When 38-year-old Evan Schuhman develops superpowers that transform him into the most powerful human on Earth, the first thing he thinks about is his bank account. He is an accountant, after all. “There’s got to be a way to make money off of this,” he tells his wife one night.
Like Peter Parker, who jumped into a wrestling ring for some quick cash after being bit by a radioactive spider, Evan wants to exploit his good fortune in some way. And so, after a brief appearance at the MTV Music Awards, he dons a star-emblazoned yellow T-shirt, squirms into a tight-leather outfit, and drops a big dollop of Pomade on his head. From that night onward, he is known as Rockstar.
Schuhman quickly finds out that being a superhuman celebrity has its downside. Much to his dismay, his life wasn’t filled 24/7 with hookers and blow. His friends couldn’t be trusted, his wife hated him, his children were distant, sexy Russian spies were stalking him in nightclubs, and the U.S. government wanted a piece of his DNA to genetically engineer an army of telekinetic super soldiers.
Worst of all, Schuhman’s sudden superpowers came with no wisdom whatsoever. Overnight he had become a superhuman hotshot, but there was no direction in his life. “You’re a guy will special gifts,” agreed Gen. Graham of the U.S. Special Investigation Unit. “But you don’t have any guidance, no job, and only $4,200 in the bank.”
Call Me Rockstar is a novel about sudden fame, misuse of power, and the dangers of excess. Peter Parker learned pretty quickly that great responsibility came in tandem with great power. Evan Schuhman, on the other hand, learned quickly that he could use his powers to win buckets of cash in Las Vegas, screw pretty girls, hang out with rappers, and ingest tons of stimulants.
During this period of debauchery, Evan finds out about an asteroid zooming toward Earth. Unless something is done quickly he is told the planet will be obliterated. As it turns out, mankind’s last hope for survival rests upon the shoulders of a drunken fame whore with super powers. Will Evan marshal his considerable telekinetic abilities and stop the meteor? Or will he take another hit of X and spend his last moments in bed with a couple of Vegas hotties?
At this point, Call Me Rockstar takes its cue from an old Led Zeppelin song. “There are two paths you can go by,” sang Robert Plant back in 1971. “But in the long run there’s still time to change the road you’re on.” It was time for Evan to save the world and (if possible) save his soul. Who knew that “Stairway to Heaven” contained such profundity?
[Call Me Rockstar / By John R. Bendle / First Printing: August 2012 / ISBN: 9781478259770]
Superhero Novels 