by Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

As it has been out for a month and sitting near the top of the NY Times Bestseller List during that time, you may have already heard of Brad Meltzer’s The Book of Lies by now. However, what you might not know is what this book has to do with Superman’s home. No, not Krypton… the other one, the house where writer Jerry Seigel dreamed up the Man of Steel over 70 years ago. But whereas Krypton may have been destroyed, the tiny house in Cleveland is being restored, saved from its deterioration by a group of generous fans.

Meltzer (who also writes for Justice League of America) discovered the poor condition of the house when he was researching The Book of Lies and enlisted some geeks in high places as well as Superman fans to help. An auction with everything from t-shirts and donated artwork to rare memorabilia and a walk-on role in Heroes raised twice as much as Meltzer was anticipating–over $100,000, enough to renovate both the outside and inside of the house. The elderly couple living there now have agreed to eventually sell the house to the Siegel and Schuster Society.

And though I didn’t intend this to be a book review, I’ll add a few words about The Book of Lies since I read it a couple of weeks ago. I quite liked it, and I have a new appreciation for Meltzer’s work. I admit, I kind of wrote him off after reading The Tenth Justice ten years ago (which, despite a great premise, fell flat in execution for me), but I think that his writing has improved dramatically. The question at the heart of it was enough to intrigue me: what do Cain and Abel have to do with Superman? Whereas I don’t think that this will be the next DaVinci Code in either popularity or controversy, it is a good, fun read, and should be of particular interest to Superman geeks, if only for the tour through the Siegels’ (some real, some fictional) history. And as a bonus, here’s a trailer for the book, which includes appearances by Joss Whedon and Brian K. Vaughn.