I have a confession: I am not a superhero fan. It’s not that I dislike them—not at all. But after a brief flirtation with the genre when I was a teen, I haven’t really given superheroes much thought. Oh, I knew they were around, of course, and I’ve even caught the odd Superman and Batman movie (and enjoyed them), but I wouldn’t know Deadpool from Deadman.
So, you can understand my bemused delight at ending up in Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen.
I’ve enjoyed working with Claude Lalumière before, so when I saw the call for submissions for one of his anthologies, with Mark Shainblum, I wanted to submit something. But what?
Have I mentioned that I’m not steeped in the superhero genre…? I knew I didn’t want my superhero to have a mega superpower… that’s just not me. But I’ve always been fascinated by the sense of smell. I know some people who will only know the milk has spoiled by drinking it. Others will know the moment they walk into the kitchen. So, what happens when someone’s sense of smell is so developed it becomes debilitating?
And what if this new power developed in an ordinary guy just coming out of World War II who is forever changed by unusual circumstances? It’s not something he wanted—nobody would want that kind of superpower—but he has it and now he has to figure out what he’s going to do with it.
To be honest, I wondered if Bloodhound was “superhero-y” enough. After all, he can’t fly, or climb walls. He doesn’t have any of the other conventional superhero powers. Really, he’s just a quiet guy, who’d rather be left alone.
So, after all this, I still don’t know a whole lot about superheroes. But maybe Bloodhound is more like the ones I know than I had thought. He just wants to be left alone, but he can’t sit idly by when he sees something wrong. In the end, he really is rather extraordinary.
If you want to learn more about the stories in Superhero Universe, I invite you to visit Corey Redekop, one of the authors in the anthology. In collaboration with Edge Publishing, Corey has been posting a series of interviews with the authors. Cool stuff.