Dire: Born: The Dire Saga, Book 1

I am all in on Andrew Seiple's Teslaverse, and it's because of his stories about Dire, a science-villain whose brain damage compels her to refer to herself in the third person. Dire - her only name - has to be one of the most engaging supervillains ever thought up. Factor in, too, that Seiple's worldbuilding hinges on Nikola Tesla's exerting a more comprehensive influence on the world - for instance, all super powers reportedly stem from an explosive Tesla experiment back in 1908 - and what we get is a refreshing, alternative take on the superhero.I am two books in in the Dire saga, and so far I'm in the dark with regards to her origin. Dire: Born begins the story in medias res, with our girl fleeing from faceless assassins, having just ten minutes ago awoken in an automated surgical chair, her scalp stitched up, her head pounding, her secret lair compromised. Ducking bullets, racing down storm sewers and eventually out a spill pipe that pours her into the bottom of a pier, Dire staggers into a homeless shanty town on the beach. That's the start of this one.Other books have pulled it off, prose that delivers a page-turning tale as told thru the supervillain's perspective. My two most shining for instances are Jim Bernheimer's  Confessions of a D-List Supervillain  and Drew Hayes'  Forging Hephaestus (Villains' Code Book 1) . I also liked Rafael Chandler's  The Astounding Antagonists . Dire easily takes a place at the table.No use analyzing Dire. Just love her already. It's that old, familiar case of the villain believing with utter conviction that she's the hero of the narrative, that she's doing the right thing, that she's saving the world. And because it's Dire narrating in first person, we get to really dive into the underpinnings of her motivations. Her world is populated by untrustworthy heroes and laws that marginalize the exploited and the disadvantaged more so than they protect or enable them. Dire's power set lies in the area of engineering. She's a supergenius with a strong streak of naiveté. Fresh off her unsolicited brain surgery, she's like a kid who has to learn social cues and pop culture and such. She right away picks up on the potential edge in presenting a convincing kayfabe. Kayfabe, as you know, is "the art of controlling and shaping the narrative," of selling a story so well that folks get sucked in, never mind that they know it's all bullsh--. Kayfabe, in wrestling context, means "staying in character." Appropriately, Dire finds out about kayfabe by being shown a wrestling show on the tube.Dire is guarded and blunt. She's a supergenius who can invent and adapt at the drop of a hat, and, in her power armor, she speaks all in CAPS. But she comes off like the underdog. The rookie villain. I love the relationships she builds with those that took her in, and how what she has to offer them gradually inserts her as a leader in their community. Shanty town is often embattled, often short on food and meds and hot water and such. There's an uneasy truce with the neighboring gang, and that's only because shanty town has a former costume living in it - and dude is old and on a wheelchair. Read Dire: Born to see how things progress, how things come to a boil with that gang and how Dire, in stepping in, begins to make friends and influence people. In her eyes and yours and mine, her actions define her as a hero. The do-gooding costumes and the agents of MRB (Metahuman Resource Bureau) see it another way.Andrew Seiple hurtles like a bullet to the top of my list of favorite authors. His character work invests you not only in Dire but in her supporting cast. And because Seiple doesn't write fairy tales for kids, things occasionally go from bad to worse for our guys, and you feel awful for them. Back to the worldbuilding: Icon City is almost like another side character, it's colorful enough. Icon City runs on Tesla's broadcast-energy network and boasts "more costumes per square mile than the rest of the east coast combined." I hope, in future volumes, Seiple explores more of Icon City's chromatic history.When she springs into action Dire is a badass, a fierce combatant, a devious strategist, and an intuitive inventor. She's a blend of Doctor Doom, Iron Man, and, uh, Dory from Finding Nemo. Keep in mind that she's doing all this while a victim of a cataclysmic memory wipe. The book ends with the mystery of Dire still very much intact. But there's enough of her that the reader comes to know and to like very much. I love that at times she can't help but fall into campy villain behavior, like the random cackling or her decorating one of her gizmos with spikes and an ominous skull face (which she thinks is cute) and then getting offended when people call her out for doing campy villain stuff. And don't fret, dear reader, the campy stuff doesn't at all undermine the drama or propulsion of the narrative. It's just a neat side flourish. Anyway, I look forward to reading further stories in the Teslaverse. By the way, Volume 2 of the Dire saga,  DIRE : SEED (The Dire Saga Book 2) , is as dope a read as this first one.

I really enjoyed this. The fact that Dire the main character is basically genius gadgeteer. This is set into a Y2K apocalyptic sort of world. A world where the villains like Dire are the heroes and the heroes are basically villains. The cops are corrupt and no one has any power because of Y2K.Dire wakes up in her lair without any memory of the past. She ends up in a beach with a bunch of homeless people. She confiscates an Iron Man like armor from a dead superhero. She has plenty of adversaries. The Black Bloods. WEB. Heroes. There is plenty of action.The quirky thing about Dire is she speaks in the third person. It is never divulged why. I guess I have to read the next volume. The characters that support dire from the homeless group are fleshed out. Some have powers the rest don't. There is even vampires in this to some extent. AI's. This whole story takes place in a matter of days.I always loved the original Iron Man in his kitbashed bulky repulsorless armor. Dire is the female version of Tony Stark. She even has a nice stash of cash amongst the homeless. An added bonus was a group of supers called the Steam Punks. I hope they are around in the next and future volumes. I have it 5 stats. I read it pretty quick. It reminded me of Forging Hephaestus Villains Code. Another enjoyable book. If you are into villains, heroes, technology, steam punk, Y2K conspiracy give this a whirl.

This is an origin story which throws you right in the middle of things. At first readers are thrown into a mess of action that they don't understand. Who is Dire, Why are people trying to kill her, what is going on?These questions are slowly hinted upon as the story progresses. But more important than the backstory of the main character, is her slow development into a person of increased purpose and responsibility and her ties to the other characters around her. Slowly we learn more about this world where superpowers exist as a normal facet of life. But it becomes quickly apparent that just like the world we live in, the Teslaverse is not a paradise and there are no end to the injustices around that mix in with the good. We see these injustices (which are relevent to our world as well) from a fresh set of eyes through Dire, and it makes them that much more ugly because of this. Though the world presented here is dark, that darkness isn't all consuming or opressive feeling. There are many light hearted moments and humor sprinkled through as well, even when things are at their worst. The story has a lot of heartAnother thing I liked about this story which slowly crept up on me, was that the characters all seem to have varied dialogue. I found myself giving them different voices in my head as I read and they all felt like separate people with their own unique hangups.I don't mean to imply that everything about this story is perfect. Though the major plotlines were tied up, the ending was a bit abrupt feeling. And I felt like the Author could have done a bit more to explain the details surrounding the cause of the big power outage. And some of the action segments seemed to go on longer than I would have liked. But any faults I found were more than made up for by how engrossing the story was.I recommend giving this story a try.

The book is convoluted but well written with very few errors. Lots of action and an interesting story line. I’ll be buying the next book and hope that it answers some questions.

I really liked this look into labels, chaos, development and society. The idea of villains and hero’s really shows the subjective nature of a lot of this. Dire is interesting in this regard as she knowing none of this is coming in with a really subjective look. A little predictable at times but still with a great set of twists. Coming from nothing showing homeless culture in a very different light and working together I am highly looking forward to the next book.

Mature in outlook and in content and with a great cast of characters that you really care about, not least our anti-heroine.Tons of action as well and that for me was the only weakness. Felt a bit like one of those near 3 hour blockbusters where, no matter how good, you start looking at your watch. Could probably have shortened the story in places and not lost anything.

A classy lead character - who starts out as an enigma and evolves into a complex mix of a anti-hero with a villainous camouflage (and a tendency to go MWAH HA HA at random intervals) and an interesting environment with superpowers and urban decay. Grab hold and enjoy the ride.

Does it make me a bad person to agree with the protagonist?..... seriously she needs to get a medal for putting up with a lot of these morons

Great book, enjoyed the character on Spacebattles forums as the writer writes there under the name Lost Demiurge, and had to purchase the rest of the books in the series. My only complaint is that there's not enough books in the series. Dammit, Andrew, WRITE MOAR! :)