Today we’re joined by Alma Alexander. Alma’s life so far has prepared her very well for her chosen career. She was born in a country which no longer exists on the maps, has lived and worked in seven countries on four continents (and in cyberspace!), has climbed mountains, dived in coral reefs, flown small planes, swum with dolphins, touched two-thousand-year-old tiles in a gate out of Babylon. She is a novelist, anthologist and short story writer who currently shares her life between the Pacific Northwest of the USA (where she lives with her husband and two cats) and the wonderful fantasy worlds of her own imagination.
What do you suppose would happen if a perfectly ordinary human being somehow seized a moment in which an extraordinary ability blossomed to face a crisis or an adversity… and turned themselves into a literal ‘superhero’? In the introductory story of the Val Hall books, the founder of the place talks about Superheroes First Class (they can’t help it, they’re gods, and that just comes with baggage…) and Superheroes Second Class (rich mortals, effectively – people who can use their wealth to create a superhero persona or trick themselves out with ‘special’ abilities, people who need zero help from the rest of us…) and then there’s Superheroes Third Class, people just like you and me, people who might claim to have done a single extraordinary thing that changed the world.
Val Hall is there to help these people, when they get too wounded, or too old, to care for themselves. This is home, the last home of all, the place where you come to find your kind and to be loved, respected, even venerated, but never patronized or belittled or treated like you’re no longer important or necessary. Val Hall is the Retirement and Rest Home for Superheroes, Third Class. A place to find sanctuary when the world moves on from your own moment. A place where such legacies are brought to be remembered, and appreciated. A place that will find you when you need it – a sort of Hogwarts, which will send you an invitation to take your place amongst the deserving when the time comes when you have a need for it.
You might think that there is very little to be said on the subject of decrepit, ancient, geriatric ex-heroes in a nursing home in the twilight of their lives – but you’d be wrong. This is the wisdom of the elders. These are the superheroes you will remember.
There are no high-speed chases here, or “shazam” moments, or ‘Deus-ex-machina’ gods, or aliens. We aren’t going to Wakanda, or Gotham, or that place that almost shares the name of my refuge, the “other” Valhalla. You’re coming home, with me, with all of them, with Eddie the orderly who has his own secrets and who cares for them and loves them all and is so fiercely proud of them all. You’re being given a rare privilege. You’re invited to talk to a superhero. One on one. You’re invited to find out what makes them tick, what makes them unique, what makes them special… and how you can use all that as a mirror to find out where you’re special, too.
Superheroes are us. They always have been.
Welcome to Val Hall.
The Val Hall books, and other novels by Alma Alexander, can be purchased as ebooks at Book View Café or as paperbacks on Amazon.
Website: www.AlmaAlexander.org
Twitter: @AlmaAlexander