Time travelling super hero Futureman visits the 1950s to fight radioactive monsters and evil space lords in this humorous scifi action adventure tale.
Everyone dreams of being a hero but very few actually do anything about it. Enter Nathaniel Hawkins, a university janitor who plays a few too many video games, drinks a little too much beer, and desperately needs to get his life in order. That is, until he discovers how to travel in time and be a hero to those in the past. His adventures will pit him against a flesh-hungry robot monster, intergalactic space lords vying for power, and an evil emperor bent on destroying the planet Earth. This is the campy tongue-in-cheek tale of how a super-hero is born, the mistakes he makes along the way and the impact he has on all of the lives he touches. He is the ordinary guy who takes a stand, he is Futureman!
Professional Reviews
Drive-In Sci-Fi and Action
While I'm not old enough to remember the glory days of drive-in movie theaters, I've definitely watched more than my share of the old flicks that used to be shown at those wonderful old places. Cheesy science fiction and horror films made their way to many of these outdoor screens and scared plenty of teenagers, families, and film buffs over the years. Old serials also made quite a few dollars as they played out on these screens.
It is with these types of stories in mind that I believe Michael Moreau and Reggie Walsh created "It Came From Tomorrow." This book is bad, but not the type of "bad" you might be thinking of. It's written deep within the same vein as films like "The Tingler," "Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere," "Plan 9 From Outer Space," and "From Hell It Came." These stories, while poorly executed on the screen, realized what they were and played up this fact. So does this book.
The story focuses on Nathaniel Hawkins, a janitor at a university in the future. In his world, he's nobody, but when he stumbles upon a time travelling, he utilizes it to become a hero in the past.....but usually by accident. Hawkins finds himself caught in a battle between an evil emperor and one of his underlings who has a crew of inept warriors with names like Saturn, Uranus, and Mars. Hawkins stumbles his way through the story, trying to find his place in the world, and eventually has to face off against some particularly mean baddies. As is the case with most science fiction and horror from the 50's, the book ends on a cliffhanger, making the reader hungry for more.
The authors mingle 50's sci-fi technobabble with heroes that drink cheap beer and villains that are so self-centered and dumb that it's a wonder that they ever came into power, but that's the beauty of this tale. It's not based on hard science. It's based on a couple of guys sitting at home and combining all of the bad things about old sci-fi that make it wonderful, tossing in an entirely clueless hero with good intentions, and villains that, at least in 1952, sound great on paper but look wretched on the screen. That's what this book is, and that is what makes it excellent.
Quick and Quirky Read
This homage to 1950 serials was a fun read. It has all the things you need for a “bad” sci-fi book that knows it is “bad.” It even pokes fun at itself and the author’s plot devices. With its tongue in check humor, it reminded me of the Douglas Adams “Hitchhikers” books.
The overall story is centered around an unlikely but likable hero that was at the right place at the right time to get his hands on a time traveling device to travel into the past. This allows this regular guy to live out the fantasy of being a super hero and saving the day.
The other characters are stereotypes of what Hollywood thought people where like and how they should act. The villain has a maniacal laugh with multiple moronic henchmen. Several of my favorite parts involve the henchmen. The 1950’s locals are in awe of the hero and his bravery.
I was concerned that the book’s plot would become boring towards the end with an expected ending of the hero saving everyone without breaking a sweat. Luckily, as the story progresses, twists start to occur that allows your imagination to take flight. I don’t to give away any spoilers so I would just like to say I’m looking forward to see what happens in the next book.
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