Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: Atom (Time Warner)
Release Date: January 2004
ISBN: 190423352X
Awards:  
Format Reviewed: Paperback
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Genre:   Teen-YA / SF [Contemporary, Smallville]
Reviewed: 2004
Reviewer: Rachel A Hyde
Reviewer Notes:  
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Shadows
Smallville Series

By Diana G Gallagher


        Clark Kent is on his way home from school when he finds the dead farmer, and instantly people are wondering whether it was the fallout from the disused missile silo or the LexCorp fertilizer plant. Then new girl Sharon starts getting very friendly with Clark, and very keen to get on the staff of the school newspaper. Mysterious animal deaths add another puzzling dimension to the problem, and maybe Sharon’s scientist father is not merely writing a science fiction novel after all.

     Smallville could have just been a junior version of Superman, but the fact that it is far more than that explains the show’s continuing popularity and my own assessment of it as “inspired.” This novel reminded me of a Buffy story with the mad scientist and his mutants, things going bump in the night, and school life, but a lot less tongue-in-cheek It’s an exciting story, predictable but lifted above all this by the turbulent relationships that mark this series out for closer viewing. As ever, the tormented Lex and his doomed friendship with the squeaky-clean Clark dominates the tale, as it ought to. The fact that something so seemingly plot-driven as Superman has been turned into something so character-driven continues to compel.