★★★☆☆ Velveteen vs ALL THE BOOKS!

Velveteen vs the Junior Super Patriots

Seanan McGuire

When I picked up Laughter at the Academy, I thought that my project of reading everything Seanan McGuire has published was about to come to its end. Alas, the introduction of Laughter at the Academy mentioned McGuire's Velveteen stories, which I had never heard of. What are they? Well, here's the description from McGuire's website,

The Velveteen stories began in 2008 as an open-ended series about a superhero universe where cosmic powers not only came with great responsibility, they came with great legislation, merchandising, and focus group oversight. Many young heroes were effectively "adopted" by a corporate entity known as The Super Patriots, Inc., which promised to teach them how to best control their amazing gifts.

Some of those junior heroes wanted out. Few of them got it.

Velma "Velveteen" Martinez was one of the young heroes "adopted" by The Super Patriots, Inc. Sweet, smart, and totally marketable, with a power that lent itself well to the kiddie market, she seemed destined to be one of the company's most enduring properties...right up until the day she walked out on the hero world, choosing to return to a civilian life. The reasons are still coming out. More importantly, the Marketing Department is still trying to get her back.

Velveteen's superpower is the ability to animate stuffed animals, toy soldiers, action figures, etc.

Goodreads lists four Velveeteen books: Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots, Velveteen vs. The Multiverse, Velveteen vs. The Seasons, and Velveteen vs. Everything. I'm guessing, in the absence of contrary information that the last is just a collection of all the Velveteen stories. The first two books, Junior Super Patriots and Multiverse, are available as audiobooks from Audible. McGuire also says on her website, "The stories remain free to read online."

That is true at least of Junior Super Patriots. Here, for your convenience, are links to the nine stories that constitute Junior Super Patriots:

Velveteen vs. The Isley Crayfish Festival
Velveteen vs. The Coffee Freaks
Velveteen vs. The Flashback Sequence
Velveteen vs. The Old Flame
Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division
Velveteen vs. The Eternal Halloween
Velveteen vs. The Ordinary Day
Velveteen vs. Patrol
Velveteen vs. The Blind Date

A bunch more Velveteen stories can be found on McGuire's LiveJournal in inconvenient reverse publication order. When I move on to Multiverse and Seasons I will use those links, and I will attempt, in my later reviews, to round them up as I did here.

OK, with all that out of the way, here's the actual review! Well, this was a lot of fun. The stories are written with McGuire's characteristic sarcasm. As you might suspect from the fact that the stories are all named "Velveteen vs [something]", Velma is a typical McGuirian malcontent, always banging her head against some wall, occasionally with somewhat positive results. Mostly the wall she's pounding on is her corporate antagonist, The Super-Patriots, Inc, the umbrella conglomerate that, in Velma's world, exists to control and profit from superheroes. (This is rather similar in concept to Vought International of the TV series "The Boys", but The Super-Patriots is much less sinister. In Velveteen's world, there is always plenty of incompetence to go around.) And of course the price is right. All the stories can be read free online.

Amazon review

Goodreads review

Comments

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