Wearing the Cape

Wearing the Cape Series, Book 1

By: Marion G. Harmon

Narrated by: K.F. Lim

Who wants to be a superhero?

Hope did, but she grew out of it. Which made her superhuman breakthrough in the Ashland Bombing, just before starting her freshman year at the University of Chicago, more than a little ironic. And now she has some decisions to make.

Given the code-name "Astra" and invited to join the Sentinels, Chicago's premier super-team, will she take up the cape and mask and become a career superhero? Or will she get a handle on her new powers (superstrength has some serious drawbacks) and then get on with her life plan?

In a world where superheroes join unions and have agents, and the strongest and most photogenic ones become literal supercelebrities, the temptation to become a cape is strong. But the price can be high - especially if you're "outed" and lose the shield of your secret identity.

Becoming a sidekick puts the decision off for awhile, but Hope's life is further complicated when The Teatime Anarchist, the supervillain responsible for the Ashland Bombing, takes an interest in her. Apparently as Astra, Hope is supposed to save the world. Or at least a significant part of it.

©2011 Marion G. Harmon (P)2018 Tantor

A bit of a jarring narration, a fantastic book!!

Greetings all:
This audiobook is a companion to an excellent book. I understand that narrator is an author and quite a good one. But, she reads with extreme dictation which sounds very stilted.
That said. This book, aside from Drew Hayes’ Superpowereds series and Villain’s Code series is one of the most intelligently written Superhero series out there. You would do well to read or listen to them. Trust me, you will love how well-rounded their universes are. If you are tired of “The Message” being pushed by Marvel and DC, give these series a try!

A superhero story for girls

Chicago girl transforms into a superhero, and is embraced by the other superhero's on the planet to become one of them. There's intrigue, romance (very G rated stuff, they never do more than snuggle cause she's a good catholic girl), suspense, some trippy multiple timelines because of a guy who pops around in time stuff, generally a good read. Read it for a book club (zoom because of pandemic) and then forgot to attend till they were wrapping up so can't tell you what the group consensus was. The performer did voices fairly well and was an enjoyable listen

Nice to revisit the story.

Read this book when it came out and enjoyed it. Now that the author is putting more books out felt like revisiting series. Great book and recommend to any fan of the boys or invincible.

This one is great

This book is well done entertaining has a decent balance between the fantastic and real world physics the story is pretty good. if you treat this series has a trilogy it its pretty good.

Warning: unfortunately the further down the series it goes the more radical left it goes the cast become a diversity checklist more muh representation and less interesting story etc.

this series is so good

this is is a gritty realistic look at what it would be like to become a superhero I have your life built and broken in the main characters promise

I wanted to give a 5

Story is great and had a lot of unique outlooks and power options. But, and this is a personal sore spot in my reading, you have to mix up descriptions or names. I found myself counting how often “Jumpsuit” was used. But all said and done, that’s a small problem for a book.
Narrative was Well done and Emotive for the most part but a deeper male voice dose not mean a quieter male voice. Many time I would crank the volume just to hear the male characters.

Average superhero story

I enjoy superhero stories, but this just didn't grip me for some reason. I'm not sure why. It seems like the characters should have been interesting, the plot developments engaging. But I quickly demoted this book to the list of those I listen to while falling asleep as night, as I wasn't particularly concerned about missing bits of the story. Some of the developments near the end of the book were surprising and made it more interesting, but I still doubt I will continue the series.

It was more interesting to me to guess at the author's political inclinations than pay attention to the story. I don't know for sure, but I feel like the author is a political conservative trying to appear liberal. Any attempts at appearing to be more progressive or diverse seemed to feel wrong.

This is the story of a Catholic upper middle class white girl, daughter of two loving parents, who becomes one of the most powerful superheroes in existence.

The President of the United States is a woman and a Native American - and a Republican.

Every world power that isn't America has fractured into multiple warring states. The world is held together by America's military might, as they intervened around the world to keep the peace out of the goodness of their hearts, creating the Pax Americana.

At one point the American superheroes interact with a muslim superhero - who is a jihadist bent on killing white American Christians, naturally.

The heroine is tempted, but refuses to give up her virginity before marriage. Keeping that is sacred, of course. We wouldn't want to disappoint God.

Now of course other people could have a different perspective. It's nice to see a story where the powerful superhero is a woman, right? And sure, christianity (specifically catholicism) are a major part of the book, but the priest is so open minded he's interested in adding a statue of a Chinese deity to the church. There are a few other momenets as well - so isn't the author trying to create a diverse, progressive world?

Well, all I can say is how it felt to me.

Good Story

An excellent superior story with a solid character plot and feature films.. I look forward to reading next book in the series..

Up, Up, and Away!

The first time I read this novel I had gotten a free copy of what turned out to be only the first few chapters of the book. I read a lot of free novels and unfortunately most of them do not leave me wanting to go out and find another of the author’s works. Wearing the Cape was different. The minute I finished it I got online and bought the full novel and then I just kept reading Harmon’s series until I finished all of them.

I like super hero stories. I’ve been reading them since my mother gave me my first comic books the summer before I entered fourth grade. Before that I’d watched the original Spiderman cartoon and the Super Friends on television. Many thousands of comics, a whole bunch of movies and television shows, and maybe two-to-three hundred super hero novels later I feel like I’m an expert on the genre. So it isn’t lightly that I say that Harmon’s Wearing the Cape is easily one of the three or four best superhero series out there.

It’s a series for people who take their supers seriously. Like all the other superhero novels out there, Wearing the Cape still demands a certain level of suspended disbelief, but there is a gritty realism in the way this world is envisioned that goes well beyond standard super hero fare—especially that coming out of the genre leaders at Marvel and DC comics. Yet all of that gritty realism doesn’t get in the way of genuine super heroics and the fun that comes from reading about them.

Hope Corrigan is an eighteen year old woman about to start her first year in college when a terrorist bomber drops an overpass on her and a bunch of other people driving on the highway. By a fluke of luck, she’s not immediately killed by the falling concrete, but she’s worried about all the other people around her and her need to help them generates a superhero breakthrough in her that launches her into her career as a superhero called Astra.

Chicago, where the series is based, is home to America’s premier superhero team, The Sentinels, and to Atlas, the world’s first superhero. They have a lot of experience training new supers and the Sentinels, like all super teams, has a legal status working with the local authorities to A) help them control supervillains and B) work as emergency response personnel during natural and man-made disasters. (You know, like a terrorist dropping an overpass onto the highway below.)

Astra’s training gives us the opportunity to painlessly discover how the superheroes function in society. No, that’s not fair, it’s not just painless it’s downright exciting. Superheroes are celebrities with fans, magazines, and clubs devoted to them. There are also movies, television shows and merchandising. They need insurance to cover the civil suits that happen when they’re called in to take down supervillains. There are government agencies that work with them and keep an eye on them. And all of this truly critical world building seamlessly flows from the text while Hope/Astra deals with the completely believable stresses of an incredibly difficult job. And that’s just the day to day problems of a superhero—the equivalent of Spiderman stopping a bank robbery on his way to the Daily Bugle. The actual mega-villain activity is worthy of the best story arcs Marvel and DC have ever put on paper.

To close I’d like to say a few words about the audio version of this novel which I just had the pleasure of listening to. I’ve read the kindle version two or three times, but the audio brings a whole new level of enjoyment to the story. You see, even though you know Hope’s just eighteen, you can forget that at times while reading, but not with a capable narrator like K. F. Lim. She gets the young Hope’s voice perfectly and the giggles and tongue-tied stutters and a dozen other little narrative effects really drive home that this is a teenager we’re reading about. It brings Harmon’s story to life even more effectively than he did.

Excellent addition to the genre

This audio book was suggested to me based on some of my previous searches. I am so glad that I found it. Normally, I listen for a few minutes here or there, but I just couldn't put this one down. I finished the entire book in a single day and had to get more from the series!