Somebody Stop Her: A Superhero/Apocalypse LitRPG

Somebody Stop Her, Book 1

De: Vitaly S. Alexius

Narrado por: Gary Tiedemann

In the first installment of this superhero adventure, Martin can attest that being an eighth-grade supervillain's minion isn't all it's cracked up to be.

It's hard to be the new kid at school, but it's even harder when your supervillain classmate targets you as her next minion . . .

When eighth-grader Martin Kilborne moves to the quiet town of Saint Mary, he's sure there's something wrong with the family in the old Gothic cathedral next door, with its strange lights and deep rumbling sounds emanating from within. And then there's his new classmate, Alexa Terranova—or Terror Nova, as she's better known—a self-proclaimed supervillain looking for a team to do her bidding. Which is awkward for Martin, whose parents are both superheroes and whose sister, Ember, has just gotten her hero license.

But Alexa quickly opens his eyes to a new, exciting world beyond the snoozefest of middle school. Dragged into her machinations, Martin's life soon becomes a whirlwind of dimension-hopping, rayguns, skinwalker monsters, and sinister plots. But it's not all adventure and excitement. It seems Alexa's father, a mysterious, mad scientist, has already set reality-destroying plans in motion. Can Martin still trust his favorite supervillain—and get out of middle school alive?

The first volume of the hit LitRPG fantasy series—with almost 900,000 views on Royal Road—now available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook!

©2025 Vitaly S. Alexius (P)2025 Podium Audio

I want to give this 5 stars and 1 star

I have a lot of thoughts on this title and I believe I've settled on my two primary complaints:

1 - It's too ambitious for the writer's capability. There are a LOT of ideas and tropes used in the story line that could have culminated into a game changing book (like Fractal Prince - Hannu), but the writing just wasn't there to support it. It is readable, and better than amateur level, but not by much imo. I can't help but feel this book could have been amazing if penned by a veteran author.

2 - Let me say that I despise time loop tropes, but also this book's approach to time loops is novel and clever imo. The problem isn't the time loop but how much the author explains away exposition dialogue with the "time loop" and time loop related "social engineering" excuse. There's too much shenanigans explained away by one of those two excuses. One or both of those excuses read appropriately in the context of those characters (usually), the problem is the excuses come up far too often that it's hard to suspend disbelief.

Will I buy the next book in the series? Maayyyybeeeee. Will I feel just as ambivalent about that one? Probably, but I hope not. This author's got some ideas that could really go somewhere.

Also I gave the narration three stars because it's mostly fine and listenable, but completely wrong for the character Martin. The narration brings to mind a father reading to a pre-teen child rather than actually being a 14-15yo person. (I'm probably too picky).