Shrinking the Heroes

Winner
Carl Brandon Society Kindred Award

Special Citation (Runner-Up)
Philip K. Dick Prize

The award-winning political satire (originally
published as From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain),
Shrinking the Heroes is a hilarious, outrageous,
gonzo take on the Bush Administration, confirming
Minister Faust as one of the finest novelists of his
generation.

Shrinking the Heroes contains the
book-within-a-book, Unmasked: When Being a
Superhero Can't Save You From Yourself!, a
self-help book for superheroes recounting the group
therapy of six of the worst and most powerful
super-employees of the Fantastic Order Of Justice
(the F*O*O*J).

Superbly caricaturing a range of DC and Marvel
superhero conventions, while taking expert aim at
the idiocy, shallowness, hypocrisy and viciousness of
the celebrity industry, the cult of therapy, and the
imperial US presidency, Shrinking the Heroes will
make you laugh, cry… and yell.

WRITERS AND CRITICS HAIL
SHRINKING THE HEROES

ROBERT SAWYER, Hugo Award-winning author of Hominids: "Minister Faust
does it again: an outlandish, outrageous tour de force by the most innovative
prose stylist in the field, bar none."

COREY REDEKOP, author of Shelf Monkey: "Faust's novel stands equal to such
classics [as Watchmen and Dark Knight]."

CHARLES SAUNDERS, author of Imaro: "Pure satire... laugh-out-loud comedy.
Superhero parodies have been done before. So have dysfunctional super-beings,
ranging from Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four to the Watchmen. But nobody
has done it as well as the Minister. If Richard Pryor had ever written science
fiction, he might have come up with something like Shrinking the Heroes
Minister Faust is shaping up to become a one-man New Wave in the SF genre."

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW): "Sharp satire of caped crusaders
hides a deeper critique of individual treatment versus social injustice....
uncomfortable parallels to real-world urban tragedies in the novel's 'July 16
Attacks.'"

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: "Entertaining... saavy."

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH: "Brilliantly complex … dead-on satire of our times."

BOOKLIST: "An excellent superhero comedy as well as an unsettling satire."

BOOKPAGE: "One of the most entertaining books to cross your path this
year...."

STATIC MULTIMEDIA.COM: "… a hilarious, sure-fire page turner."

THEOCENTRIC: "Hilarious…. Faust's writing style is absolutely a blast."

THE PINOCCHIO THEORY: "Had me laughing from the first page to the last. But
the book is also a mind-boggling, multi-levelled allegory of racism and corporate
fascism in America today.... Faust is brilliant."

SFSITE.COM: "A whirlwind of jokes, satire, obscure pop references, devastating
cultural analysis and prose poetry that never lets up from beginning to end.... This is
political and cultural satire of the highest sort, and Faust is earning a place among the
masters of the craft."

BLOG T.O. SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW: "A major accomplishment that is laugh out loud
funny... This is the most revolutionary work of SF since William Gibson's
Neuromancer…. I'm confident in saying that this is the best SF book of the 2007 -
maybe the best book of the year."

SUNQIST BLOG: "The best book of the year... incredibly important...."

STRANGE HORIZONS: "Hilarious and pointed.... Like all the best satirists (Swift comes
to mind).... Cutting commentary... true art."

SF READER.COM: "A well-paced suspense novel packed with twists and bluffs, together
with an intelligent satire on post-9/11 Western society.... Wonderfully written... a
multi-layered and satisfying read."

SCIFI.COM: "[Minister Faust's] insane fecundity and jazzy verbal dexterity, his sheer
brio and exuberance... reminds me of Ishmael Reed or Steve Aylett... plenty of
moments in this novel where I laughed out loud."

RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL: "A hilarious new voice.... One of the most compelling reads
I've experienced.... One of the most layered, complicated narratives I've come across,
and the ending is particularly chilling."

STATIC MULTIMEDIA.COM: "… a hilarious, sure-fire page turner."

CHERYL MORGAN'S BEST OF 2007: "A modern-day Watchmen."

THE GATEWAY: "…scathing social commentary and political satire [on] the nature of
modern journalism and politics, to drugs, racism and vapid, shallow celebrities....
Excellent."

SAKURA OF DOOM: "Brilliant."