The final book in the Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain series came out

[conuly]

Final in the sense that we won't be following that same main character anymore, not in the sense that the author's done with that universe.

Eva absolutely eats these books up, and I enjoyed them as well. The plots are well-plotted, and the worldbuilding is fun if you don't look at it too closely*. But this last one... I mean... first, I kinda feel like we had one too many cameo appearances from earlier in the series, and secondly I thought we were heading to one sort of ending, and then within the last chapter we suddenly went to a different ending, and I dunno, I just feel like the ending we got wasn't at all as emotionally satisfying as the one I thought we were going to get.

It's still a fun read, and once I've re-read the entire series I'll be posting a review at books as promised, but I'm not so thrilled with this ending.

* _{If you do look at it too closely, it starts to fall apart. Why should a world where superpowered individuals - of the mad science, flying brick, and literal magic varieties! - have been common since literal caveman times have the same historical notes we do, like WWII complete with Holocaust? (For that matter, why should they have Jews, or any of our actual current religions? Though I'll note that the only person we meet who has a named religion at all is a single old Jewish man who managed to escape the Holocaust by finding a portal to a secret space colony, so maybe Judaism is the only religion around in their world.) And since popular culture is so different from our pop culture (and I really want to read our protagonist's favorite graphic novel series!) why is CULTURE culture so similar? They're reading The Iliad in school! This is the sort of thing guaranteed to annoy me, but if you're not me you might not even notice it.}

Comments

[thewayne]

I just picked up Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, which posits the Black Death wiping out 99% of Earth's population and the planet being repopulated by the Chinese, with no World Wars and Abrahamic religions being footnotes to Buddhism and the Tao. I think it'll be next on my list after I finish my current book today.

Yeah, superhero concepts fall apart when you think what they're capable of. I played a superhero role-playing game for 20 years. If 9/11 started in that universe, the first plane might have hit, the second and third would not have, and we would have caught Osama within a week because of our character's powers and skills far beyond those of mortal men.

I've never been a big fan of Superman, but Kurt Busiak's Samaritan (essentially a Superman clone) from the Astro City comicbook is an amazing character who busts his butt saving people, and he does it almost 24/7.

[conuly]

I just picked up Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, which posits the Black Death wiping out 99% of Earth's population and the planet being repopulated by the Chinese, with no World Wars and Abrahamic religions being footnotes to Buddhism and the Tao. I think it'll be next on my list after I finish my current book today.

Oooh, I enjoyed that.

I played a superhero role-playing game for 20 years. If 9/11 started in that universe, the first plane might have hit, the second and third would not have

But wouldn't supervillain terrorists be harder to handle than the regular sort?

[larryhammer]

Actually, YRS follows various Muslim civilizations after Europe is depopulated, primarily from the Middle East. Chinese civilization does figure prominently, but as antagonists.

[thewayne]

My bad.  Misremembering the cover blurb.  I started re-reading it last night after my reply, and I'm getting faint echoes - I think I read this book, or started it, when it came out.