Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm A Supervillain

Penny's mom is basically Batman, so she might have suggested destroying the sleeves as part of a minor Battle Strip for intimidation.

On the other hand, that excerpt's name implies that the title of the next book will be Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm an Extracurricular Superhero, so maybe not? I'm probably reading too much into it.

I don't think Penny's Mom either knows about her daughter's activities, or wants to admit she knows about her daughter's activities, just yet. And her dad is clueless.

We're talking about the excerpt from the next book, which involves Penny thwarting supervillainy in a costume that makes her civilian identity perfectly clear (it's pretty much just the goggles). Her parents would have to figure out that's her, and she might have gone to them for advice.

It looks like the book will be about Penny trying to be hero, possibly balancing that with her Bad Penny persona.

It seems the author has posted drafts of chapters one and two online, as well as promising to post the third once its done. I already linked the first one a while ago, but the second is new content!

I bet Penny's Mom worked out the timing and phrases of that car trip for maximum intimidation. Well, I wrote that right before I read the next sentence that explains that's exactly what she did...

I like this. It really shows how much of a villainous mentality Penny has absorbed.

W Hoa, one hundred thousand dollars?! Being a villain is really paying off.

Those rules (specifically the punishments) seem kind of lacking.....

Although really A+ parenting there in my opinion. Those rules help (or try) to keep Penny safe as well a as punishing her.

edited 24th Jul '15 4:08:27 AM by 32ndfreeze

Whelp, guess my theory that her parents helped her costume is straight out the window.

I'm wondering if this might be the book where her parents finally discover she's a supervillain. It has to happen at some point, but my initial assumption was that it would be in book 4.

I initially assumed a mid-book 4 / end of the book reveal as well.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35363821/GRch3.pdf

Third and final teaser chapter is up now.

I like this line.

Well, the first few chapters have definitely confirmed Penny's school to have a very high population of super-powered children.

liked the meeting in the principals office. It supports the idea that in this universe most heroes and villains are just in in for the thrills. I mean Brian has apparently considered / fantasized about attacking the school facility with one of his Mad Science weapons at least once.

Rage and Ruin? Were those two of the villains working for Spider in the Orb of the Heavens heist? I'll have to go back and check my copy later. Although it I bet Rage and Ruin are laughing on the inside knowing about Penny's villainous activities.

I resent the implication my wmg is wrong about The Audit having contacts in the villain community.

The author totally named-dropped a trope just then didn't he.

That explains why no one noticed any of the equipment in the lair at the end of the last book.

Rage and Ruin were involved in the library heist, yes. I got the impression at the time that they were a bit younger, but I guess they're not that old anyway.

Penny's mom can still have contacts among the villain community. It's just that those who know her daughter is Bad Penny probably find it hilarious not to tell her.

Totally saw the part about the club becoming a real superhero kids club coming.

edited 7th Aug '15 1:46:55 PM by Discar

Random thought. Would Claire's opinion of Rage and Ruin count as in universe (aka main page, not YMMV) case of Les Yay. Because it's not a variable reaction, it's being expressed in universe.

Also interesting chapter over all. And Sharky's family is creepy.

I don't think it's really Les Yay, because it's not "You two would be so cute together!" it's "You're living together and raising a child together. Why aren't you married yet?" Cassie is a flat-out Shipper on Deck, Claire probably too, but I don't think Penny is there yet.

Nng... so looking forward to this one.

Next book to be released on February 8th 2016. Title is The World Will Be Saved By Tech Support / No One Wants To Hide Their Super Powers / Please Don't Tell My Parents I Have Henchmen. I'm unsure which is the actual title, I'd assume the third one though.

The author also put a up a nice summery of the Puppeteers invasion on his blog.

edited 25th Dec '15 4:18:41 AM by 32ndfreeze

The Jovians were the only confusing part, to me. I think maybe they should have been left out. I actually thought they were just another name for the Puppeteers, and that Juno was Harvey's otherwise nameless partner.

Please Don't Tell My Parents I've Got Henchmen comes out tomorrow! Who's getting it?

I will definitely be getting it.

Been looking forward to this for ages.

Only annoying thing is I have to pay $8 for the ebook. Because Australia.

EDIT: Turns out it's on the amazon store in Australia. Just brought it. Unfortunately I have to go out today So I won't be able to read it until tonight.

edited 7th Feb '16 2:20:01 PM by 32ndfreeze

New post because I'm putting my thoughts on the book in here and I don't want to spoil anyone.

"Claire wrapped her arms around one of mine, stepping up right against me. It was almost a snuggle, and in a gentle reassuring whisper she told me..." Come on, I'm almost 100% sure that was intentional.

"Thank you Bad Penny, for rescuing the lostest puppy I know. From, Eviceration." Dawwwww

Surprisingly Dangerous Weevil Man is totally a Worm reference isn't it.

Again, totally intentional. "Claire stepped right up close in front of me. Crystal blue eyes, normally so playful but now sharp and invasively direct, stared into mine. Our glasses almost touched."

Some of Marcia's reactions to pain are a little...

I'm fairly certain the author reads TV Tropes.

Finished. Did not expect that fromCassie. Also Penny as Spider's apprentice sounds pretty interesting. Although Penny has the firepower to support an empire. Spider's on a whole 'nother level to do it with intelligence alone.

Marcia & Mourning Dove also might be getting into an apprenticeship. I also find it pretty funny that The Original is a massive jerk.

Finished it as well. I... liked it?

It's basically what I asked for, the characters just interacting in daily life, less focus on the action. I always enjoy that. This makes me sad that my biggest gripe is that it felt the book felt a bit like it was treading water and never went anywhere. It just introduced a bunch of new characters, yet didn't really focus on any of them or the old characters and resolved none of the tensions. The Penny and Rey relationship thing was a good example. Stuff happened, things moved marginally forward and that was it. Good step, pleasant to read about but with a yet again postponed pay off.

Also is it only me or are there way too many girls with names starting with C? I think we're up to at least six now. I'm bad with names so in a group scene where they're all present I sometimes had to stop and think which one was speaking/being talked about.

I did like what little we saw of (I pause writing here to check her name to make sure I don't get it wrong) Claudia's inner workings. It's always fun to ponder on the question of supreme power and responsibility, especially when you dump that all on a young teen.

The youth of this world still seem overly callous about taking things from others.

So in conclusion, I suppose, it was a fun read but felt like it could've achieved more with the time allotted. I think that's my general gripe about the series after the first book. A lot of stuff happened in the second one but mostly action and didn't develop the interesting aspects of the thing.

I thought the Cassie thing was intentionally signalled to be coming from a mile away with Penny being oblivious of its approach. Unless you're talking about some other thing and I'm getting the C characters mixed up again.

Was better than the second one but lost to the first.

edited 8th Feb '16 11:13:12 AM by GabrieltheThird

Just finished. Good stuff, but honestly, the first one was far and away best of the three.

edited 8th Feb '16 2:08:32 PM by Eagal

Finished it, loved it.

I agree that there's lots of Les Yay with Claire. Cassie's was more subtle, but there. Penny historically hasn't been very good at noticing signs like that. She spent the entire first book thinking she was in a love triangle, and in the second completely missed Remmy's building jealousy.

The boasts from all the kids was somewhere between Narm Charm and awesome, I loved it.

Yeah, this book didn't quite go anywhere, but that was part of the point. "You're just kids, you don't have to decide anything right now." That was explicit in the Ray/Penny romance; yes, they want to take that somewhere, but even with Ray's problems, they don't need to rush.

Just one question—how the hell did anyone think Penny's robot could pass for Bad Penny? Didn't they say it was half her size?

Marcia could have stood to get more focus because there's a shitload going on with her that's only vaguely hinted at, such as the minor matter of her getting powers out of nowhere.

Should have left out like...half of the Bull shit. Bull's great and all but really once he was back together with his family he could have stood to be less active in the plot. And speaking of Bull's family, Polly could have been cut out entirely. There is basically no point to her.

edited 8th Feb '16 8:58:55 PM by Eagal

I kinda like the meandering plot though. Overall I like books 1 & 3 the most

I wonder if book 4 will follow the pattern and be more serious like 2 was.

edited 9th Feb '16 12:24:40 AM by 32ndfreeze

To clarify: I don't dislike meandering plots in general. In fact I rather enjoy them. Tried to get that across with my opening lines. It's just that this, I feel, is a series that really needs to resolve some of the things it's been carrying since book 1, but yet again it didn't really touch those but rather went everywhere but there.

Stuff like the Audit being clueless (I feel that she should've caught on to things by the end of the second book at the latest. If I recall correctly the point of the stasis bubble thing was that it was impossible for others to determine how long they had been there, but someone like Audit would notice that hair growth, the age of any bruises they got on their adventure, etc. didn't match what was being said. The books are also really stretching the believability of her intentionally watching the other way because "private". Would love to be proven wrong, maybe it'll come out that she knows already and is acting this way for some other, justified reason or something.), consequences of the actions of Inscrutable Machine actually hurting people rather than being just kids out havin' a bit of unconventional fun (though on this it has gotten slightly better on the IM part, they engaged in that sort of activity less, but now the other in their club were doing it. Which may be entirely intentional and going somewhere, but it should've gone there already), etc.

I like the series, it has good writing and good ideas but it feels like it has the bad traits of some other serialized content, such as TV and Manga where they seek to intentionally keep the status quo so they can stretch things out. I don't like it when it happens elsewhere, but with books I have even less patience for it.

I really loved the fact that the other kids in the club were sort of off focus. Stuff like Marcia's problems, Claudia's issues and the other kids development. It avoided the usual trap of the main character being the focal point of every issue and showed that stuff happens even without Penny being directly involved. It allows the characters to have their own issues and agency. I really liked how the book handled Marcia in this regard. It's just that series pacing wise this maybe wasn't perfect moment for all that without there being something else to balance it.

Speaking of which, one moment where it did break against that was with Penny apparently being absolutely crucial in the Bull getting back to his family thing and 'everybody' being super grateful to her about it. She did have her part in it with the conversation in the first book, the actual details of which are a bit fuzzy for me at the moment and I CBA to go and check, but did anyone else feel that the amount of adulation she got was perhaps a bit unwarranted?

I think Bull was the one who spread around the idea that Penny was the one responsible for getting him back together with his family. And considering that he's apparently stayed away for ten years until she suggested otherwise, maybe he has a point.

Finished the book last night. It was like eating a sugary snack. I loved it all throughout, and then afterwards, I felt vaguely dissatisfied. I will agree with others that the book seemed to lack focus. A lot of new characters popping up and days and weeks just kind of passing by... the latter actually kind of makes sense in retrospect since part of the plot of the book is how, as you grow up, outside responsibilities leave you less time to just hang around with your friends. But the new characters... take, for example, the illicit archaeologist who just sort of shows up in the museum, gets introduced, gets an explanation of who she is, and then completely vanishes after Mourning Dove shows up. I felt a bit the same way with Bull's extended family. They felt like the author has character sheets from an RPG campaign and he wanted to make sure that he got all of the character notes into the book despite them being there and gone.

I dd like the hints that Penny's power is maturing such as when she builds the puzzle cube without blacking out, or even being really aware that she's building something super-sciencey. And Ray's family situation shows that there are some things that neither love nor super-powers can fix. I agree with the others that The Audit still not picking up on who Penny is is odd with my bet being on a willful disregarding of facts due to confirmation bias and the disinterest in the chaos caused by the kids dipping into supervillainy is also really weird... you'd think they'd at least have someone looking into the crime scenes. I know there's some ambiguity about whether to treat kid supervillains as adults or kids from the whole Inscrutable Machine fiasco, but it feels like they went from seriously considering it to completely ignoring it.

On a side note, I really feel like I missed an explanation... the whole science building heist where they steal the disruptor and the self-repair kit, I got by the end that many of the inventions had been stolen from inventors and passed off as the work of scientists but the way people talked about it, I felt like there had to have been some earlier mention about it. The characters certainly talk like it's a given.

Another side note, I didn't like the introduction of power measurement equipment. I feel like, if it existed in this world, we would have had scenes of Penny's dad measuring her to an inch of her life. It just sort of felt like it got shoehorned in and then exited just as quickly.

For cerebral powers like Penny's it didn't seem to work very well. Although she wasn't using her power at the time.

The impression I got from the scene was that for the most part for non physical powers the equipment doesn't work too well. Or only measures single variables.

Hmm... I suppose that it might be a matter of interpretation, but I was left with the impression that her powers worked just fine, except that they have matured to the point where she can create something without having to black out.