Jack of Harts

Drew Hayes starts the second book of his multi-year story much as we’ve seen things start in other school-devoted series like Harry Potter. The students are getting ready to come back to school. Many students are returning. Some are not. New teachers are introduced, and a whole new level of training smacks students who thought they were ready upside the head to prove that they really weren’t. And the story goes on from the previous year.

Without giving anything away, one thing that I love about this series is the humor. It is written with a truly American feel to it, with jokes all throughout that crack me up. The college students are utterly irreverent, and the teachers go back and forth between dealing with it and letting it be known very quickly that it WON’T be dealt with. And it’s all done without ever making the teachers look dumb. Harried? Yes. Anything less than the best of the best who are training a new generation of Heroes to take their place? Oh…not a chance.

Do the students pull things over on the teachers? Yes. Do the teachers really know what the students are doing because they did the same kind of things when THEY were students? Usually. Do they let the students think they’ve pulled one over on the teachers because they know it is good for the students to gain self confidence? Very often.

One thing that Drew Hayes does very well is that he writes from many different perspectives. MOST of the writing is done from the point of view of the five Powered students who started their career in the first book. But he gives us enough glimpses into the minds of teachers and other students to grant us a view of a much larger story weaving its way through the story of these five young adults.

And that is what they are. Young adults. College kids. People who have already had a lot of growing up to do, and now are growing up far more than they ever dreamed. I enjoy watching them grow up. And I enjoy the fisticuffs that abound as Super Powered Heroes in Training spend months beating up on each other in carefully planned matches so they can learn the limits of their power.

And do those limits surprise people? Oh yes. They most certainly do. The year end fight is particularly impressive at showing just what happens when Heroes in Training truly cut loose. It reminded me favorably of Superman’s “World of Cardboard” speech. Because that is exactly what the Hero colleges are training. Heroes who can live in a world of cardboard and protect it, not wreck it.

There is a lot of thought to this story. Do not dismiss it as just another story about super heroes. It is so much more than just that.