Supervillainy and Other Poor Career Choices

De: J.R. Grey

Narrado por: Neil Hellegers

Engineer. Survivor. Supervillain.

When a down-on-his-luck engineer ends up coming into possession of a rundown suit of power-armor, he sees an opportunity to make some quick cash by selling it off to the nearest supervillain.

Unfortunately for him, what should have been a quick and easy sale to pay off his debts quickly grows into an ongoing series of events that serve only to drag him deeper and deeper into the criminal underbelly of the city he calls home.

In no time at all, Erich finds himself fending off neo-Nazi gang members, crazed capes, and the dangerous affections of his newest employer's criminally insane daughter.

All he wanted to do was make a quick buck . . . .

©2019 J.R. Grey (P)2019 Tantor

As onorthodox a super hero as could be - s-villain

In a modern world where law and order are not guaranteed since emergence of superpowered individuals, master of his craft engineer barely scrapes enough to pay local racketeering group protection fee. Betting big he promises to deliver a technology powered suit that nulls the power gap between supe and regular person. And oh, does it spiral out of control heading downwards from there.

The world setting which isn't revealed all at once but in parts, some of which - the master - only in the epilogue, serves as a great carrot for the reader. While the protagonists receive their share of the background story and glimpses at the experiences that have molded them into what they are now, which are quite consistent and realistic (can be taken seriously), while the protagonists party's goons are nothing more than goons. This only continues to enforce the existing gap between the supes and regulars. And when the highlight is on a goon, you know it's for a good reason - chekhov's gun.

Hardlight's final is half a load of a breadcrumb. Hopefully more insight will be provided in part 2. In audiobook format the book just fly by. Either Mr. Grey's writing or Mr. Helleger's narration or just the length of the work, but I have a scratch for more poor career choices now.

Conclusion: 4/5. Listened on Audible included in plus catalogue. Narrated by: Neil Hellegers. Story with an unorthodox super hero setting. Has romance, dealing with trauma, a bit of mental health issues in the protagonists (perfectionism, daddy issues etc.). Certainly will continue with Supervillainy and Other Poor Career Choices: Book Two. Only con is that J.R. Grey literary career from 2019 only has two books. Terrible value for the length of the book - 2.28 $/hour ( 17.19 $ / 07 hrs 32 mins ).

Values:
Terrible: >1.66 $/hour
Bad: 1 - 1.66 $/hour
Good: <1 $/hour
Dream: 0.4 - 0.27 $/hour

Nice

Five stars story of a super villain story. Pretty original. Eager to read the sequel

Mechromancer!

LOVED this book and normally do not like Superhero drama. Well written plot structure and strange twist. Had to listen to a couple areas twice to understand what happened and why. Especially when Jason killed Gray by pulling the disc from her neck. Lol!

Slow start but picked up towards the end

All in all, I’m curious to know about the second book. I’ll usually listen to anything that this narrator does, so now it’s off to waiting for the second book to drop.

Real Villain

There are a few books which center around villains as the main characters. The main character is still some kind of good guy mixed with misunderstandings/past mistakes/special situations that, while it doesn’t retract from the story, still doesn’t leave you with an actual villain.

Some books take the opposite approach and give you a character that is borderline unlikable or so evil they border on unrealistic.

This book does it right. The main character is realistic, positive traits and flaws. However, when push comes to shove, their personality is clearly defined in an unambiguously villainous way. This isn’t a hero in a villain costume but someone you’d probably avoid in the real world.

Beyond the main character you have a supporting cast that are interesting in their own right. Everyone has depth to them and their own goals.

I loved this book.

The story is a lot of fun.

This author can keep the funny story line in the air throughout the book. Good narrator.

pretty decent

decent super villain read ... I'm not good at writing reviews... I mean I probably could be but I'm trying to listen to more books not write them ... not yet anyways

Who doesn’t love a techno-hermit with a set of power armor! 🤖

With all due respect to the superb writing of J. R. Grey, I’m pretty sure anybody who would consider purchasing this book was attracted to it due to their familiarity/fandom with Jim Bernheimer‘s “Confessions of a D-list super villain”. That is what precisely brought me to this book. I was expecting something very derivative of Bernheimer‘s world, and at first I was slightly disappointed not to find that. What I found (much to my adjusted expectations) was something much darker and grittier... and if you can say this about any meta human story, I found a story that was far more believable. Apart from the fact that both stories center around a techno-hermit protagonist and a suit of power armor, the two stories/universes share little else in common. In general, I found the main protagonist (Erich) to be relatively unsympathetic as a protagonist/ antihero (there were several other villainous characters that were far more likable... but as we all know, not every protagonist elicits the readers affections). I also felt the story was lacking in a lot of power armor drama (as well as meta human drama), but it did focus far more on the seedy underbelly of a low level villainess organization. With that said, the story was worth being told and sets up an interesting meta human universe that would be well worth future exploration. In comparison to “D-list super villain” uniniverse, “Supervillainy” scores a relative B+ ...taken on its own merits, I would happily give it a solid A.

pretty entertaining

The sory is pretty good, the MC is smart with machines while being pretty dumb with people and having a medium amout of common sense.

A lot better than expected.

Going into this I was expecting a clone of another mech-suit super villain book, you probably know the one if you’re reading this. But it turned out to be a lot more than that. It’s a little dark, more legitimate villainous activity than other “villian” books. The main characters have some depth and honestly it’s just interesting. I bought this with money, not credits, and I don’t regret it. I’ll get the sequel when it’s available.