This review is about the series (Volume 1-6 at the time of this review), not just the first book. I had some initial impressions while listening to the first book, but then decided to keep listening.
First, let me say – I did listen to all the books, so it’s definitely not bad. I did enjoy it, in a cheap pulp kind of way. It’s a fun superhero (supervillain) story that gets into epic battles without taking itself too seriously.
Now for the caveats.
The prices set for these books are quite ambitious, given that they aren’t that long, but the quality is more what one would expect of a litRPG work. This isn’t that genre, but just in the sense that the author may have written something intended for an audience online, then decided to click a submit button on Audible without going through the official process of working through an official publisher. It definitely shows.
The author tends to be repetitive, using similar words or phrases multiple times in a book, a paragraph or even a sentence. These books could greatly improve from a good editor working through it and pointing out where the author could tweak it.
Don’t feel that you need to listen to this series one book immediately after the other. Not only is there plenty of recap in each book, but much tends to change between books and the author sometimes seems to forget what he wrote in a previous book, dropping plot threads or changing history or character’s personalities. There would be no harm in going through one book, then having a long delay before picking up the next book. That may actually make it a better experience.
The author repeatedly, agonizingly, makes a big show of how non-racist and how non-sexist he is. Methinks he doth protest too much. It’s especially annoying when the author, time and again in the series (using the protagonist as a mouthpiece) maintains that absolutely anyone can have sex with all the hot women they want, and all they have to do is not be a jerk. The author would definitely be much better off in this case focusing on “show, don’t tell” and demonstrating enlightened attitudes (such as how the female supers are generally ever bit as capable as the male supers, which he does) instead of talking about how enlightened he is, especially since there are some occasions where he doesn’t always seem to walk the walk.
The author can be quite creative when he wants, so it’s a shame that many of his characters plainly started as copies of existing characters. Night Walker is a mix of Batman and Dr. Strange. The Ice Cream Man and the Cackler both seem to be inspired by the Joker. Ultragod is Superman, Aquarius is Aquaman. But not to worry, there are plenty of original concepts in here as well.
The narrator is decent, but not very good with different voices. It’s hard to tell which character is speaking. Cindy is the most distinct voice, and her voice is really annoying. No offense to Jeffrey Kafer, but I feel a series with so many vivid personalities could benefit from a different narrator.
The cover art is cute – more professional than a lot of books – and a nicely different concept, but some of it seems off. The depiction of Diabloman on the cover of Book 2 is just awful.
There is some annoying fourth wall breaking, especially in later books.
I realize this represents a lot of concerns. Certainly there are some things that annoyed me as I listened to the books. There are plenty of better series out there. “Super Sales on Super Heroes” or “Ex-Heroes” for example. But there are a lot of worse series as well. This passed a test a lot of better-edited worked failed; it kept me interested and listening, and that’s a lot to say.
If you’re a fan of cheesy superhero stories, give this a try! If the concerns I mentioned would bother you too much – well, I empathize.
I realize it’s a huge ask, but I feel the author could benefit from a big cleanup effort, doing some serious editing (both low-level in terms of verbiage and higher-level in terms of storylines) and re-record the series. That could definitely take these books up to be something really impressive.