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House hunting and Lessons in Leadership for Vampires

Out of House and Home by Drew Hayes

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Bingo 7: Home

This one was just kind of fortuitous; I wanted to read Fred the Vampire Accountant #7 which has just recently been published, and it just so happened to be perfect for this square, being titled Out of House and Home. It’s not just the title either, the book is actually about losing and finding both literal and metaphorical home.

The book opens a little while after the final events of book 6 (a wedding); Fred and company are getting back to their nightly lives, when Charlotte manor, their sentient shared home, comes under magical attack. So Fred has to save everyone, which he nearly manages, but the structure, the physical building, is lost. Charlotte, the spirit of the home, is saved, but now everyone, including Charlotte, needs a new home. They find temporary respite, but the rest of the novel is Fred trying to work out who all helped his evil sire Quinn do this, and eventually facing the challenge of another vampire clan trying to get Fred and his clan thrown out of Winslow, CO, which has been Fred’s home since the beginning of the series. There is much talk of seeking of homes and the concept of what makes a home gets brought up frequently.

There are plenty of other adventures to be had and things to be learned, and Fred has to really focus on what it means to be the head of the household and a leader. Along the way, Fred and occasionally pals encounter more information about the mystery of Sally (seriously, this could be so interesting but Sally hasn’t really been a factor since novel 1, she should be allowed to be more than the subject of intriguing conversation), face an unknown monster in the mountains during a blizzard, solving the mystery of a series of magical mishaps in a local mall for parahumans (involving a bout of mall hockey), etc.

The series remain a lot of fun, even when things get serious, but there’s enough of a cast now that it seems like a lot of characters only get mentioned as a reminder they exist, and not much to do with plot of character development. I already mentioned Sally Alderson, but the same applies to her father Richard, Neil the necromancer and his zombie friend Albert now wielder of a chosen one sort of sword, Arch the arch-agent, even alchemist whiz Amy who gets some more page-time and a touch of character but even this could have been a little more. On the other hand, I’m kind of glad Krystal wasn’t as much a presence because she can kind of take over in terms of voice and focus of the story, although just because she’s married now doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t have something interesting to do or some character herself; the only ones we really get to see more of are Fred and Gideon, and in Gideon’s case, it’s a little more information than character.

The ending suggests further adventures to come, and I’m glad of that, and I also liked the full circle answer that comes in the solution to where Fred and Charlotte, and everyone else, end up finding for a new place to call home.

What’s Your Flavor of Ice Cream?

Bones of the Past by Drew Hayes

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Villain’s Code 1 may have been the first thing by Drew Hayes that I read. Now that it was finally time for a sequel, I was kind of excited to see that world again. Villain’s Code 2 is titled Bones of the Past and that’s pretty much an accurate description on a couple of levels.

First, the main focus of book 1, Tori, who is now a new villain starting to find her place in the world, is not as much the focus; but she’s here and she starts making progress figuring out what she wants to do now that she’s graduated from villain training. In fact, a lot of her generation both villain and hero aren’t really the focus with a handful of notable exceptions. The main thing this novel seems to be really about is Ivan and Fornax, and by association Helen and Loadstar. The backstories are dark and pretty bleak, but because you know how Ivan and Helen end up, it’s almost not as bad or maybe it’s worse. There’s also more time spent with Ivan and his family and how things are changing there too, and it’s both mundane and kind of sad but also just real.

The actual plot has to do with the introduction of a set of new characters; Professor Quantum (first meta-human and hero leader along with Loadstar and Quorum) has revived the Science Sentries team with new members and there’s some insinuated darkness with how he chose and trained his new group. The newbie team is supposed to be the best ever as a legacy team, and yet they have problems when then start working out in the world. This is where Tori gets involved, and so is Donald, her friend who obviously likes her maybe more than that, who becomes a new hero in the previous novel. He doesn’t know Tori is a villain, but she knows his secret hero identity. You can guess the tension there. Donald as Cyber Geek is one of the few characters of Tori’s set who does get some actual character development.

We also learn more about Chloe and even a bit more about Beverly’s family (Beverly is a fellow new villain, and Chloe is their roommate). Nexus also seems to pop back in to drop hints and make manipulative suggestions, although I have to admit some of the hints are intriguing.

Besides the general complexity of the world (much building happens) and characters, there is also just moments of cleverness that stand out. Some of the plot references are cliché, like the fight tournament to save the Earth from the aliens invaders (there are a lot of aliens in this book, and there weren’t in the last one, but then again if you think of any standard long running comic hero series, this does tend to be at least one plot arc). My favorite bit takes place during some downtime in Tori, Beverly, and Chloe’s apartment building. They are socializing a little with the Science Sentries who have no idea who Tori and Beverly really are, and Chloe says something about another character not being “my flavor of ice cream”, which leads to the question “What is?” I have to paraphrase here because the novel is just over 850 pages, and I’m not going hunting for one or two lines of dialog in that; Chloe’s answer just stuck with me as smart and entertaining;  it’s “What flavor would pansexual be? Maybe sherbet?” First it’s a light-hearted way to consider that question, and in a way, a flavor that’s often done as a combination off 3-4 others would kind of fit Chloe’s identification.

I mentioned earlier two reasons the title was fitting; the second has to do with the reveal of who the main villain of the story is which of course you don’t find out until nearly the end. You’ll just to read the story to find out the details; before you do though, make sure you read book 1 (Forging Hephaestus). You’d miss a lot without the context.

Ridge City is a mess, y’all.

Bones of the Past by Drew Hayes

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Bones of the Past picks up a few months after Forging Hephaestus left off. Tori, Beverly, and Chloe are sharing an apartment. Doctor Mechaniacal is rebuilding the Guild’s home base. Donald, Rem, and their teammates are doing what they can to regain the public’s trust now that everything is out in the open. And Lodestar is back on duty, fending off alien invasions in between PTA meetings. Life returns to normal. (That Nexus comment at the end of FH, though? You won’t find the resolution to that here.)

Now that Tori is a full member of the Guild of Villainous Reformation, the pressure is off, for the most part. She can go back to developing her metasuit, swilling as much coffee as she can while laying low. Until her civilian persona gets rescued by the new hero team in town, and she’s dropped right back into Ridge City’s supers scene. Now she has new neighbors–the hero team in poor disguise–and she’s doing mandatory community service with Beth’s Scarscout cluster (ungendered scouting) with Ivan and his lovely friend, Helen.

Bones of the Past isn’t quite as good as Forging Hephaestus, but it’s still a good way to spend a weekend if you’re looking for something to binge. It’s clearly a middle book, but Hayes is really good about making sure he moves parts of the story forward as he goes, rather than waiting to tie it all off at the end. (E.g., Donald confesses his feelings to Tori.) Hayes also throws a few new wrinkles into the mix, some you could see coming (Ivan and Helen) and others unexpected (I get a bad feeling about who will end up being the final Big Bad).

Fewer heists and criminal activities in general this go round. Mostly, it’s a chess game of Tori hiding her identity even as she learns everyone else’s. Things are happening around her, and she’s not driving the story. Maybe that’s what took some of the energy out of this sequel for me? Once again, the story seems to be happening around both Tori and Ivan. I suppose it’s easier to root for the “villains” when they only do bad things because they’ve been backed into a corner by outside forces.

Don’t start here. But if you’ve read Forging Hephaestus, dig right in. It’s what you’ve been waiting for.

How to best lure people into my favorite author…

The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant by Drew Hayes, read by Kirby Heyborne

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When I saw the “Gateway” square for Bingo, I thought for a bit on the best way to introduce people to the wonder that is Drew Hayes.  I mean, Super Powereds is a long haul, and it takes commitment.  I’ve told some colleagues to start with the Fred series, as the audiobook is on the shorter side (a little over 7 hours) and is structured in smaller chunks.  It also kind of eases you into the weird.  (Also, Kirby Heybourne is also a fantastic audiobook reader, and makes the whole experience absolutely delightful!)

 

All of the Fred books are made up of 5 short stories that are complete in themselves, but build on each other.  The first book is very much an introduction, as each story introduces a character that will play a role in the next story as well as the rest of the series.  They are also all told in first person by Fred, unless he is missing from a crucial scene, in which case someone else will take that role.  As he learns about the new magics and monsters that surround him, so do we.  

 

Fred is a normal, boring accountant.  Well, scratch the “normal” part.  He’s a vampire.  When we meet him, he’s been a vampire for roughly a year, after getting ambushed and being left for undead on the way home from the grocery store.  Unfortunately for him, becoming undead doesn’t magically imbue you with a sense of charm and suavity and sexy good looks.  His personality and deposition haven’t changed from the awkward, cowardly person he was before dying.  He just switched to night hours and kept on running his accounting business.  While Fred may declare himself boring, his life is about to become anything but, hence the reason for the book he’s writing.  The whole series is set up as a memoir for future parahumans who find themselves disenchanted in their new lifestyle that isn’t magically glamorous.  To quote the Prologue:  “You will eventually discover that under the movie stereotypes, imposed mystique, and overall inflated expectations, each and every one of us is at least a touch more boring than our images would indicate. And that is not a bad thing.”

 

Until the start of the series, Fred has been fairly isolated, not really involved in the world around him. He knew vampires existed, of course, but didn’t really push all that hard to find others of his kind.  Each of the five stories introduces Fred, and therefore us, to another aspect of parahuman society.  While Fred may have low expectations of himself, he manages to pull through every time.  His confidence grows slightly with every hurdle he encounters, and his life changes with every new friend he meets.  His life had been fairly safe until his friends made that impossible.  Becoming a vampire didn’t change who Fred was as a person, but making friends did.

 

This fulfills the CBR12 Bingo square of “Gateway.”

 

You gotta do what makes you Happy

Super Powereds: Year 1 by Drew Hayes, read by Kyle McCarley

Super Powereds: Year 2 by Drew Hayes, read by Kyle McCarley

Corpies by Drew Hayes, read by Kyle McCarley

Super Powereds: Year 3 by Drew Hayes, read by Kyle McCarley

Super Powereds: Year 4 by Drew Hayes, read by Kyle McCarley

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I saw somewhere that re-reading or re-watching things we’ve enjoyed in the past is great for anxiety, because you’ve already experienced it.  You know exactly what’s going to happen.  And a pandemic is full of anxiety, so a lot of us have discovered this comfort!*  

 

Someone on Facebook was asking for recommendations for an audiobook to listen in the car with her 13- and 15-year-old sons, so I recommended Super Powereds: Year 1 by Drew Hayes.  I remembered that the story was fantastic and the situations great for kids about to go into college.  So then I started relistening to the glorious voice that is Kyle McCarley tell me the story once again.  And then soon after, I went back into that Facebook post and rescinded my recommendation on the basis that the story takes place with teens in college, and they are definitely using teens-in-college language and get into situations that unsupervised college kids are wont to get into.  I mean, there’s a character who makes clones of herself and they say ‘she’s her own gang bang.’  Not the best thing to listen to with your mom.  

 

On the other hand, I would recommend reading or listening (without your mom) to kids in high school.  I mean, I would also base it on the individual kid on how young to go.  There is a lot of swearing, but other than that not much explicit stuff.  There is no explicit sex, but they talk about it a lot, because college and teenage hormones.  I feel like I would feel more comfortable having kids read the books younger than listen to the audiobooks, but the audiobooks are so fantastic that I want everyone to experience them!  Kyle McCarley puts so much tension and emotion into his reading, and stretches moments out.  In reading, it’s easy to gloss over things, and the books were originally written as a web serial, so the chapters are very short.  The audiobooks on the other hand are very long, with the series clocking in at almost 180 hours, and I don’t know how many teens (or people in general) will look at that number and think, “Yes, I want to devote seven and a half days of my life to this!”  On the other hand, once you start, you can’t stop.  I introduced one of my coworkers to the series, and she admitted to taking her phone into the bathroom while she showers to keep listening!  

 

In a very brief summary, you have people with normal super powers, or Supers.  You also have people with super powers, but they can’t control them, and they are called Powereds.  Not being able to control your super powers sucks, and is often dangerous.  But there is a new secret procedure that can turn Powereds into Supers, and five 18-year-olds are chosen to undergo said secret procedure.  They are also enrolled in the Hero Certification Program at Lander University.  Because not everyone gets to be a hero, no, they have to go through a rigorous 4-year training program while also getting a regular college degree.  Only 1 out of every 5 kids who enroll as freshmen get to graduate at the end.  So there’s regular college and growing up stresses, while also learning how to use and control super powers and kick the shit out of other people.  Add in some conspiracies and drama and you’re all set for a wild ride!  (And in Corpies, you get to semi-see the hero side of things as well!)

 

For the Melbrook Five, our former Powereds who have been turned into Supers, we have the story of five lonely kids learning to grow up.  They learn how to love and succeed and live a life they never thought they would have.  Vince was a homeless kid wandering the streets, constantly afraid of his powers and hurting others. He never got to experience a real childhood.  Well, none of the kids really did, except for maybe Roy and Hershel.  They were two brothers in the same body, constantly struggling for control.  Mary couldn’t help hearing the thoughts of everyone around her, so she secluded herself in the middle of a forest, surviving completely alone.  Alice was a lonely rich girl, trotted out for parties, but always afraid of becoming too happy lest she float away. And Nick, raised in the crime-ridden world of a Las Vegas casino, was constantly in a state of wondering if anything good or bad to him or his loved ones happened because of his powers.  Having control over their powers took out a big sense of uncertainty about their lives.  It gave them the opportunity to take their lives back.  

 

Super Powereds Year Four, by Drew HayesThe characters are so well-written and complex, so you get drawn in to the slice-of-life situations they get into.  The main characters are basically the Melbrook Five, and some case can be argued for Vince as the main main character, but there are chapters from other perspectives as well, and you get invested.  You want these kids to succeed and do well.  (There are also parts I cry at every single time.)  They all learn to grow during the course of the series.  Chad learns how to relax and enjoy life, Camille learns to stand up for herself, Will learns to take charge when he needs to, Shane learns to step out from his grandfather’s and sister’s shadows (lol), Alex and Thomas learn their versatility.  

In Corpies you see the hero life from the other side of graduation.  You see how one wrong decision can change your life and that of your family.  Owen made one bad call, took one wrong path, and it caused him to leave the life and family he loved due to shame.  He had an opportunity to take the hard path that would have helped a lot of people, and he chose not to.  He was a coward, and he admits it, and now it’s time to step up and start making up for the mistakes that he made.  You also see what paths Supers can take if they aren’t bound for hero life.  Just because the bad guy is caught doesn’t mean the work is done, after all.  Someone has to clear the roads of debris for tomorrow morning’s commute.  There are also “normal people” problems happening here too, and they have nothing to do with punching.  People who have powers are still people, and whatever job they chose to do is valid and necessary to keep society running.

So this is fulfilling my CBR12 Bingo square of “Happy,” not only because I love this series and it makes me happy every time I listen to it, but also because I found a Discord channel for Drew Hayes fans, so now I can chat with a group of people who really love this author too!  (If you want the link, let me know!) 

*That’s probably why I watched the Pride and Prejudice musical on StreamingMusicals.com every day for a few weeks – check it out, everything but the costumes are great!  (The costumes are really bad, though…)  I think it’s on Amazon Prime Video as well now!  If you watch it or want more info, let me know!

My previous reviews of:

Year 1

Year 2 

Corpies 

Year 3 

Year 4 

Fun with Fred and Friends

Undeading Bells by Drew Hayes

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The “yay for Drew Hayes” streak continues. Undeading Bells is book 6 in the Fred series and a lot of the fun continues. The main challenge comes in the form of the alluded to wedding of the title, between Krystal and Fred. Of course there are several obstacles to overcome before getting to the altar. There are basically 3 things the House of Fred and Fred have to work through: first, wedding planning and then pulling off the actual ceremony, Fred further working on his vampire powers (this time it’s turning humans into vampires), and third dealing with what has become normal life (conducting job interviews, helping pals with projects, etc).

A lot of the normal mundane thing turning into an adventure is present, as is the adventure quest. The story opens with an open call for potential new employees for Fred’s accounting business that does not go as planned, which allows for some insight into how the paranormal world is starting to perceive Fred, and introduces Gregor the gargoyle and Al whose species is a drawn out reveal, so no spoilers here. Both have purpose in the story and show up elsewhere. My only complaint here is that they both have some good potential that is on display when they are first introduced but when they appear in later stories, they’re mostly just there, not doing anything interesting. It’s the same thing with some previously introduced characters like Richard and Sally. When they first show up, they have a lot of entertainment, personality, and adventure potential, but then when they show up again, it’s like they’re just a reminder they exist, and not much else. On the quest side, Fred agrees to help Amy scope out a potential investment opportunity which develops into more of a survival thing, and the reveal of what’s actually going on works nicely in terms of being current on pop culture phenomena.

I did enjoy getting to see more of Sheriff Thurgood of Boarback TX, mostly around here during the wedding planning and ceremony. What I was worried about (too much drama and no actual wedding- think every prime-time drama wedding ever) didn’t happen, mostly, so that’s good, and there was enough of the Sheriff to give him some good character development.

My only other minor complaint is that Fred’s new skill of turning people into vampires (apparently, he’s unusually good at it, and one of his two turns ends up having some addition interesting abilities) is used near the end for an understandable reason but the incident causing it seemed a little forced (almost like another reminder of a character who doesn’t have much direct involvement, although this time it does have more purpose than some of the others).

Overall, another enjoyable read and I’m now going to have to wait to see what happens next for who knows how long, but maybe in the meanwhile I can catch up with my TBR shelf and maybe have an excuse to get the most recent Hayes book that presents the first Five Minute Sherlock novelization.



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