3 out of 4 stars
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As Uncle Ben once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” But what happens when those with the power lose their sense of responsibility? This is just one of many questions tackled in Jason Schmidt’s The Birth of Malice. In a world where a chosen few were given extraordinary abilities, some became Paragons (heroes), and some became the Fallen (villains). But are the heroes really heroes? The villains truly villains? And where does Malice, the man in the midst of it all, fall?
After watching the murder of his wife and daughter at the hands of Lament (a psychopathic member of the Fallen), Adam makes a public statement against the Paragons. He’s had enough of them using the Fallen to keep themselves necessary and popular. Guardian, a Paragon, confronts Adam. During the fight, Adam discovers he suddenly has superpowers, and he kills Guardian. Empowered, Adam decides it’s time to eliminate the Paragons and the Fallen, both to avenge his family and to keep the corruption from claiming more innocent lives. Adam sheds his old identity, and Malice is born.
With The Birth of Malice, Schmidt drops us into a harsh and complex world where the lines of morality are blurred almost past the point of recognition. We are treated to the standard heroes vs. villains idea but with so much more around it. Are the Paragons truly bad, or are they just drunk on power? Are all the Fallen villains? Does Adam’s goal to remove them all make him a hero or just someone else with extraordinary abilities trying to play at being a god? Throw in a criminal mastermind (or three), and Schmidt has created a cast of the most uncertain characters imaginable.
Malice gets his powers from a Mr. Gray, the same man who gifted the Paragons and Fallen with their abilities. Unlike his predecessors, though, Malice does not have one consistent ability. Instead, he is able to borrow the power of any Paragon or Fallen nearby. If Malice kills that individual, he gains their power permanently. The catch—because there’s always a catch—is Malice can only use one power at a time. So, once he kills Guardian, Malice always has access to super strength, but when he is in prison with Wrath, a Fallen, Malice can either use super strength or Wrath’s ability to shift the Earth’s surface, not both. I found this a fascinating way to keep Malice in check power-wise—giving him a weakness, so to speak. Instead of kryptonite or the color yellow or some other external material, Adam’s weakness is his own ability to choose wisely. He potentially has all these powers at his disposal, but if he activates the wrong one at the wrong time, he might doom himself.
Another interesting idea Schmidt explores in this book is how powers change a person. Before gaining his powers, Lament was a normal person who showed no signs of psychotic behavior. After getting his powers, Lament became a psychopath, killing random innocent people for the joy of it. Immortal, one of the Fallen, is, as his name suggests, immortal and has the power to heal himself. As a result, he’s taken to doing whatever he wants, both because he knows he can’t die and to see what’s left on Earth that can affect him. At one point, he consumes bottle after bottle of alcohol to see if he’s still capable of getting drunk. Often in media, we see heroes and villains using their powers to be heroic or villainous. Less often, we see how those powers effect life outside of those heroic and villainous activities. It’s cool to think about having a superpower, but this book really made me question whether I’d want one if the opportunity presented itself. Would I want to live forever, knowing hardly anything on Earth gave me a reaction anymore? It’s a heavy question I’m not sure how to answer.
While the exploration of these concepts is incredible, the writing felt a bit lacking. There’s a fair amount of repetition, and the story gets weighed down by many words being used to say simple things. Partly due to this, the pacing feels slow. The heavy writing makes the action scenes drag. There are also long passages (sometimes entire chapters) of character introspection. While the glimpse into the characters offers much to the story, the information could have been spaced out to keep the insight but help the story flow better. There’s also a bit of head hopping, which sometimes took me out of the story and made it difficult to keep track of the action.
One of my favorite aspects of superhero novels is the powers. Schmidt came up with some great abilities, including some standard ones like telekinesis (moving objects with the mind) and super strength/speed. He also assigned some more interesting ones, like Wrath’s ability to move the Earth’s surface and Torment’s heat manipulation. Watching these various powers clash was so interesting, and Schmidt took things a step farther by introducing the idea that powers could evolve. Keeping track of who wielded which power wasn’t difficult, but unfortunately, keeping track of the various agendas was. Mr. Gray has a master plan, as does Boss, the largely unseen leader of the Paragons. There’s also Wrath’s plan, Chaos’s plan, the plan of a man named Clark Hanson, and many other plans. After a while, it got overwhelming. With so many branches of the story, I was gearing up for a truly mind-blowing ending. Without spoiling, I feel the ending didn’t live up to the mounting tension. Other readers may feel differently, but for me, too many loose ends were left untied, even for a sequel.
I rate The Birth of Malice 3 out of 4 stars. Despite pacing issues and trouble keeping the subplots straight, I enjoyed this story to the end. The incongruity of the final pages to the rest of the book was what made my decision for a rating of 3 stars. I never thought to rate this book any lower. The real humanity packaged in this science fiction tale gives the story amazing depth. I recommend this to fans of the science fiction and fantasy genres, particularly superhero fans. This book would also appeal to readers searching for moral ambiguity across a vast array of characters. There was a fair amount of swearing in this book, which felt a little excessive but wasn’t bothersome for me. If you don’t mind cussing and you fall into one of the categories of readers I’ve mentioned here, definitely give The Birth of Malice a try.
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The Birth of Malice
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The birth of malice by Jason Schmidt
