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

I'm more or less the same. It came out with so little announcement that I was in the middle of another book (with one more on my "to read" list as well).

So how is this, tone-wise? I'm not really in the mood to read something depressing at the moment.

I just finished it today. It's ultimately uplifting, but Penny loses her family, her friends, and her powers, and risks losing her humanity. That said, as per three except, one of her sidekicks is an animatronic Gerty Goat...

I loved the book, best one since the first one.

And we have a wiki page: Please Don't Tell My Parents You Believe Her

NOOOOOO!

THIS CAN'T BE THE LAST PENNY AKK BOOK!

WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME!

[weep]

(My reaction to the epilogue)

edited 14th Apr '18 7:24:06 PM by CharlesPhipps

And so ends the saga of Penny Akk a.k.a Bad Penny. I'm saddened by this event because I have been a huge fan of this YA series since it began with PLEASE DON'T TELL MY PARENTS I'M A SUPERVILLAIN. The fact the series is not going to be continuing with the Inscrutable Machine but spin offs like I DID NOT GIVE THAT SPIDER SUPERHUMAN INTELLIGENCE is disappointing despite how much I enjoyed it.

The premise for this book is Penny Akk has had her body stolen by a parasitic version of her powers (which is more complicated than it sounds). She has been put in a robot body and is now being hunted by the majority of superheroes in the city. Penny must gather up a bunch of allies, including a Chucky Cheese-esque animatronic animal called Gerty Goat then take the fight to her worst enemy: herself!

As a finale to the series, I think the book is a bit wanting but a decent individual adventure. Ray Viles and E-Claire are absent for too much of the book with their dynamic sorely missed. I also regretted we didn't find out about Penny's parents reaction to the discovery of her supervillain career—it happened off screen. Instead, we got a lot of encounters with new characters as well as a lesson on tolerance from superhumans to robots (who are treated as subhuman).

Honestly, I was also a bit disappointed by the handling of Parasite Penny. I was really looking forward to seeing our heroine deal with a genuinely evil opponent for the first time. I feel like it was a missed opportunity to deal with a Penny who didn't have the same qualities as Penny but was able to fake it. Instead, the book seems to retcon the origins of the Parasite and her attitude from the previous book's cliffhanger ending.

Much of the book deals with the issues of prejudices faced by artificial people in Los Angeles with robots treated as disposable individuals by superheroes as well as villains both. It's surprising since we've met cyborgs, people made out of candy, and other enormous spiders that get all the rights of regular people. I was pleased Penny's parents also tried to handle the issue of "Robot Penny" in a well-meaning but stupid way as befitting how they normally handle things.

The Inscrutable Machine are some of the best characters in superhero prose and someone I have really come to bond with over all the books we've read with them. I'm a huge fan of Penny, Claire, and Ray. I love all the weirdos they've befriended and appreciate the encounter we had with Claudia a.k.a. Generic Girl. She remains my favorite of the author's creations. It's a quirky and fun world that contrasts strongly against all the ones headed by supervillains or ruthless antiheroes. I also love Gerty Goat and how ridiculous she is as a 7ft tall animatronic pizzeria entertainer.

So special thanks to Richard Roberts for making such an entertaining book series. I certainly hope we'll get more of his quirky oddball superheroes in Los Angeles.

8.5/10

So, I just finished.

Still processing feelings.

Great points: Mech meeting Gerty. Meeting the ones who have gone fully posthuman. Lucyfar (always Lucyfar). Cassie utterly freaking out at having two Pennies. (Her line before being dragged away by Ruth in Chinatown is comedy gold). Marcia/ Miss A/ Ouroboros gets more interesting and more disturbing in equal measure. Her experiences during this book suggests that Penny is going to have an... interesting relationship with A.I.s, sapient robots and transhuman characters in the future.

Also I'm glad that Penny still has a mad science superpower.

If we do get more books in the verse I do hope we find out what happens to The Inscrutable Machine a few years down the line. (And if poor Cassie gets a girlfriend).

I am quite upset we didn't get to see the Akk's reaction to their daughter being a supervillain.

sad face

I just finished it today. It's ultimately uplifting, but Penny loses her family, her friends, and her powers, and risks losing her humanity. That said, as per three except, one of her sidekicks is an animatronic Gerty Goat...

Anything uplifting in the first sentence?

Bad news, the books are no longer available on Amazon. Long story short, Roberts cancelled his contract with Curiosity Quills due to non-payment of royalties, something mentioned before as part of the reason there aren't going to be future books in that series due to rights conflicts.

The good news is that if you already bought the books, you can still download them.

Edited by FuzzyBoots on Jan 22nd 2019 at 11:32:27 AM

Darn, that sucks for the author.

I also have yet to purchase the final book Mainly because I just knew it would be heartrending after the end of book 4

Hopefully the author sorts something out eventually.

Same. I was depressed for unrelated reasons when it came out, not in the mood to read it, and then never got around to it.

Best of luck to him.

Good news, everybody! He has the rights back, although he still needs to shop for a publisher.

Edited by FuzzyBoots on Mar 12th 2019 at 6:52:11 AM

And I have heard from a fellow author that he has managed to move the series to Crossroads Press, although the books have not shown up on the site yet. But there's hope...

Yes, he's signed with them and they're being re-edited now.

So hopefully we'll see them soon.

:)

Is that just grammar, spelling ect. Or will there be minor continuity changes too?

I think the books will be identical story-content wise. I just talked to the editor and they're almost done. It's just they're pretty big tomes despite their easy readability.

Ah. Well either way, I'll have to purchase the last book.

I've put off reading it for too long.

All right, after several years of being annoyed by it, I finally consolidated all the subpages, because there wasn't enough content to give each book its own.

What's up next for this series? I wasn't too impressed by Magenta's story (though I felt it had potential), but I really liked Avery.

FWIW, Tales of Capes and Cowls has a new story, "Summer of Lob", which details Bull's arrival in L.A., his first meeting with Goodnight and Polly, and his first fight with Evolution.

Outside of that, I'm not entirely sure. The author stopped updating his blog last year (it took a big hit around the time his publisher went down and temporarily took his book rights with it, and just kind of slowed after that). He does post often on Twitter, but usually random drabble rather than bits about the current stories. Lately, it seems like he's taken a turn to writing space fiction.

Edited by FuzzyBoots on Jan 31st 2023 at 11:05:46 AM

I'm in regular contact with Richard Roberts since I got him signed with Crossroad Press. He's started a new series after the failure of You Can Be a Cyborg When You're Older.

Its called A Spaceship Repair Girl but he's not stopping his present works on the superhero series. He just wants to diversify if possible.

He is considering an older Penny Akk one too.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 31st 2023 at 8:12:13 AM

I can't remember, do you (and Roberts, for that matter) self-publish or have agents? I never got the full detail on the drama with the rights issues.

We're both indie authors and we work with Crossroad Press, which is a mid-tier publisher. Sort of like the Image comics of Horror Literature (They do Brian Lumley, Clive Barker, and the Vampire: The Masquerade books) but also have a fantasy and superhero division.

FYI - A new manuscript was just turned in for the Please Dont Tell My parents series.

thumbs up

I have an arc (advanced reader copy) for PLEASE DONT TELL MY PARENTS I'M GIANT SIZED.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Mar 26th 2023 at 6:33:09 AM