Alone: The Girl in the Box - Book 1 | Thriller Novel | Perfect for Mystery Lovers & Book Club Discussions

The following review aired in the May 6, 2014, Sci-Guys podcast, episode #155:I’ve never really enjoyed comic books. I don’t know why. In fact, it wasn’t until a friend recommended “Y: The Last Man” to me that I found the graphic form really compelling. So maybe this bias was why I never got into the whole superhero thing when I was young. It really wasn’t until the X-Men films and most recent Batman reboot that I took an interest in comic characters at all. But I did – in my 30s...better late than never – and just in time to admire Robert Crane’s indie-published fantasy series, “The Girl in the Box.”Right up front, I’ll say this: If you like the X-Men, you’ll like this series. It’s about a 17-year-old girl named Sienna, and it begins with her waking up, having been alone in her house for a week. Two men have broken in. In a wicked display of innocent, almost detached efficiency, Sienna dispatches them, thanks to a lifetime of intense physical training from her missing mother. Hardly a moment after she sets foot outside of her house for the first time in many years, Sienna meets two more men. One of them she feels very drawn toward. The other is a massive, ancient, immensely powerful monster who soon becomes bent on her destruction.I don’t want to give away too much, other than to say that Sienna has some very special powers, and she ends up at a sort of school for gifted people such as herself. If this sounds suspiciously like X-Men, well...I asked Robert Crane for an explanation.“I'm a huge fan of comic books and even the X-Men,” he said. “The fact is that any story dealing with superpowered humans that aren't of the traditional urban fantasy myth types (vampires, werewolves, that kind of fun stuff) are bound to get some comparisons to X-Men. I can't say I was playing to that audience, exactly, because what I had in mind when I started the story was a much, much more aloof mentor than Professor X ever was, and a harsher, more damaged protagonist in Sienna. I wanted to write a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-esque story. I think you'll find if you stick with the books that there's a widening gulf between where we start and where we end up in terms of the tone.”This was true. By the end of the 182-page first book, titled “Alone,” you were very much inside of Sienna’s head, exploring her past and the foundations of her fears. Crane makes her a much deeper, more engaging character than the usual X-Men fare, in part because he keeps her in the spotlight rather than spreading his attention around a large group. By the end of this brief novel, you’re completely caught up in Sienna’s struggle and racing for the end, and this feels much more like an original work than an X-Men knock-off.The end of “Alone,” of course, is only the beginning. The ninth book in the Girl in the Box series arrived just over a month ago (March 2014). Crane gives away the first three ebook volumes as a boxed set for free, and the subsequent titles run $4.99 each. That, my friends, is a hell of a deal. Crane’s books are fast-paced but not superficial. And if you hate cliffhangers at the end of your books, well...get over it. The Girl in the Box may be indie-published, but it feels completely professional. If you’re one of these people who still sneers at indie titles, ask yourself what matters more: whether the book was published in New York or whether you enjoyed it and the author keeps on delivering more of what you love.I asked Crane about why people should read indie, and he said, “I'm pretty picky about my reading. I remember being a kid – and an adult – with limited funds and buying a book because the cover and description seemed really cool. Then I started reading it and put it down after a chapter, never to pick it up again because it was blah. Well, if I'm reading a new traditionally published book, that's somewhere between $10 and $16 I'm never going to get back. With a lot of indie-pubbed books, you can pick up the first book free or for 99 cents, and if it doesn't hold you, well, you can put down at least nine more like it before you start getting close to what you wasted on one $10 book.”That said, I doubt you’ll be putting down the first three installments of The Girl in the Box. They’re free, but they’re awesome. If you dig smart, emotional superhero fantasy, you *won’t* put this down.