Narrated by:  Amy Landon
Length:  26 hours 58 mins.

This book is incredible!

As I wrote on my audible review, [click here]  I would have marathoned this book if I could, if I didn’t have to work.

It’s the kind of book where yes, it is long, however.. the story is just amazing from start to finish, there are no dull parts.  It’s the kind of story where it starts with a great concept and it builds and builds on it, and explores it with the training and development of characters etc.. and while you can see the potential conflict. Challenge early on, you know that it a secondary aspect of the story rather than the main part.

I’ve talked about this before, but essentially many books/ stories stick to the ‘heroes tale’ formula where you’ve got an introduction…brief explanation of the world they’re in, then bang challenge/ adversity presents itself and the main character will spend the rest of the story trying to beat this challenge/ adversity.

However, the stories that I’m more appreciating recently shies away from this.  It’s presenting an amazing concept, and then exploring and delving into this concept/ universe in a lot of detail.. there are many little challenges along the way, but they’re all adding to the characters and the universe.

This is one of those books… and it’s fantastic.  It means that even though, yes it IS 26 hours 58 mins long… so it’s a pretty long book, … it doesn’t feel like it.  In fact you just don’t want it to end.

I listened to this driving to work, on a business trip, going to sleep at night….and sometimes just sitting on a couch just plain listening to it.

So what is the story about?

I’ll let the publisher’s summary tell you… because it’s pretty succinct:

Gifted with meta-human powers in a world full of capes and villains, Tori Rivas kept away from the limelight, preferring to work as a thief in the shadows. But when she’s captured trying to rob a vault that belongs to a secret guild of villains, she’s offered a hard choice: prove she has what it takes to join them or be eliminated.

Apprenticed to one of the world’s most powerful (and supposedly dead) villains, she is thrust into a strange world where the lines that divide superheroes and criminals are more complex than they seem. The education of a villain is not an easy one, and Tori will have to learn quickly if she wants to survive. On top of the peril she faces from her own teacher, there are also the capes and fellow apprentices to worry about, to say nothing of having to keep up a civilian cover.

Most dangerous of all, though, are those who loathe the guild’s very existence. Old grudges mean some are willing to go to any length to see the guild turned to ash, along with each one of its members. Even the lowly apprentices.

What you cannot get from this basic story explanation is how the book is written and the exploration of greying lines between what people think is ‘good’ and ‘bad’, or rather ‘just’ and ‘unjust’.

I love the concept that the villains have their own guild simply because they don’t like sticking to the many rules about what they can and can’t do from the rest of supposedly moral and correct society, but they are not necessarily bad people, it’s just that they don’t want to live according to others rules.

And the fact that they have a code to stick by to make sure they all stick together and that no one gets in too much trouble.. is great.  It’s really exploring the grey areas that is ‘having to do the right thing’ by sticking to the laws.

Also the fact that the Heroes are paradoxically the bad guys due to racism, and trying to pressure people to sticking to their rules by force… is also great.

How’s the narration?

To be honest, it took a little while to get used to Amy Landon’s narration, but as the main character is female, and many others are young adults, I think it’s actually a good fit.

She also manages to do many of the male characters very well to the point where you just enjoy the book, rather than think ‘oh she’s doing another accent’

Many narrators, if they have to voice a character of the opposite sex, it’s noticeable, but for Amy.. she handles it pretty well… and it becomes seamless.

I hope she continues to do the narration for books 2 and onwards.

Memorable moments?

-The fact that the ‘heroes’ turned down a potential hero just because the guy was black and apparently ‘wasn’t worth joining the ranks of the white heroes to do ‘real’ super hero work’.  The supposedly ‘good guys’ are unaccepting of anyone that goes outside their viewpoint and are quite close-minded because they just inherently believe they are moral, just, and right.  Whereas the villains are accepting of whoever regardless of how they look like, provided that they adhere to the code.   -Just because something is accepted, doesn’t make it moral or right.

-The fact that under the whole ‘freedom of speech’ which the so-called heroes uphold, there can exist a hero called The Whitest Knight, that is a KKK pamphlet handing out douchebag… but that’s ok.. because he’s adhering to the laws that have been set out.

-The fact that there’s a character called Jonny 3 Dicks, and his reason for his name is “no matter which way you try to come, you’re still fucked”  and that he’s the reason why in the villains guild code names are now vetted before they can be used.

How to correctly build up a character

I was impressed with Drew Hayes story-telling, in the way that he builds up a character differently to the majority of stories out there.
It’s something that we’ve all got used to in other books/ movies/ stories.. whatever because everyone is trying to be politically correct and use affirmative action and all of this… which in itself is essentially calling attention to the fact that people think people ARE different and that it is apparently worth noting it/ calling attention to it.

However, in this story there are a few characters that you don’t know what race they are because it’s not important to the story at the time.  If it doesn’t add anything to the story, there’s no point mentioning it… which I think is fundamentally true.   You don’t just state ‘she was white with blue eyes and blonde hair, and a ravishing smile’ , what is important to the story is her personality, what she can do, her actions… rather than what she looks like… unless of course what she looks like fundamentally changes or is important to the story.

You only find out Beverly is black when she tells her story about her grandfather’s racist treatment from the ‘heroes’ , And only about the main character’s ethnicity just once.. for a reason I’ve since forgotten… however the point is that it wasn’t crucial to the story, so it wasn’t mentioned.  Which I think is fresh, and ultimately the right way to go about it.

This follows through for many descriptions… including Donald, whose hair colour is mentioned just once, when it is important to the story.

What I like, is that Hayes concentrates on the build-up of character from their actual character, and their actions, not by how they look.   I really appreciated this. It makes you realise just how artless/ senseless it is for other stories to just mention race, or looks straight out for no apparent reason.

How does it compared to Drew Hayes’ other books?  & would I recommend it?

I love this new universe that Drew Hayes has created.  It’s still a super hero kind of story, but actually much different to Super Powereds

I think there’s now a serious contender for which one I like more out of Super-Powereds and Forging Hephaestus.

Forging Hephaestus has clear enemies, even though the borders are blurred… but Super-Powereds seems a bit more mysterious in terms of who it is they’re supposed to be fighting.

For Forging Hephaestus, I’m definitely recommending this book to all my friends and family.

I can assure you I’m eagerly awaiting book 2 in the series.

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Happy listening!