Micropowers are nevertheless potent in compelling tale
“Duplex,” by Orson Scott Card (Blackstone Publishing)
“Duplex” is the second Micropowers novel by prolific best-selling author Orson Scott Card, known primarily for his award-winning sci-fi novels “Ender’s Game” and “Speaker of the Dead.”
In “Lost and Found” (2019), the protagonist’s micropower (much smaller than a superpower) is the ability to “recognize lost items and compulsion to return them.”
In “Duplex,” Card carries it to another level. Nerdish teen Ryan
Burke’s parents have split up. To make ends meet, his contractor dad has turned their house into a duplex. Ryan decides he likes Bizzy, a new girl in school, before he finds out that she and her family, immigrants from Slovakia, have moved next door into his duplex.
This closeness precipitates a growing relationship with Bizzy that brings out Ryan’s micropower (super-fast reflexes that he uses to protect those he loves). Bizzy confesses she also has a micropower: the ability to make herself extraordinarily beautiful. They are asked to join GRUT: The Group of Rare and Useless Talents. It seems micropower is not so uncommon. Even Bizzy’s mother has a talent: She can make you clumsy by suggesting that you are. In Slovakia she was labeled a witch.
“Duplex” soon evolves into a drawn out falling-in-love story between lovely Bizzy and increasingly not-so-nerdish Ryan. It heats up again when he must use his developing power to protect Bizzy and her mother from Slovakian witch-hunters.
For the most part, “Duplex” is a page-turner and Card makes you believe. Is that his micropower?