(review) Super Supportive by Sleyca

[James Nicoll]

Super Supportive by Sleyca

An orphan sets out to become a superhero, only to discover there's far
more to the career than he knew.

https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/may-be-the-devil

[Chris Buckley]

Post by James Nicoll
Super Supportive by Sleyca
An orphan sets out to become a superhero, only to discover there's far
more to the career than he knew.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/may-be-the-devil

Yes! As I've said before, I consider _Super Supportive_ to have some
of the best world-building and character building I've seen for years.
It's amazing to find such a gem in the webnovel format. The last time
I saw such a knack for getting characters "right" was Murderbot in
_All Systems Red_. And that was primarily just the main character there;
in _Super Supportive_ (_SS_)there's a host of well-done side characters (James
for his review only saw a few good side characters; several more get
introduced just after he stopped reading.)

_SS_ isn't for everybody; it's very slow and character focused. But
those who like it, really like it. Many get involved. A major chapter
might get 2000 comments in Patreon, about the same on a fan run
Discord channel, and then a 1000 more once it gets released for free
reading on Royal Road a month later. A more typical chapter (Sleyca
comes out with roughly 2 chapters a week) might only get a third of
that.

As James said in the review, the "superheros and superpowers are good"
surface view is being gradually devalued as you read carefully more.
It's even worse than what James said - he was wrong when he said
superpowers were given to those who volunteered and worked hard. The
Avowed are not volunteers; they are involuntary draftees based on
genetics and can be summoned by the aliens at any time. All this is
well-known on Earth, but the implications and the purposes of the
aliens are not really understood by Earthlings and much less by young
Alden. The story will definitely be turning darker; my prediction is
it will be pretty soon, within 200,000 words (it's at 800,000 now,
roughly 3-4 novels.)

The hard questions of worthiness of sacrifice are just beginning to be
explored now. Sleyca obviously has a well-developed idea of where she
wants to take her themes, the question is whether she'll be able to
continue writing at such a high level. The Patreon readers are pretty
clearly worried about burnout and are urging her to write less!

Chris

[James Nicoll]

Post by Chris Buckley
surface view is being gradually devalued as you read carefully more.
It's even worse than what James said - he was wrong when he said
superpowers were given to those who volunteered and worked hard. The
Avowed are not volunteers

If I was not in Dance Season hell I'd go back and reword the review a bit.

The situation about powers is complicated: our hero works towards getting
powers, is repeatedly warned the odds are against him, gets lucky. Kids of
supers have better odds of being selected than do regular people but it's
still dice rolls. One family in particular has worked out to game the
system but the powers they chase involve luck manipulation.

(also, people can swap powers if they want... as long as they act
quickly)

Post by Chris Buckley
The hard questions of worthiness of sacrifice are just beginning to be
explored now. Sleyca obviously has a well-developed idea of where she
wants to take her themes, the question is whether she'll be able to
continue writing at such a high level.

I didn't come across anything that unabigiously IDed the author's
gender, so I have them down as "unknown".

Post by Chris Buckley
The Patreon readers are pretty clearly worried about burnout and are
urging her to write less!

Some people have just the one writing speed....

[Chris Buckley]

Post by James Nicoll

Post by Chris Buckley
surface view is being gradually devalued as you read carefully more.
It's even worse than what James said - he was wrong when he said
superpowers were given to those who volunteered and worked hard. The
Avowed are not volunteers

If I was not in Dance Season hell I'd go back and reword the review a bit.

If you do, the one other mistake you'd be lambasted for in the Patreon is
saying that Joe was nicknamed by Alden. "Joe" was what he told Alden to
call him by (names are important.)

Joe is an interesting character, as you say. He's currently on the
outs with the vast majority of readers, though I would disagree. (If
we had to predict who would be on Alden's side and who would be on
Team Antagonists when we finally get to the main conflict, I would disagree
with most reader's placements.)

Post by James Nicoll
The situation about powers is complicated: our hero works towards getting
powers, is repeatedly warned the odds are against him, gets lucky. Kids of
supers have better odds of being selected than do regular people but it's
still dice rolls. One family in particular has worked out to game the
system but the powers they chase involve luck manipulation.
(also, people can swap powers if they want... as long as they act
quickly)

Post by Chris Buckley
The hard questions of worthiness of sacrifice are just beginning to be
explored now. Sleyca obviously has a well-developed idea of where she
wants to take her themes, the question is whether she'll be able to
continue writing at such a high level.

I didn't come across anything that unabigiously IDed the author's
gender, so I have them down as "unknown".

Buried in the tens of thousands of comments is a reply from Sleyca
that her preferred pronoun is "she". Not much is known about
Sleyca. She claims to be a web designer living in the Pacifc time
zone. She's unfamiliar with Patreon (before this novel - my estimate
is she's grossed over 250K so far with it). My guess is she's an
established author, whether it be several Kindle Unlimited ebooks or
something much more impressive.

Post by James Nicoll

Post by Chris Buckley
The Patreon readers are pretty clearly worried about burnout and are
urging her to write less!

Some people have just the one writing speed....

But her chapters keep getting longer, and her releases keep getting later!

It's an impressive novel, IMO. Most readers are still viewing it in terms
of black and white, good vs evil. But I think she's set up a beautiful
world underneath that of grays, of hard choices both in the past and to come.
I'm looking forward to it!

Chris

[James Nicoll]

Post by Chris Buckley

Post by James Nicoll

Post by Chris Buckley
surface view is being gradually devalued as you read carefully more.
It's even worse than what James said - he was wrong when he said
superpowers were given to those who volunteered and worked hard. The
Avowed are not volunteers

If I was not in Dance Season hell I'd go back and reword the review a bit.

If you do, the one other mistake you'd be lambasted for in the Patreon is
saying that Joe was nicknamed by Alden. "Joe" was what he told Alden to
call him by (names are important.)

That was fast enough to fix.