X-Men: The Jewels of Cyttorak
By
Dean Wesley Smith

Ever read an issue of X-Men Unlimited? This novel reminded me a lot of that comic. In the Unlimited comic it seems that every other month Marvel drags out an X-Men story that has been on the back burner for awhile, and passes it along to the reading public. The story itself is average if not sub-standard,and the characterization of the main players seems half-assed at best. This novel was a prose version of X-Men Unlimited.
The book started off with one of my favorite X-baddies the Juggernaut. He's always entertaning. The plot then introduced a billionairethat had found another of Juggy's mysterious jewels that gives him his incredible strength. The billionaire and his two sons have a "Jerry Spiringer" like family fight and the evil brother gets the jewel.
The rest of the novel has Juggy crossing the USA and tearing up property and land to find this billionaire,because the two jewels are causing Juggy severe pain.
One thing that has distressed me about any novel or TV show is the use of "Throw-away- characters". The billionaire family I could care less about. They added nothing to the plot and they were stereotypical. The "good son", the "bad son" and the "sick father." Writing 101 tells you to come up with more rounded characters and not go with such standard fare.
The book was no where as bad as the Gen X novel or the Empire's End novel, it just had a serious case of being average. And for that we give the average two out of four web heads.