History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Two Heads are Better

| January 11, 2018

What’s better than a superhero? A team-up! Any time you get two (or more) superheroes involved, you’ve got potential for more exciting happenings. And, likely, more exciting conflict. In Sparx and Arrows, Kara Sparx, who is very much not a team joiner, works with Huntsman to deal with a problem that they’ve both had to confront–robotic […]

Holiday Reading: Heroes of Necessity

| December 28, 2017

Back when I worked at a university, I had the whole week between Christmas and New Years off from work. I don’t have that perk anymore, but I know a lot of people who take time between the holidays to relax. If you’ve got a lot of time and are looking for something to read, […]

Strange Paths to Super Heroes

| December 5, 2017

I did not come into writing about super heroes in the usual way. The first comic books I ever read were Archie and Richie Rich. These were comics that had belonged to the children of a friend of the family, and I was reading them in the 80s. The comics themselves were probably from the […]

Heroes of Necessity is available for pre-order!

| November 23, 2017

Just in time for the holidays, Heroes of Necessity is available for pre-order! It will release on Tuesday, December 5th, and you can have it on your Kindle that day if you pre-order! Here’s the blurb for this book: Not all heroes wear spandex and capes. Sometimes, they come from the most unlikely of places. […]

Superheroes in Other Times

| November 14, 2017

The first Cobalt City story I ever wrote (which was also the second story I wrote) was a late nineteenth-century look at one of Cobalt City’s legacy superheroes, The Huntsman. Since then, I’ve written another story of The Huntsman that takes place after World War II. Because The Huntsman is a legacy hero, it’s super […]

Introducing Heroes of Necessity!

| November 7, 2017

My next collection of short stories is in progress! This one is called Heroes of Necessity, and it’s about super heroes who don’t fit into the traditional molds. While the heroes in these stories have powers, most of them don’t have substantial powers, none of the kind that would impact the entire world. But they’re still […]

Review of Serpent’s Sacrifice by Trish Heinrich

| October 11, 2017

My latest book review for Mad Scientist Journal isn’t for a spooky read, but it’s for a good read! Serpent’s Sacrifice by Trish Heinrich is a super hero book set in a place that reminds me a bit of Seattle or Tacoma, and I suspect her fictional Jet City is based on some amalgam of the two […]

Mini-Reviews of Comic Books

| August 2, 2017

My comic book stack has gotten ridiculous, so I’ve been reading some of them before I go to bed, when I’m not reading a book that I need to review. While I haven’t posted many in the past week, since I’ve been travelling and didn’t bring my comics with me, I’ve been writing some mini-reviews […]

Shared Universes

| July 27, 2017

I’ve set a number of my short stories in a place called Cobalt City, which is part of a shared universe. Right now, there are about half a dozen writers working in the shared universe; a bunch of us are also in a Cobalt City game, run by the creator of the universe (who also […]

Review of The Refrigerator Monologues

| July 26, 2017

My latest review is up at Mad Scientist Journal. You can read about my thoughts on The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne Valente. The quick synopsis? This book is brutal and challenging and also beautiful and a must-read! Check out the full review here!