Last one, I promise.
Metropolitan Man is a retelling of the classic Superman tale as rational fiction. The hook is that it's mostly from the point of view of Lex Luthor and Lois Lane. The story begins from Lex's POV when he first learns of the flying hero. Intellectual curiosity piqued, Lex begins investigating and what he finds disturbs him. This “Superman” is not limited to flight or super strength but also possesses the ability to see through solid matter and hear things from a thousand miles away despite the fact that any sound would be lost to thermal noise. Superman isn't playing by the rules and while he seems well intentioned Lex has concerns about how much that could change after years of fighting the worst society has to offer. With the potential fate of the world at stake Lex begins very carefully looking for ways to off the big blue guy while taking every precaution against detection.
While Lex is busy exploring the limits of paranoia Lois stumbles into the story of the century when a handsome stranger in a ridiculous outfit chooses her to share his story. He claims to be an extraterrestrial from a far away planet and the last of his kind. He provides a full list of his powers and explains that he intends only to intervene in places where he's doing unambiguous goods such as stopping violent crimes and helping people caught in natural disasters while avoiding participation in wars and anything partisan. Lois is simultaneously fascinated and terrified by the mysterious hero. On one hand he seems to be interested only in doing good but on the other hand he can see through walls and hear things on the other side of the planet and seems to have a personal interest in her. Superman attracts and repels in equal measure.
As the story progresses Lex makes several attempts on Superman's life, maintaining his anonymity by working entirely through proxies who are instructed via long chains of mostly untraceable communication. His investigations confirm his worst fears, Superman is unkillable. His tests also killed large numbers of people since they were reliant on high powered explosives. The psychological pressure on Superman mounts and Lois begins to worry. Lex seeks her out for her expertise on the man of steel and she asks him to help her discover a way to stop him if he should ever stray from the straight and narrow. Bad things happen, Lois comes around to Superman, and he discovers Lex's involvements with bombs and other crimes. I won't spoil the ending except to say that I saw it as one likely outcome of many and it still managed to surprise me.
Unlike the other rational fiction that I've reviewed this story is about eighty thousand words long or about the length of a standard novel. It covers not only a two way mystery with Lex investigating Superman while Superman investigates Lex's crimes but also compares and contrasts how the two of them reason. Luthor is firmly in the consequentialist camp concerning himself entirely with the possibility that Superman could bring about human extinction if he so wished and that the next forty years could throw any number of psychologically destabilizing scenarios at him. If Super man has a one percent chance of losing it and going on a genocidal killing spree that kills a billion people it should be treated as the death of ten million (1,000,000,000 * 0.01 = 10,000,000). Superman by comparison is a deontologist who is firmly against ever killing or breaking the law. Both men think that what they are doing is fundamentally the right thing and we hear both elucidate their positions clearly. What I think really drives the moral ambiguity home is that the whole story takes place in the 1930s and the author doesn't spare us just how different the ethics of less than a century ago are from our present. The story can be found here and on fanfiction.net.
9 FAST 9 FERROUS