City of Heroes: The Freedom Phalanx

by Robin D. Laws and Perseus

Book Overview

Despair stalks the streets of Paragon City. Five decades after Statesman and his allies first formed the Freedom Phalanx, that legendary group of heroes is no more and power-mad villains stand poised... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1593152213
• ISBN13: 9781593152215
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 394 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Great Service!

Great Servie! Preoducr arrived safe and sound in a nice packaging to make sure it wasn't damaged.

Decent superhero novel

A decent superhero novel, not great, but pretty good. Based on the in-character history of the City of Heroes roleplaying game, the book seems to go a little too much out of its way to hold fast to some things that happen in game, much like the previous novel, Web of Arachnos, had one hero from each in game class and in game power origin. A nice read if you're a fan of the game. Though Emo-Statesman gets a little annoying at times.

Surprisingly good!

I recently finished reading this surprisingly good novel, ,which featured the "City of Heroes" game universe's main characters. I was very surprised at how good it was. I did not expect it to be such a satisfying read as it was. Well worth reading, especially if you are into comic and heroic fiction. I hope Robin Laws is writing another in the series, his storytelling draws you in and makes you question ask "What happens next?" An EXCELLENT book!

Great reading for my son and myself

I haved played the game from beta and when I saw the book I bought it right away and was not disappointed. The characters jumped right off the screen of the game (some are trainers and now in the SF of CoV) into the writing of Mr. Law who filled the 5 superheroes out with back storys and details of there lives and there arch enemies who they have to defeat to take back Paragon city!

Better than I expected

I normally avoid licensed fiction like the plague, but I picked this up because: a) I beta-tested and heavily played CoH for a couple of years and had a lot of fun with it before moving on to other things. b) I like to play /GM superhero roleplaying campaigns (using the HERO System / Champions) and good in-genre fiction is hard to come by these days. c) I noticed the book is written by Robin Laws, a veteran of the RPG industry that has written for many different game lines and is well regarded so I figured I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. So I rifled thru the first few pages of the book while browsing to see if it had the same lowbrow writing style as most licensed products, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the prose is pretty engaging and the story is a fun read. I particularly like a couple of characters; the hard boiled archer vigilante Manticore (sort of a melange of Batman and Hawkeye), and the speedster / electrical blaster Synapse were a lot of fun to follow. One of the things that helps elevate the story is that Robin subtly colors the writing based upon the character that currently has focus, and the dialogue is characterful. All in all, a surprisingly fun and easy read.