Stupid is as Stupid Does: New Heroes: Sakkara by Michael Carroll (London: Simon and Schuster, 2006)

A disappointment. The sf equivalent of the fantasy middle-book journey is the training school. At least in Star Wars they kept it to the first fifth of the movie.

Kid superhero Colin accidentally reveals his real identity. He and all the other new heroes are taken off to Sakkara, a base in the American desert. There they train, are called out to battle an old villain called Dioxin, and come into contact with the Truetopians who encourage the lawful to live in gated communities which they control.

The book is, unfortunately, riddled with stupid. Ok, one of the superheroes will turn out to be a traitor who can control minds and hence make people overlook the obvious, but in order to make this book readable it might have been better had the readers been let in on this earlier--although that might have turned it into a comedy. It's a mystery why they all agree to do what Josh tells them. It's a mystery that they ask so few questions. Diamond sets off in search of her family without ever questioning the convenience that they had suddenly been in the news. No one on the base ever considers that if most terrorist attacks are on a specific community, but using the name of the heroes, there might be funny business coming from the specific community. I think even a ten year old could spot the conspiracy theory yet these very intelligent people do not.

I'll stick with the series because the first was so good, but it feels now as if that were a pilot and this is book one in a long running series where stupidity will keep the plot spinning.