The first 10k review is here! Fritz Freiheit's "Dispensing Justice"

First of all, I'd like to say thank you to Fritz Freiheit for volunteering to be the first subject of my Just The Tip Review blog, where I read the first 10k or so words of a novel and post a review accordingly. I'm looking for things like a good hook, relatable characters, unique voice, genre-appropriateness, mechanics and, of course, what I think of the cover & blurbs.

On to Dispensing Justice.... The official blurb on Amazon reads, "In 1947, a near-Earth supernova's wavefront washes the solar system with cosmic radiation. Thirty seven years later, high school freshman Michael Gurick's father is killed combating cyborg supervillains. With a little help from his friends, Michael takes up his father's super-identity to seek justice against the cyborgs who killed his father-or will it be revenge? (Illustrations by Matt Howarth)

Long description:
Michael is just another high school freshman genius concealing his potential until the day his father--secretly a superhero and member of the crime fighting Nova League, is killed in battle. Suppressed grief turns to confusion when a nearly perfect duplicate of his father picks Michael up after school. At home they find Michael's mother is on the brittle edge of a breakdown, refusing to acknowledge that she too saw her husband die and playing along with the duplicate's charade. A family melt-down is averted by the timely arrival of Michael's oldest friend Penny and her family armed with a casserole, salad, and pie. Penny's mother--another secret member of the Nova League--imposes domestic peace with the same practiced ease that she fights supervillains, albeit with fewer broken bones.
In the days that follow, Michael only wants to retreat to the secret lab beneath his suburban home and prepare for vengeance upon his father's killers. A run-in with members of the varsity football squad leads to a pummeling and the realization that fitting into his father's old battle-suit isn't the only leverage he needs. He needs a master plan for wreaking justice. Falling for the blind daughter of his martial arts instructor isn't part of the plan, nor is fending off the well-meaning attacks of Penny's twin younger siblings before they fatally cheer him up. His life and the plan become more complex as his best friend starts to develop powers, and doubly so when he finds out that his father's legacy was more than just a battle-suit and a place to hang it, but the well-being of the supers community as well.
Michael's story plays out in Nova Genesis, a world that diverged from ours in 1947 when a supernova bathed our system in deadly cosmic rays. Without the intervention of the interstellar civilization of the Galactics, life on Earth would have been wiped out. Instead, humanity is altered, a few made more--or less--than human. Thirty-seven years later the second generation of supers born on Earth are starting to come into their powers. Michael and his friends, some reluctantly, some enthusiastically, find themselves becoming part of a new generation of heroes."

For starters, I would either choose the long description or the short one, but probably not both in the same box. The long description is clearly very long and unfortunately has a few editing missteps that I think would turn people off of buying this book. I think the blurb could be really great, as Dispensing Justice has definite potential, but the point gets a little lost in translation. Another editing pass and some consolidation would probably go a long way in helping this section. Still, the book does sound interesting if you're into the teenage superhero scene, which I am.

Next up, the cover. I think that this has promise too, but there are a few things that I would change again. 

First of all, let me say that the style of this cover reminds me very much of one of my favorite books when I was a kid - My Teacher Flunked the Planet and the rest of that series. I like the use of bright colors and the radiation green is very fitting to the story.

However, there are a few things that throw me off about this. First of all, the image of outer space and odd bug-man looking astronauts doesn't match up with the book's description(s) at all. This cover gives the impression that the story will be set in space (otherwise why use a spacey theme, right?) but it's set in high school, at least in the beginning. Not very spacey. The only thing that I read in the first 10k words of Dispensing Justice that fits in with this picture is that the main character's super powers were triggered by radiation from a nearby supernova, and the planet was subsequently saved by the Intergalactic Counsel of aliens. Then they leave. And there is no more space talk for a long time. Honestly, it sounds more like this kid is on his way to becoming Batman sooner than he will become Neil Armstrong, at least by the first 10k of the book and the description on Amazon, which doesn't really mention space travels either. But I could be wrong. Soooo.... I think that either the cover or the blurb are a little misleading on that count. 

My next issue with the cover is that I don't think that the red text shadow effects used on the author's name, illustrator's name and series title are working well against the space background. Or possibly any background. They are a little distracting. Plus the title font reminds me of an old west saloon sign, which there are none of in this story, as far as I can tell. This isn't Firefly. All in all, I think that with the font fixes taken care of this would be a great cover for a kid's novel about a space adventure, but unfortunately, not really a high school superhero story. 

On to the inside... There are a lot of chapters in this book. Like a lot a lot. And they are all named, but not numbered inside the actual book. They are numbered in the table of contents, but somehow that didn't make it to the copy, and this was a little annoying for me. However, the chapter titles are generally cute and are fairly accurate at foreshadowing, but don't really spoil any surprises. 

The chapters are all very short and quick to read through, giving the story an almost episodic feel. I can see how this structure is very appealing and well suited to a younger audience, which this book feels like it is targeted to. The characters have several moments of brief "Ugh, school kinda sucks" attitude that every kid feels at some point or another.  

The story itself is pretty engaging, and I really enjoyed it once I got into it. I will probably finish reading it after this, so look for it in the full-length review section eventually.

That being said, I had a hard time getting immersed in the first few pages. Mainly because of the hyphens. I know, that's a weird thing to say, but it felt like something was hyphenated in every paragraph for the first several pages (being read via kindle on my ipad) and that was distracting, to say the least. This issue worked itself out and later the story read a lot more naturally, but damned if those hyphens didn't throw me out of the world quite a bit for a while. Which-I-think-is-the-exact-opposite-of-what-writers-want-for-the-first-few-pages. See? Distracting, isn't it? Plus it's a pain to type like that. 

Dispensing Justice has quite a few humorous tidbits thrown in that at least made me smile, which is always nice in a book. I liked the main characters, Mike and Penny, and do want to know what happens to them next. Fritz did a great job creating a good hook in the beginning of the story, and made me want to keep reading to find out what happens with Mike's quest for vengeance/ justice/ it's all the same thing really. I want to know more about Penny, who has potential for much girl badassery. 

All in all, I would give the first 10k of this one a solid B. It has good writing, an interesting plot that makes me want to keep reading, relatable characters and sounds like fun without too many mechanical/ proofreading / editing errors. I still think one more polish from a good editor would have taken care of the hyphens and several other little typos / oopsies but for the most part, they weren't bad.

Thanks to Fritz Freiheit for volunteering to be the first book reviewed here on Just The Tip, and thank you all for reading! Leave me your thoughts in the comments!