the final hour when you heed the call, the courage to give your all, will you stand or fall?

©2022 Anthony J. Rapino, Anthony D. Grate (P)2022 Anthony J. Rapino, Anthony D. Grate

Wonderfully imaginative coming of age story

A lot of fun. A world inhabited by fleshed out characters, including flawed parents, old friends, new friends, and of course-comic book heroes. Enjoyed every minute.

Nostalgia for the 80s

This story is a love letter to all of us who lived through the 80s

Mazes & Monsters meets Ready Player One

This one is more of a 3.5 for me.. I'm fairly steeped in the 80s nostalgia world, so I was kind of apprehensive picking this up. To be honest, I'm fairly burnt out on the homages, particularly in fiction, but I've followed Anthony Grate from Retro Daze for a long time and was curious what his take on a retro story would be.

First and foremost, I loved all of the stuff from the book's first half that was rooted in reality. The bullying, the problems at home for Tommy, and his obsession with a cartoon that was getting a little embarrassing for his age were all super relatable and hit pretty close to home. That is the stuff that really sticks with me in the story.

The loose Masters of the Universe homage was a bit weird for me. I loved hanging a portion of the plot on the infamous MOTU create-a-character contest, but the turn to straight-up speculative fiction with echoes of Masters characters bridging the gap into the real world was hard to slog through. It seemed like there was a battle in the writing between the reality of the story and the hyper-reality.

The first half of the book builds up Tommy's anger and impotence to deal with it; a leaning toward the "dark side". But this is undermined in the road trip sequence where his goal of trying to get his evil character recognized by the contest winner is heavily at odds with his newfound fear of that character actually stalking him. Ultimately I think they leaned on the imagery of staging actual fantasy battles when the coming-of-age stuff was way more interesting and carried the story better. Having Tommy feel like he's interacting with that fantasy world now and then was plenty.

It's like they wanted the book to feel like Ready Player One when the story they were hewing closer to was Mazes and Monsters.

That said, the stuff with Tommy growing up and striking out on his own is great. I wish there had been more of that.

Great nostalgia!

Made me feel like an 80s kid again! Ready for book 2! Thank you! Highly recommend.

A coming of age story like no other

A fantastic tale about a kid's struggles that grips you from beginning to end.

Stranger Things, Meets Lincoln Highw

What would have happened if Lincoln Highway, and Stranger Things met one night in Vegas and had a kid, and the kid watched Masters of The Universe.

Looooong build up with no epic ending

Spoiler warning just in case.
It was a very long and drawn out story with overly dramatized bullying that made little sense. The coming of age story of a mentally disturbed 11 yr old. The hallucinations were too much. This felt like someone grabbing onto the bandwagon of ready player one. With hardly any nostalgia. There was no reason to sale people on the idea of this being an 80s story. Very disappointing.

Dang this is harsh but I was really looking forward to this and it was such a let down. So many missed opportunities to turn this story into something epic.

Jon Vertullo did an amazing job narrating and if it weren’t for him, I probably would not have finished it.