Wayne of Gotham: A Novel

by Tracy Hickman

Overview

When the Batman begins to investigate the events surrounding his parents' murder, he will also uncover the darkest secrets of his family's past. No fan of the Dark Knight will want to miss this one-of-a-kind window into Gotham’s dark protector in this fast-paced thriller from New York Times bestselling fantasy writer Tracy Hickman. Readers of Kevin J. Anderson’s The Last Days of Krypton and Enemies & Allies will know that comic book characters pack a powerful punch when they enter the pages of a novel. Wayne of Gotham is no exception: as the DC Universe’s millionaire playboy journeys into the dark recesses of his own past, his a journey that could spell the end for everything he holds dear—and the end of the hero he has become: the Batman.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062074225
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/26/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	307
Sales rank:	516,009
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Tracy Hickman is a bestselling fantasy author best known for his work on Dragonlance, as a game designer and coauthor with Margaret Weis, while he worked for TSR. In all, Hickman wrote more than thirty novels in collaboration with Weis. He lives with his wife, Laura, and their four children.

Editorial Reviews

Much closer to the Burton/Nolan Batman films and the Frank Miller graphic novels than to the campy 1960s TV and comicbook incarnations of the character. An imaginative look at the human side of an iconic superhero.” — Booklist

“Wayne of Gotham truly digs into new ground.” — USA Today

From the Publisher

Much closer to the Burton/Nolan Batman films and the Frank Miller graphic novels than to the campy 1960s TV and comicbook incarnations of the character. An imaginative look at the human side of an iconic superhero.

Booklist

Wayne of Gotham truly digs into new ground.

USA Today

Wayne of Gotham truly digs into new ground.

USA Today

Much closer to the Burton/Nolan Batman films and the Frank Miller graphic novels than to the campy 1960s TV and comicbook incarnations of the character. An imaginative look at the human side of an iconic superhero.

Booklist

Bruce Wayne, Gotham City's dark knight, discovers that the primeval event of his life--the murder of his parents, Thomas and Martha--may hold clues to the nature of his worst enemies. Industrious fantasy novelist Hickman (Embers of Atlantis, 2011, etc.) turns his attention to the weird world of Batman in this noir-tinged thriller. To assemble his plot, the author has gone back to Batman's well-known origin, doing his fair share of retconning along the way. For the casual fan, the superhero will be just as familiar, armed with Teflon-coated Batarangs and rumbling around Gotham in the pimped-up Batmobile. But the book spends equal time with Bruce's father, Thomas, a doctor who is enraptured with his future wife, Martha Kane. But the good doctor is also using the Wayne fortune to finance research into eugenics, the science of manipulating human populations. Back in the present, Bruce/Batman keeps running into lunatics like Harley Quinn, who seem to believe that they are long-dead contemporaries of Thomas, and that Bruce is in fact Thomas. As Batman, Wayne uncovers his father's part in the creation of the '50s-era gang of vigilantes called The Apocalypse. The conspiracy bits of the book struggle a bit with explication, but Hickman does a nice job of measuring the bleakness of the late-'50s set story with a blend of action, technology and the high-pitched madness that Batman inspires. Neither as grim as its cinematic counterpart nor as byzantine as the current comics, but casual readers and fanboys alike may be caught off guard by this divergent adventure.

Kirkus Reviews