Fallout (book excerpt) + Cloudy with a Chance of Destruction

Lois Lane: 

Fallout 

(Excerpt)  

Gwenda Bond  

Capstone 

Lois Lane: 

Cloudy With a Chance of Destruction 

(an official teaser short story)  

Gwenda Bond  

Capstone

This novel has already received a big push on NY electronic billboards and Wal-Mart. From the looks of the excerpt, it should be a fun one.

Lois Lane, daughter of a general, is a new student, who no sooner sets foot in the school than she's meddling. She overhears and witnesses a kind of mind manipulation via a mob of students. The student's nonsensical complaint falls on deaf ears. Lane speaks up in the girl's defense.

Her meddling gets her in trouble with the principal but also lands her a job at the school newspaper.

The novel builds up her trouble-making antics--most of which make sense when she gets to explain her end of things.

The short story, found online here, relates how Lane foils the plot of a young man trying regain the love of his ex-girlfriend. He tries to impress her with his father's tabletop cold fusion experiment.

Like the other story teaser, Lane's troubles are actually someone else's. This is typical in detective fiction, but personal involvement in the tale tends to increase reader involvement. The story ratchets up more suspense than the last.

The stories (the other, "Lois Lane: A Real Work of Art," reviewed here) are interesting teasers, but reading the novel may be the best starting point and these stories a place to relive the novel, for those enchanted with Lane's world and can't get enough.

"Lois Lane: A Real Work of Art" by Gwenda Bond

Lois Lane: A Real Work of Art 

(an official teaser short story)

Gwenda Bond 

CapstoneSwitch Press

Here's a stroke of bookmaking genius: telling Lois Lane's story. In Gwenda Bond's capable hands, the character takes on new life as a girl detective. The story is billed as "an official teaser short story for the young adult novel LOIS LANE: FALLOUT that takes place before Lois moves to Metropolis. FALLOUT is forthcoming from Switch Press in May 2015."

This short work is available online here. It relates how Lois Lane, who is supposed to be an art prodigy, feels out of her depth in art class. However, she stumbles upon a clue that will help resolve a crime. There's also a cute reference at the story's finale if you don't read it too quickly as I nearly did.

The tale is described as a teaser, which it does well, hinting at the novel to come. The story itself is perhaps too quickly resolved, but one does sense something of Lane's character, a smart and sometimes witty YA detective. Fans of Veronica Mars, take note.