Confessions of a D-List Supervillain

By: Jim Bernheimer

Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer, Talmadge Ragan

Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Exploding from the pages of Horror, Humor, and Heroes, Volume One - it’s the full length adventures of the one and only Mechani-Cal! So grab your battlesuit and prepare to get a little nasty.

"Being a supervillain means never having to say you’re sorry - unless it’s to the judge or the parole board. Even then, you don’t really have to. It’s not like it’s going to change the outcome or anything." Those are the words of Calvin Matthew Stringel, better known as Mechani-Cal. He’s a down-on-his-luck armored villain. Follow his exploits as he gets swept up in a world domination scheme gone wrong and ends up working for these weak willed, mercy loving heroes. Immerse yourself in epic battles and see what it’s like to be an outsider looking in at a world that few have ever experienced. Climb into Cal’s battlesuit and join him on his journey. Will he avoid selling out his principles for a paycheck and a pardon? Can he resist the camaraderie of being on a super team? Does he fall prey to the ample charms of the beautiful Olympian Aphrodite? How will he survive the jealous schemes of Ultraweapon, who wears armor so powerful it makes Cal’s look like a museum piece?

See the world of “righteous do-gooders” through the eyes of someone who doesn’t particularly care for them. Revel in his sarcasm and hang on for one wild ride! Just remember: losing an argument with a group of rioters isn’t a good excuse to start lobbing tear gas indiscriminately at them. You’ve only got so many rounds and it’s going to be a long day, so make sure you get as many as possible with each one.

©2011 Jim Bernheimer (P)2011 Jeffrey Kafer

Enjoyed the story not a fan of the narrarators

It's a pretty run of the mill super hero story. Entertaining enough. Though the neither of the narrators are very good.

A Fun Bite Sized Adventure

This feels like 3 separate short stories rather than 1 continuous book. It is fun and fast paced pretty much all the way through. The author doesn't give a blow by blow accounting of what happens and leave the reader to fill in the gaps with their imagination. I can see how some may find frustrating, but I think it works here to keep the pace up.

The main narrator is great but the second narrator needs to work on their diction.

Really fun

This book has plenty of action and humor. I always enjoy a good super hero vs super villain story and this is definitely one of those good ones. This book was included in the membership so I listened to it before the first book. I was about half way through when I spent a credit on the first one and I'm going to listen to it next. I love a good series so I'm excited that I stumbled across this one.
Jeffrey Kafer is a fantastic narrator. I've listened to and enjoyed several books narrated by him. Ragan narrated the last couple chapters and she also gave a good performance.

Good read…

Female narration was unneeded and Broke some immersion. Story itself was imaginative while staying true to genre.

Not Quite The Avengers, But Just As Much Fun...

Superheroes and Villans seem the be the rage these days, especially with the Avengers, The Dark Knight, Spiderman and Kick-Ass all having their day in the sun. With that in mind, I can't help but say that I've always had a soft spot for well-written stories about superheroes and their antithesis, their arch-enemy villain. I've always savored a battle royal, sometimes to the death, where fantastic powers housed in finite and flawed men and women come to bear, where in the end, only one champion is left standing.

This is definitely a story of flawed heroes and villains.

Without giving much away, I CAN say that the story starts out with a world completely conquered, heroes and villains alike, and one very flawed anti-hero must choose the harder, more difficult road to bring humanity back from the brink.

Yep, that's where it STARTS. And its storyline is as good or better than most of the genre.

Bottom line, we get an exceptional audiobook listen, and while it's NOT War and Peace, it's a VERY fun and engaging listen, one to which I've listened a total of three times.

You read correctly. Three times.

Great escapism, and again, well-written.

So, champion, step into the battle royale. Bring your powers to bear, and get this audiobook today!

This book was a highly entertaining messed up ride

If you could sum up Confessions of a D-List Supervillain in three words, what would they be?

Cal has issues.

What did you like best about this story?

Cal was easy to connect with, plenty of fun tech, crazy hive bugs trying to take over the world.

Which character – as performed by Jeffrey Kafer and Talmadge Ragan – was your favorite?

Kafer was great for Cal, cynical and ticked off at the world.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Can the mech withstand the mind-controlling bugs?

Any additional comments?

In Confessions of a D-List Supervillain, Mechani-Cal (or just Cal) is a beat up down and out supervillain in a beat up mechanical suit. The world has gone buggy, literally. Someone’s science project escaped the test tube and these bugs can now attach themselves to humans and make them part of the world hive. Cal has been living in his mech suit for far too many weeks avoiding being assimilated. the story opens with a quick, dirty fight between Cal and some of the Olympians, guardians of the East coast. He manages to knock a bug off Aphrodite (Stacey) and flies off with her to his secret hideaway dump. Alas, it is a trap. Luckily Cal has an exit strategy and perseverance. After all, he needs allies to rid the world of the mind-control bugs.

This book was a highly entertaining messed up ride. Cal is such the anti-hero and yet not such a bad guy. He’s not afraid to do the tough deeds that need doing, as he sees it. He doesn’t shy away from a task just because society might frown on his resolution to the problem. Constantly doubting the good will of those around him (and usually with good reason), it is almost always Cal against the world. Couple that with his geek tinkering skills of creating mech suits, robots, body armor, and weapons and you have a supervillain who mostly just wants to be left alone. Alas, the world won’t let him curl up in his little cave of anger.

Most of the good guys have nothing but disdain for Cal, even after he saves their asses. But that’s OK because they have silly names, like the Bugler. Yep. The Bugler. This book has me chuckling out loud at the casual way these superhero (and supervillain) names would be tossed into the narrative. Anemone, Hermes, Komodo, etc.

The plot itself is really a series of smaller plots, one flowing into another. Kind of like a series of comics. One emergency ends just in time for another to develop, often popping up in just the right time and place to bite Cal in the ass. Poor dude. His love life is also complicated and I liked that it was all messy and not some cookie-cutter romance. Granted, all the women are hotties and only half the men are.

Bernheimer isn’t afraid to kill characters off and I especially like this. Real life has consequences, and when I read my fiction I like to see that reflected. No, I didn’t cry over any of the deaths and while Cal catches some flak for his actions, I totally cheered him on. In short, this was quite the fun listen, a great escape from average superhero tales. This tale reminded me of James Maxey‘s Nobody Gets the Girl and the webisode silliness known as Dr. Horrible, both of which I am quite fond of.

Interesting Concept

If you could sum up Confessions of a D-List Supervillain in three words, what would they be?

This made for a fast listen while driving around. It managed to keep me engaged enough to care about the main character. I'd recommend it.

strange and wonderful

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

yes, its not your normal look into superhero lore.........the characters seem somehow more real than say a spiderman or superman

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes and i did listen to it in one sitting

Just a Fun Story

What else can I say this book was just a fun listen. Good story, good narrating. Probably not an award winner, but I like this book .

What a Sweet Surprise!

This book was not what I expected. I was thinking I would find something funny and probably a little dumb. What I got was a hilarious story with non-stop action and great characters.

Calvin Stengel had high hopes for his life. He is a brilliant mechanical engineer, had a great job with a superhero's company and things were looking until. Until they fired him, stole his designs and blackballed him from the industry. His only option then was to turn to a life of crime. Calvin becomes Mechani-CAL, a bad guy in an armored suit. But he wasn't good at it.

Lucky for Cal he is in his suit when an experiment gone wrong puts the world under the control of genetic, mutant bugs. He saves the world and finds himself on the other side. Cal never loses that villain mentality and his idea of how to deal with problems differs somewhat from his new teammates'. And some of them can be downright ugly about it.

Excellent characters and fun times. No graphic violence, no steamy sex scenes. Good times.