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

That's what I thought too, but note that the machine didn't really give any useful information regardless. Maybe you need an expert to read the thing. I liked the realistic way of measuring power. No pointing a wand at someone and getting a discrete number. Even the strength machine, the simplest one, could barely do that. The cerebral one felt a lot like the magic one, to me: "Just play around with this machine and we'll get a bunch of data that we don't understand in the slightest."

As for stealing mad science inventions, I don't think it was quite what you thought. It seemed to me like a bunch of normal scientists (fresh out of college who nearly lost their company to a scam) trying to reverse-engineer mad science. I got the impression that it was perfectly legal, if not likely to actually produce many results. If they succeeded, they would be pretending these were their own inventions—they'd be like "We salvaged one of Bad Penny's dolls from a crime scene and managed to replicate the effect."

edited 10th Feb '16 11:10:15 AM by Discar

So the books out? BRB.

Edit. When I've read it. Laters...

edited 10th Feb '16 10:09:00 PM by TamH70

Read the book double post.

What can I say? I loved it. It's much more like the first book than the second, which is for me nice as I kinda preferred that one. I love the family interaction with Bull, Claudia and Irene - in fact I'd love a side-book focusing on them - they're just so cute, realistic and entertaining to read about. Teddy is brave as hell for an eleven year old kid, but eleven year old kids have to be brave anyway to survive at school with other kids who are two foot taller than them at worst, so he's not unbelievable - and he has sugar-focused powers, like what Penny used in book one.

Oooh! I didn't notice that sugar connection of my first read.

I'm really a fan of how Penny only gets part of the picture with the problems of those around her. It adds a nice degree of realism to it. It's best shown by how little Penny finds out about Marcia's problems with her father. And of what she does find out she mostly finds out indirectly or overhears it.

We should be due another book next year, hopefully. As long as Richard Roberts keeps up the quality I'd be happy even with it being delayed though.

Finally got a hold of it and read it earlier this week (issues stopped me from getting it sooner)

Loved it. I agree, it was in many ways much more like the first book than the second. (And I liked it much more than the second as well). The second always felt rather... disconnected from the first book and comes across as something of a side story to what is now the ongoing narrative, while the third continues on the main story.

The big difference with between one and three is that one is rather self contained where as three is something of a transitional piece. It works fine on its own but its clearly setting up things to come, which for me isn't a mark against it, it just means the narrative pay off has been delayed a bit.

On other matters, I'm inclined to agree that yes, Claire is flirting with Penny. Given that she's also stated a few times to drape herself over Rey in deliberately seductive poses on occasions and that one of her stated goals in life is to live a life as romantically adventurous as her mother, I'm just not sure if it should be taken seriously. I think she's using both Rey and Penny as test test subjects for her flirting techniques.

Cassie on the other hand... I had an inkling but wasn't sure if my inner Yuri Fan just had the shipping goggles set too high until the very end there. I mostly suspected when she said "The person I like already likes someone else" when looking right at Penny and it became clear from latter behaviour that she wasn't jealous of Penny which meant she wasn't referring to Rey.

Been re-reading Henchmen. Better on a second read (and it was good on a first), but its transitional nature is more apparent. My writer's instincts call for a more thematically conclusive climax than what we got. This particular book probably isn't the best place to look for that.

But what I would have done is make the running background plot of the tournament a little more important. Have it slowly becoming more organized, then split into teams, and eventually a winning team is named and a battle called with Penny. They can even turn it into a major event with parents showing up to watch, to book end the football game at the beginning. Then she shows up with Ray and Claire, all in full Inscrutable Machine gear, and that's how she reveals herself to her parents.

But maybe book 4 will have a super awesome reveal scene that will blow this little plot bunny out of the water. Besides, it would have been out of place in a Breather Episode anyway.

New samples out! These aren't for Nemesis, but for a side-story called I Did Not Give That Spider Superhuman Intelligence. It's set in the 80's, from Goodnight's perspective, and seems to be Spider's origin.

Ooooh. Nice. I hope we get information in this one about things Penny doesn't know about the superhero/supervillain system. Since it's a new perspective and everything.

I think at this point there isn't a superhero/supervillain system. Thugs are kidnapping people off the street for Mad Scientists, and a harmless villain's quirky sidekick is brutally murdered by a hero. I think a big part of this story is going to be about why Spider is needed.

Pre-orders are up for the prequel, I Did Not Give That Spider Superhuman Intelligence.

Hmm. Could be good.

I've completely blanked on this thread for a while. I need to catch up with the preview chapters soon. I'm definitely getting the next book on release though.

God, I love these books. I consider them my Supervillainy Series' rival. :) Mostly because we came out at the same time and have similar sales.

The author is great.

I admit, though, I prefer when the books stay lighter and softer rather than try to get darker. Hence I preferred the first book and the third book rather than the second. That felt a little too far and away from the fun and enjoyable world of L.A. I mentally cast Maise Williams as the protagonist of the series.

edited 21st Nov '16 8:11:33 AM by CharlesPhipps

If you don't like dark, I advise you to stay away from Quite Contrary, which is Richard's take on the Red Riding Hood mythos. It's a cracking book but I found it a lot harder to get into than any of the three (so-far) books in the Please Don't Tell series.

Oh goodness, yes. Even before they got into the abuse backstory, that one was quite dark. Good, but dark.

I should check out his other series sometime. They seem interesting enough, and I like the author.

Oh wow. The next book is way closer than I thought.

According to Amazon it has a December 1 release date. So only nine days away!

edited 21st Nov '16 2:39:04 PM by 32ndfreeze

Apologies for the double post. But I Did NOT Give That Spider Superhuman Intelligence! is out today.

I completely forgot about it too. I'll need to read it tomorrow.

edited 1st Dec '16 3:39:39 AM by 32ndfreeze

I got the notice in my email that it had dropped, but I too will similarly lack time to properly digest it.

Oh nice! Something to get on Monday.

Can't wait to review and TV trope it!

Other than Irene (Goodnight), and obviously Bull, Polly Vinyl is mentioned, The Expert shows up, as does Spider, and I think I just ran into Mourning Dove, although the name isn't there yet.

Wow... some of these callbacks are pretty amazing. I really did not expect the pizza place with the animatronics to be plot-relevant.

Did you catch the one about Lucyfar? Mammon claimed to have a spell to summon an uber-powerful "angel of darkness." He didn't manage to do it, but I'm thinking that's where Lucyfar eventually comes from. I can't remember how long she and Gabriel had been active by Supervillain.

I posted a question to the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Stack Exchange. I'll pass on anything I learn there.