“Flyover City” is the fictional blog of Joel Wyatt, a typical technical support guy—except that he’s living in a universe where superheroes and villains are a fact of life.  There’s even an agency that recruits and supports the superheroes.  Joel and his friends spend their spare time speculating about superheroes instead of “Star Trek” or “Star Wars”.

Joel reminds me of some of the guys I knew when I worked in tech support.  He’s bored, somewhat lacking in social skills, but smart when it comes to technology.  He gets frustrated dealing with customers and gets excited when talking about superheroes.  He uses the TS job to support his creative job, writing articles for a small newspaper.  He and his buddy, Spliff, go bowling every week and speculate about things like what happens to a hero whose cover is blown, or who would win in a fight between any 2 given heroes.  Joel‘s girlfriend, Gwen, works in support-call quality assurance and believes he should be more ambitious. 

The writing is solid, the dialog is believable and the backstory is interesting.  We get bits of Joel’s history, but we also get details about some of the heroes living in Denver and other parts of the world.  For me, the story is at its most interesting during these parts, but then, I grew up reading comic books.  There are also references to pop culture that make this universe feel very similar to our own.  The setting is comfortable and familiar. 

For the first 10 or so entries the story concentrates on Joel, his philosophical musings, and his day to day problems with work, his girlfriend and his circle of friends.  The heroes start to slowly make an appearance sometime after that.  Even then, this is a blog, so it reads more like a diary then a novel.  The pacing is a bit slow if you’re looking for an action or adventure story.  This is more about Joel and his life and what he thinks about everything.

If you’re interested in a look at superheroes from the point of view of the fans that watch them, “Flyover City” could be your story.  If you prefer comic books or adventure stories, there probably isn’t enough action in this to keep you interested for very long.

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