Shadow Steel: A Gritty Sci-Fi Superhero Thriller (Book 1)

By John Osaze and Osaze John

In a city built on the bones of industry, the rust is coming to life

Finch Wilson was just a weary mechanic in a dying Pittsburgh steel mill who "talked to the metal". But after a desperate mission into the condemned tunnels of the Carrie Furnaces, the metal started talking back.

Pinned beneath a collapse and facing certain death, Finch is consumed by the Umbra Shard-a parasitic, iridescent black fluid that seeps into his skin and fuses with his skeleton. He emerges not as a man, but as Shadow Steel: a towering obsidian predator with the power to manipulate gravity and crush tank plating with a single blow.

But power comes with a devastating metabolic cost. The suit is a living organism that eats him alive, leaving him ravaged and starving after every transformation.

As the fanatical Jett Walker-the "King of Rust"-threatens to purge the "weak" of the world through a global resonance event at the Kinzua Dam, Finch must decide what he is willing to sacrifice. Hunted by H.A.L.O. (High-threat Anomaly Logistics & Oversight) and caught between a journalist who wants to make him a god and an engineer who wants to keep him human, Finch is the only shield standing between humanity and its own evolution.

He is not a hero. He is not a monster. He is the Shadow.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GQH7PLM6
• ISBN13: 9798249924652
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 364 Pages
• Weight: 1.07 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"