Book review Written by Aury Wallington
BBC Books hardback
Release date 15 May 2008

What happened when Hiro went back to try to stop Charlie from being killed by Sylar...

There's nothing actually wrong with Saving Charlie: it does what it says on the cover, filling in gaps that the first season of Heroes had to leave blank simply because of time. It gives some insight into Hiro's character, and even presents some unusual ideas about what happened as he learned how to use his time-travelling power.

But it's not that satisfying. Both Doctor Who and Star Trek novelists have been able to insert stories into gaps in the ongoing plotline which have surprised the readers by taking the known facts and not necessarily twisting them, but certainly presenting a new take that makes the reader consider the known facts in a different way. Saving Charlie simply doesn't do that. You don't come away with a new appreciation of Hiro or of the Heroes universe. Paul Simpson

VERDICT: 6/10
Saving Charlie resembles one of the novelisations from the late 1970s where someone like Alan Dean Foster took a 100 minute film script and extrapolated a whole society from it. There's nothing wrong with that – but I'd rather read a novel that took us into completely new territory.

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