Book Review: Indigo Nights by Leonardo Urso

You might like this book if you:

-Are a fan of superhero team stories
-Want a bunch of new characters to fall in love with
-Are up for a lengthy read to sink your teeth into
-Are okay with a lot of character drama in between well-written action
-Have daddy issues

To summarize:

Indigo Nights tells a queer superhero story packed to the brim with dynamic characters, clashing egos, and shocking revelations. With a bold choice of story structure, Urso manages to develop heroes and villains whose motivations are both relatable and believable, and who subvert tropes typical of the superhero genre. The story blends seamlessly into the character development, and the writing style captures the adrenaline of action scenes and the emotion of high-stakes events. Though some readers who don't like character drama may find it lacking, and the writing can get details mixed up at times, I believe the book deserves far more eyes on it than it has received so far.

Before the end of everything

Indigo Nights is the first novel in the Zenith Trilogy--a character-rich superhero story filled to the brim with relationship dynamics, character drama, and action. It follows a superhero team known as the Zenith, each numbered 1 through 6, who were given powers as infants by a mysterious artifact known as the Zenith Crown. Since then, they have been raised by Thaddeus Axton, a stern old lion who they all consider their father, and who raised them into a powerful superhero team. But those glory days are long past, and the team's personalities have begun to clash. When they all lose someone important to them to the hands of Dietrich Ziegler, their evil scientist arch foe, the whole team falls apart, and each Zenith sets out on their own path to sort out their complex lives.

It's a setup that reminds me of a few stories where a team breaks up right at the beginning, but usually those teams have been well established in prior works, so the audience knows who everyone is in advance. Indigo Nights makes the bold move of introducing us to six characters and then having them break up before you've even had a chance to commit their names to memory. And yet, not only does it somehow work, but it works brilliantly.

Heroism Builds Character

Let's start with the obvious: there are a lot of main characters here. You can gauge that right from the front cover. As someone who struggles to remember character names, I was initially worried about that character count. Luckily, the author seems to have known this would be an issue, because the cover serves to help you remember who's who. Not only are the character portraits on the front cover, but the character names and superpowers are also listed on the back cover in the same order. This was immensely helpful as I was learning the characters, and I was able to stop referencing these just a few chapters in. So if you also have trouble keeping track of a large cast of characters, I encourage you to still check this book out.

Each character soon becomes memorable enough to remember on their own anyway. As each Zenith goes on their own journey, often crossing paths with their siblings in a sort of elaborate dance of character development, the resulting drama helps us get to know them. Again, usually the "getting to know you" part of a story happens *before* the characters part ways. Here, the story uses the reactions of each character to a tragedy to paint the picture of who these people are. What they do after the tragedy essentially helps to define their characters. For example, one goes off to Los Vegas, gets in a relationship, and becomes a sexually-charged illusionist, showing they're someone who wanted to experience the world outside their heroism, yearns for love and approval of others, and also might be a bit self-destructive. That's just one example of one character, meaning you have a lot of other character dramas to sink your teeth into.

I use the word "drama", but this book is far from a soap opera. I never felt like what any of the characters were fighting over was contrived for the sake of that drama. It all felt extremely warranted and contributed to the overall story, which is a really hard thing to do in a story like this, so hats off to the author on that one. Maybe there are some readers who'd be put off by this if they REALLY can't stand dramatic tugs of war between characters, but this feels far above the kinds of stories those readers would usually detest, so I'd encourage them to still give this one a chance.

No More Heroes

The side characters outside of the Zenith are their own complex tableaus. Thaddeus Axton, father of the Zenith, and Dietrich Ziegler, enemy of the Zenith, feel like two sides of the same coin. The book starts with an intense scene of these two finding the Zenith Crown together before jumping forward a few decades, so we know they have a past together right away. Discovering why one is now a mistrusting and secretive father figure and the other is a monstrous and murderous scientist is a big part of the intrigue.

The villains are done exquisitely. Ziegler is of course the main feature, but his comrades are all suffering manipulation (or downright control) by Ziegler in a unique and interesting way (also revealed throughout the story). What makes a good villain is a popular talking point these days, and I think people who feel villains in modern storytelling tend to be lacking will enjoy the villains in this book quite a bit.

Even the characters who are bystanders in this whole conflict have something going on. The sheer amount of character here all sounds a bit exhausting, but I think it really helps to keep reader's attention. There are no boring characters here, and so whenever the book focuses on one or the other it never feels like a slog or like they're unwelcome in the scene.

Oh Yeah, there's a Story

I've talked about the characters extensively, because that's certainly the main feature here. But what about the story? Well, that's excellent as well. Much of the story is based on unravelling secrets long kept from the cast, and even some kept from the reader. The Zenith have split up, but Dietrich Ziegler is still out there making plays and meddling in affairs that the characters care about, often causing them to cross paths again in order to stop him.

But Ziegler's moves aren't disconnected from one another. They all contribute to his overall plans and play an active role in unraveling more of the story's intrigue. They also escalate at a pace that keeps the characters and the story moving. It helps keep such a long story interesting the whole way through, and I hope that same energy is kept in the sequels that I have yet to read.

I of course can't really go into spoilers on this story, so I'll just conclude by saying that I found even the slow parts of the story interesting. I didn't find any of it unnecessary or shoehorned in.

Big Action, High Stakes

I won't say the writing style is perfect. Sometimes it can get a bit purple, and some details feel out of order from time to time. Continuity is sometimes broken in small ways, such as a character suddenly appearing out of nowhere (only Kyran is allowed to do that). But I otherwise found the writing style engaging. Usually when I look into whether to read a self-published book I read a sample to get an idea of the writing style, and this one was interesting enough that I picked the book up after reading one page alone. That can be a rarity for a self-published book--especially one that, as I understand, is self-edited--so props to the author once again. (Heck, there weren't even many typos.)

The most impressive part of the writing style is in the action scenes and high-stakes emotional scenes. The style sort of beefs itself up for these scenes, quickening its pace for action and slowing down for high-stakes emotional events. I really enjoyed these scenes. They made me feel the adrenaline and the stakes of certain events, which is what I'm always looking for in a good writing style. The ending especially is written with a captivating intensity that was well worth sticking around.

The End of Everything

It's a shame this book hasn't gotten more readership, but I certainly think it's good enough to eventually get more readers. Furries especially are big fans of original andromorphic characters with lore, and this book has them in spades complete with a bounty of artwork both on the cover and within the pages. I'll be happy if this review results in a few more eyes on this project. It deserves a lot more credit than it's gotten.

Print and Ebook: https://www.amazon.com/Indigo-Nights-Zenith-Trilogy-Book/dp/B0D9517Y7D