My brother wrote three novels and I read them, with mixed results

A few years ago, my brother Nick made a movie called Bomb Squad about four siblings who discover they have super powers. The story was based on one we imagined as kids, basically the answer to “what if the four of us had super powers?” Which ones would we have? What would our names be? What would our “hero” names be? What battles would we fight?

My bro got into filmmaking and just went ahead and made the film. He wrote the script, storyboarded, got friends and colleagues on board, bought or rented equipment, directed, edited, did almost all the effects and sound and post-production, and even wrote the damn music. I mean, who does that? Who makes the film version of the story he’s been talking about since he was a kid before he turns twenty-five years old, and does a pretty decent job of it at that?

I got to help a little. I was the script supervisor on a few of the shoots (including the big, days-long, nighttime action shoot, which was wicked cool, but freezing) and I re-wrote a few scenes. I’m still so tremendously proud of him. I think the secret to getting your shit done is to not be a perfectionist: I was amazed at how Nick could give someone a general idea of what he wanted and then walk away and not even make sure they did it right–he just trusted people to do their best, and it was almost always fine. In fact, it was often better than fine, because people felt free to improve on what they were given. Maybe that’s why my brother has now made a movie and written three books and I have zero creative projects to my name: I get so wrapped up in making it as perfect as possible, and not making any mistakes, that I never actually get things finished.

Nick and I wrote the screenplays for two sequels a few years ago. The second was mostly his work that I heavily re-wrote or edited, and for the third I wrote about a third of the screenplay myself… and then Nick explained to me why some things would be impossible to film. Sigh. (I don’t really understand which effects are difficult or easy to do. On the flip side, it’s fun to watch movies with Nick, because sometimes we’ll see an effect that I think is totally normal and he will be all WHAT HOW DID THEY DO THAT. Have you seen the latest Hunger Games? Apparently the hovercrafts are a miracle.)

Then he wrote novelized versions of all three stories. And asked me to read them and sort of proofread/copy edit/make sure he wasn’t making giant logic leaps that weren’t clear to the audience, that kind of thing. And in my ignorance, I thought, What a perfect way to easily knock off three books toward my CBR6 goal!

There are many reasons this wasn’t a great idea. First, it takes a lot longer to read a book with a pencil in hand, circling all the times the author uses “suddenly” on one page and writing a note for him to get rid of at least half, with suggestions on which ones should go. Second, it takes a lot longer to read a book when you keep getting really frustrated with what is happening in the story and you have to put it down and walk away and worry about how you’re going to bring it up with the author without him feeling attacked. Third, it’s even worse when that author is your brother, and already sensitive to the fact that sometimes you can be an annoying grammar and punctuation know-it-all.

These are also reasons why it was a bad idea for me to force myself to finish the last ~300 pages of the third, 452-page book over Thanksgiving weekend, while my brother and I were in the same house. “You keep sighing really loud,” said he, Thursday afternoon. By Saturday night, I was actually yelling about one of the heroes being idiotic. It didn’t end well.

The books are almost Harry-Potter-like in their progression: Bomb Squad is sort of the baby of the stories–the siblings get their powers, struggle to figure out what’s happening in their lives, and fight off a formidable but ultimately manageable military enemy who wants to lock them up and study them. During the fight, they discover that there are a lot more “Specials” out there, and, of course, some of them are bad guys! Bomb Squad: Gail Force (there are puns!) is the larger-scale, more-adventurous sequel, with exciting new characters, enemies with powers, and interesting fight scenes. Bomb Squad: Legends tell the story of the soul-searching and self-discovery required before the inevitable clash between good and evil that spans time and space and the subsequent fallout.

Partially because the books are so different, the intended audience isn’t clear. Some of the characters and dialog are corny, the humor is a little juvenile (to be fair, the character cracking most of the jokes is only sixteen), and some situations are a bit fantastic, so it seems like the story is for kids. There is zero sex, and not even any kissing (because ew!).On the other hand, a few parts are really violent, and there’s some language, and the bad guy is scary and does thing that are dark. It’s completely true that some kids are totally fine with violence and some adults love campiness, but it’s still problematic.

Some scenes had me glued to the book and flipping pages as fast as I could correct all the punctuation and random capital letters. Other parts, particularly the fight scenes, just would not end, which was exacerbated by the fact that I think my brother gets really excited when he writes fight scenes and just puts ALL THE WORDS into as few sentences as possible whether the subjects and verbs agree or not. It’s a little unbalanced, but I think he can make them into something pretty great. Some parts are brilliant, and he’s already working on re-writes. (They’re definitely better than the zero books I have finished.)

That said, I do have an Issue.

Nick is proud of the fact that his movie “totally” passes the Bechdal Test. (I’m not sure it exactly counts, because the first two women talk about a mysterious male caller and the second pair mention the youngest hero brother, but we’ll take what we can get, yes?) And there are six women among the main characters–it’s not half, and there are almost zero minor female characters, but again, it’s a good effort. However, the people in charge are always male, and the women, even the particle physicist and the biologist who is an expert on special abilities, usually wait around to be told what to do.

(In fact, even the minor male characters wait to be told what to do, including the Special who can create wormhole-like portals, who apparently spends the first hour of the final battle leaning against the wall picking his nose until one of the Men in Charge has the great idea of using said wormholes to rescue all the many innocent civilians from being slaughtered by the legendary clash between good and evil that has been going on FOR A WHILE. GREAT IDEA, Leader! Why didn’t I think of that while I was running around this battle scene trying to figure out how best to use my heroic abilities?

He’s the guy who made me yell at my brother Saturday night and ruin Thanksgiving.

It’s just so opposite from the way my brother actually functions–he works with a team, and gives people an idea of what he needs and then leaves them to it, while the Men in Charge in his story have to tell their teammates, like, “Stop him!” or “Save them!” because otherwise no one can figure out what to do. I don’t know why he feels like that needs to happen.)

The particle physicist is one of my favorites, partially because she is the oldest sister of the siblings and therefore my psuedo-conterpart in the story. She’s telekinetic and wicked smart. She’s also the character who asks THE DUMBEST questions. “But wait, I don’t understand this completely obvious and integral part of the plan,” says the particle physicist, so that a guy can explain it one more time or another way, just in case any of the readers are super dumb and don’t fully grasp what’s going on yet. It’s maddening. There’s one part where she’s collecting data on a weapon in a lab, and she reports her findings, and then two guys come in and explain how it works to her. I mean, I get that they’re actually explaining it to the reader, but SHE SHOULD BE THE ONE EXPLAINING.

Gail of Gail Force is also unevenly burdened with asking dumb questions. She and a few other Special women also have major reservations or insecurities about using their powers, while the men have none. The women worry and fret a lot, and disproportionately need to be protected or guarded or rescued. And one of them totally gets refrigeratored in act three of the final battle. (Yes, the final battle, in the third act of the third book, has three acts.) But that’s spoilerific and Nicky is really stingy about that kind of thing. He also doesn’t like it when we call him Nicky–probably just as much as I don’t like it when girls get refrigeratored.