At midnight last night, Mur Lafferty launched the first episode of her much-anticipated novel, Playing for Keeps.

Playing for Keeps is a novel about super heroes, a genre I love dearly. Rather than being an origin story, we come into a world where super heroes have been around for a while and where the Academy trains super-powered humans to control their powers and use them for the greater good. Of course, not everyone can fly or control lightning. Just as in anything else, there are those with powers not considered (by the Academy) powerful or useful enough to be considered heroes. It is these third-wavers who lie at the heart of the story and who get caught between arrogant heroes and villains with their own agendas. Among these is Keepsie Branson, a bar owner who was once rejected by the Academy because her own power was judged utterly useful. But as it turns out, our third-string heroes may well have something to offer after all.

It was great to hear Mur reading her own fiction once again. Ever since Heaven - Season Three: Earth came to a close, I’ve been missing out. I first discovered her when I found the Pseudopod horror fiction podcast. She’s got a great story-teller’s voice, capable of using subtle differences to separate the different characters from each other and from the narrator, and of bringing to life the characters and the story. Her readings were always captivating at Pseudopod, and when I heard her read Jonathan Sherwood’s Under the Graying Sea, I was so drawn in I admit I actually teared up at the end of the tale.

In her own fiction, she always has the knack of identifying and emphasizing the smallest details which can really bring everything to life. Heaven could have been a run of the mill coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of disjointed scenes from various concepts of the afterlife. Instead, thanks to her skill at crafting a story, it has been a fluid story seamlessly flowing through various heavens and hells, through the end of days and beyond. I’ve really enjoyed it, and look forward to the promised seasons four and five. In Playing for Keeps, she’s already caught my interest by addressing the often-overlooked reactions to the wanton destruction caused by super-powered battles in a major metropolis. She portrays a different view of super-heroes, one where they’re arrogant jerks expecting adoration and gratitude from everyone around them. I can’t wait to see what happens as Keepsie and her friends are thrust right into the middle of everything.

I’ve been looking forward to this novel ever since Mur read a couple of chapters for us at Dragon*Con. So far, it’s everything I’d hoped it would be, and more. I highly recommend you go over to her site and subscribe immediately. Go for the full Playing for Keeps Experience feed, which includes PDFs of each episode as well as the audio feed.