The Science of Supervillainy

The Supervillainy Saga, Book 4

By: C. T. Phipps

Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer

Gary Karkofsky a.k.a Merciless: The Supervillain Without Mercy (TM) returns in the fourth volume of the popular Supervillainy Saga. Having discovered the world's greatest superhero slain by his doppelganger from another reality, Merciful: The Supervillain with Mercy (TM), and the arrogant President Omega, Gary dedicates himself to overthrowing both. Unfortunately, this is harder than it looks since Merciful has all of Gary's genre savviness while President Omega has the entire brainwashed United States military behind him. In the end, though, there can be only one ruler of the world and two of these three feuding villains will have to go.

©2017 Charles Phipps (P)2017 Charles Phipps

As enjoyable as the first three. Great conclusion!

I really enjoyed all 4 books in this series by C.T. Phipps. I think if you made it through the first 3 books you must finish the series with book 4. We get a nice conclusion that neatly ties things up but also leaves a definite path for more books (not sure if the author is planning more in this series, but he should!). The story didn't take the path I was expecting from book 1 but I felt it was still an extremely entertaining listen! I look forward to listening to or reading more works by C.T. Phipps.

Narration by Jeffrey Kafer was solid throughout this series and I would not hesitate to check out other works with his narration. Great variation in characters and superb delivery/performance throughout.

Good story progression, problematic storytelling

The dose makes the poison. While the world and story are adequately crafted, this book on particular seems to rely a little too heavily on pop culture references and current events. While the story is self-aware, that only makes up for so much. Past books utilized the occasional reference, but this title constrains toxic concentrations. They date the story and diminish its value and frankly it does not really make sense that the characters would have been able to make some of them considering how fresh they are temporally and the state of the world in the story.

All rants aside, the story, humor, and characters remain otherwise consistent with the rest of the author's work. If you enjoyed their previous titles you will enjoy this one. However​, I would not hold up this title as representative of the rest of the author's works.

The Science of Supervillainy

The Science of Supervillainy
This is a review for book 1 to 6 of the Supervillainy Saga (no spoilers)

I enjoyed the humor in this series very much.
The love for fiction/ entertainment (mostly comics, movies and TV series) oozes from this series, and that’s something I really appreciate and take pleasure in.
Beneath all the humor and craziness, there was still a beating heart and room to connect to the characters, and that’s something I really need to keep me engaged in the story and invested in the characters.

What prevents this series from being a full 5 stars for me is the level of ‘madness and chaos’.
Every time I embraced it, it would get turned up a notch. And eventually (somewhere in book 2) it was too much for me, I just couldn't keep up. This caused me to lose some engagement.
But the humor, great cast of characters, excellent writing style and wonderful narration still made this a very fun listen for me.

I got this Audio Book for free (thanks!). I'm voluntarily leaving this review.
Opinions and ratings are my own and not influenced by how I got the Audio Book.

Some of the best quips

The banter was awesome, the story felt rushed, but satisfying. Good closure for many loop holes, and even though it feels like full closure, I hope the characters will make a return.

Funny, Witty and Entertaining

C. T. Phipps does a fantastic job at making an entertaining satire on the superhero genre. This next installment of the series keep the pace with great plot twists, relate-able pop culture references, but none at the expense of an entertaining story. Definitely a must buy. This was an audio book that was hard to put down/stop listening to. I strongly recommend it to anyone who likes action/humor/superheros/satire/or just straight up fantastic writing!