AudiobookMel

I hope I will see these characters again, one day

Revisado: 05-23-24

This is the final book in the Cyber Dragons trilogy. And it is as fast paced and full of humor as the first two books. A lot happens to our characters. There’s so many spoilers, so I won’t go into the story. As with other Phipps stories, these stories are a good escape for me. These stories always help lift my mood, no matter how bad the day is. While this is the end of this series, which wraps well, I hope to see these characters in other books. I know Case will be, but I hope that brings some of the other characters with him some day.

There is a short novella at the end of this book, which was a nice surprise. I’ll always take more time with these characters.

Narration:
Catherine Ho does a great job in the performance of this series. I really like her voice for all the different characters. I would gladly pick up something else from her any day. There isn’t much more I can say about her that I haven’t already said. I hope I find another story with Ms Ho narrating.

**I'd like to thank the author for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

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This series is so funny. Love the characters too

Revisado: 05-20-24

I was very excited to be back in the world of Andrea Vernon, assistant to Mrs Oh, president of Corporation for UltraHuman Protection, aka CUP. She is now traveling around the world to help with issues in other parts of the world, including Europe, which is where we find her at the beginning of the book. She is tasked with trying to follow Never More, a supervillain with several similarities to ravens. She isn’t very good at hiding, but it could also be that ravens always pay attention to the world around them.

Never More and Andrea hit it off, even if they are on opposite sides. Never More has an ingenious way to take over the world. Do it legal through corporate takeover. She buys the second largest hero corporation. She works with lawmakers to deregulate superhero corporations. Once she gets the contract to control prisons for supervillains and lets them all free. Now Andrea and her US Senator brother are the only ones working to take Never More and her corporation of supervillains masquerading as superheroes. Funny thing is, Andrea and Never More continue to be friends because they are able to be open and honest with each other and share things that many other people wouldn’t understand.

In this book, CUP has a new superhero in the ranks. GLARE! This superhero (I honestly can’t remember the gender, but it really doesn’t make much of a difference with this particular character), shines as bright as the sun. GLARE is also not able to speak in a normal voice, everything is loud (think Oprah when she was giving away prizes on her show, “you get a car, and you get a car”). GLARE! also burns up any fabric that comes in contact with his skin, so he walks around naked, though truthfully, you can’t see anything through the brightness. But then there is also the bare ass on the chairs, which is denied until Inspector Well Actually shows his ability to be a great lie detector. This entire scene where we first meet GLARE! had me laughing hysterically.

I really loved this sequel. It has all the humor as the first book, maybe a bit less silly humor, but plenty to make you laugh. I also think this one had a bit of a better plot. Not that the first one had a bad plot, this one is just a bit better, in my opinion. And we really get to see several real heroes in action, and that have nothing to do with superpowers, but the ability to put others over themselves, no matter the consequences. I really look forward to the third, and the most recent, audiobook published. I’m really hoping the series continues. I might be able to tell better when I listen to book 3, Andrea Vernon and the Big Axe Acquisition, which was released in 2021 and these have been released every other year. 🤞

Narration:
In the review for book one, I told you one of the big reasons I picked up this series is because Bahni Turpin was the narrator. She is one of my absolute favorites. I’ve grabbed several books narrated by her by authors I didn’t know. She does such a great job with her narrations. She puts so much passion into each character. I don’t know what else to say about her. If you haven’t listened to something she’s performed, you’re really missing out.

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I liked having Cindy's POV for this one

Revisado: 05-20-24 El oyente recibió este título gratis

Up until this point, the Supervillainy Saga was told by Gary Karkofsky (a.k.a Merciless: The Supervillain without Mercy™). This story is told by Cindy Wakowski (a.k.a. Red Riding Hood), Gary’s henchwench/sidekick. She wants to prove she’s just as good as Gary. She decides to pull together a team, which she calls Cindy’s Seven. There is a bit of confusion on if she’s supposed to have seven people in her team, or if it should be six plus her. Cindy is planning on the biggest heist of the series yet, stealing the hoard of the Dragon King, a.k.a. Smog (not Smaug).

I really enjoyed this story with Cindy being the storyteller. I’ve always found her to be an interesting character. I will say, being in her head is a bit different. She’s not Gary and her thought process is completely different. She’s not only Gary’s sidekick, but also one of several women Gary is sleeping with. They have a very complicated relationship. They do have a child together (and Gary has a second child with a superhero). While the kids have been part of the story in the past, it was always a very small part. Now, they are growing up and are able to be part of the action. They are both super smart and there are some powers involved. I really loved seeing more of Leia and Mimi.

This story is similar to the previous books in that there is a ton of humor, lots of pop culture, references to today’s society and characters that give new meaning to chaos. I do like the different POV, though I’m glad to see that Phipps has no intention of walking away from Gary’s POV. I was also glad to see that he also might try some other POVs, like say, Mandy. I’m going to throw my two cents and suggest a book with one or both of the girls in the main character role.

Narration:
Heather Costa is a new addition to the Supervillainy Saga. With the new female POV, a new female narrator needed to be added. She’s a wonderful narrator. She’s great with large casts of characters and is great with the pacing and tone of the story. I’ve listened to her for a few books and I always double check when I see her listed as the narrator.

If you know me, you know my love of Jeffery Kafer. There is nothing I can say that I haven’t said before. He’s one of my favorite male narrators.

This is not the first time I’ve listened to Costa. It is the first time I’ve listened to her in a duet style narration with Jeffery Kafer. Duet style is not high on my list of favorite styles of narration. With this, Costa reads all the narration and the female voices. Kafer reads all male voices. The people I’ve listened to use this narration style in the past, it was a bit jarring going back and forth between two narrators even within the same sentence. That was not the case with Costa and Kafer. They seamlessly go back and forth between the two voices. They gave me a new appreciation of this style of narration.

Oh, and they included a blooper reel at the end of the book, which is a lot of fun. This should be included in all audiobooks. LOL

**I'd like to thank the author for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

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Lots of interesting stories

Revisado: 05-20-24 El oyente recibió este título gratis

The author of this book reached out to me after reading my review of Confession by Rob Halford. I’ve read a lot of memoirs and autobiographies. I have only read a handful of true stories told by someone other than the people involved. As I am a fan of many genres of rock music, I thought I would give this book a try. I love that this book covers a large group of music, everything from Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Mama Cass, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Dee Dee Ramone, Xzibit and a whole lot more.

Each chapter of the book tackles a different topic from “Chapter One: Only the Good Die Young” which talks about the infamous 27 club to “Chapter Four: Magical Mystery Tour” which talks about mysterious things that happened to some musicians over the years. There’s also “Highway to Hell”, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide”, “Breaking the Law”, “Tragedy”, “Flirtin’ with Disaster” and “Motherless Children”.

I don’t want to go into individual stories, but there is one that really caught my interest. I’m sure you remember Iron Butterfly with the single In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Well, one of the bassist (there were several over the years), was a true genius. Philip Taylor Kramer was from Ohio and when he left the band, he went back to school and got an aerospace engineering degree. He worked for the Department of Defense on the MX missile guidance system, he also worked on data compression software with Randy Jackson of The Jackson Five. He also worked on video compression and was going to be an expert witness for the OJ trial before he disappeared. And mysterious disappearance doesn’t quite cover it. I had never heard about this before, but there is an Unsolved Mysteries episode about it, and I will be looking it up.

Narration:
As I said, I haven’t listened to a lot of non-fiction books that aren’t memoirs told by the people involved. There isn’t much dialogue in this book, so this narration is way different than I’m used to. The narration isn’t bad, it just took me a bit to get used to. I would very much listen to this narrator again. I would actually like to hear him narrate something a little more my normal style to see how he does there. I really did get lost in his storytelling.

**I'd like to thank the author for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

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Interesting story

Revisado: 05-20-24

Trigger Warnings: suicide, drug use, satanism, AIDS

I remember reading Go Ask Alice by Anonymous, the “real” diary of a teenage girl in the seventies who got into drugs, when I was a kid. I can’t remember how old I was, but I remember reading it. I also read Jay’s Journal, a boy’s journal where he gets involved with satanism in the late seventies. There was also It Happened to Nancy, which is yes, another diary, this time with AIDS in the 90s. I never read that one. It wasn’t until I listened to Unmask Alice that I found out there were more of these teenage diaries published. All of these books had rave reviews from critics and parents and teens were both told that they really should read these stories. And it went on like this for a very long time and the books are still listed as non-fiction in many areas.

Anyway, Unmask Alice starts off with an author’s note explaining how he researched this book. He also tells us to let him tell the story and he will get into more detail about sources at the end of the book, which he did. Early in the book, he tells us the history of LSD, which was very fascinating. I knew some of it, but not as much as he gave me. Then he also tells the story of Beatrice Sparks, the “psychologist” who had the diaries and did the “editing” of them. I put psychologist and editing in quotes because, well, it seems that Sparks made it all up, including her college education. The dairies were a story she wrote, the best work of her career, and she was not even able to take credit for them.

I also liked how we get to learn about Alden Barrett, who was the child that Jay’s Journal was based on. Unlike Alice, he was a real boy. His mother gave his journal to Beatrice after he had killed himself. She felt that if his story would help one child, it would be worth sharing his heartbreaking story. And the real story is very heartbreaking. As heartbreaking as it was, it was not sensational by itself. So Sparks decided to embellish, but not enough that people in the town couldn’t figure out that Alden was Jay.

Sparks was able to do pretty well for herself, selling books by the millions. Alice made the bestseller list and libraries couldn’t keep it in stock. There was even a made for TV movie with both Andy Griffith and William Shatner as characters. But her story is a bit tragic itself. That doesn’t excuse all the lying and misrepresenting herself that she did. And the lies were neverending. I won’t go into them all, but I don’t know if she ever did anything without lying about it.

Narration:
I’ve listened to Gabra Zackman before. She is an amazing narrator. I’ve listened to her perform both non-fiction like this such as I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, and fiction such as the Unbound and Menagerie series by Rachel Vincent. I loved her work in all of them. When I saw Unmask Alice as an Audible Daily Deal and saw her name as the narrator, it caught my eye. Then realizing what the story is about, I decided I wanted to learn more. I’m really glad I did. I love when I find fun stories that I would never have picked up, just because the narrator’s name caught my eye. This has happened to me a few times. I hope it never stops. If you’ve never listened to Zackman, I highly recommend her work.

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I really enjoyed this series

Revisado: 05-20-24 El oyente recibió este título gratis

The Fall of the House is the third and final book in the Secrets of the Red Room series. Derek Hawthorne is a spy and works for The House as part of the Red Room. Each department has a different colored “Room”. I can’t remember them all, but there is a black and white room too. And I think there might be a blue one. I don’t remember what all they did. I think Black was training and White might have been medical. Don’t quote me on that. It is also a family thing, so children of people who work for The House end up working for The House too.

The House is a secret organization that is trying to “protect” humans from the monsters. However, it gets lost somewhere since humans can be monsters too. It isn’t just the vampires, were-animals and other supernatural things that do bad things. And supernatural things can be a force for good too. The House doesn’t care, they want all monsters gone. And they don’t want humans to know about them.

I don’t want to say too much, because spoilers. This is a fun action packed series. It is a prequel to some of the other series he’s written (Straight Outta Fangton and Bright Falls Mysteries, with vampires and were-deer and other shifters), so we know that the monsters are outed to the humans.

As with any Phipps and Suttkus book, the humor runs high in this story. There are always a lot of fun pop culture comments and one liners that keep even the darker scenes light and fun. There is always a fun cast of characters. The diversity of the personalities is always so much fun. I never get bored with any of the characters. They are so well developed, I just fall in love with them.

Narration:
Jeffery Kafer once again knocks it out of the park. He is an amazing narrator. He’s so good with the voices, both male and female. He has no issues with a large cast, every character has their own voice that matches their personality. He’s also wonderful in his tone, every scene pulls you in. If you’ve never listened to him, you’re really missing out.

**I'd like to thank the author for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

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I enjoyed this second installment in this series

Revisado: 05-20-24

Trigger warning: Suicide, Extreme Risk-taking

This is the second book in the Constance series. I was a bit worried about starting this book. I had it for a while before I finally listened to it. It has been a while since listening to book one. I remembered the gist of it, but didn’t remember the details. I was worried I would miss something from the first book. But that was not an issue at all. This book does take place chronologically after Constance. But this story follows an entirely new character, but again, the character has very close ties with Palingenesis, a cloning company for the rich and famous. The clones were originally designed for the military so that special forces could be brought back if they died in battle. But once it got out, people were against cloning of humans, the US government ended the contract. But that didn’t stop them.

So, this story starts with Chance Harker and his brother being kidnapped and eventually murdered. But their father was the head of marketing for Palingenesis, there were clones waiting for both children. However, there was an issue with lag, the time between the last “refresh” where your conscientious is downloaded, and when you die and are put back into a clone. The longer the lag, the more psychological effects. Chance was only a week or so. His brother was almost 90 days since his last refresh. Palingenesis wouldn’t allow you to get your clone if it had been more than 90 days since the last refresh. It was just too difficult on the human mind.

Needless to say, Chance was never the same mentally after his kidnapping, which he doesn’t remember. His brother was even worse and decided that he couldn’t live with the effects any more. Chance has become an internet star, he takes extremely high risk stunts, most of which he doesn’t survive. He goes to extremes to make sure he never has severe lag again. He has cameras everywhere and is rarely without video footage of himself. Even wearing a body camera most of the time. But he never stops trying to figure out what exactly happened during that very first lag when he was kidnapped.

And that is just the start and background on the story. There’s a lot that happens after all of that, but I don’t want to give spoilers. Feel free to read this book without having read the first book, Constance. Everything you need to know is provided in this book. However, I also loved Constance, so I would recommend getting it first.

Narration:
This is my first time listening to Michael Crouch. He didn’t narrate the first book, which makes sense, since the main character of the first book was female and had a female narrator. I do think that Michael did a great job with the narration of this series. I thought he chose great voices for each character. I would gladly listen to him again.

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I do love this series

Revisado: 05-20-24

Another fun installment in the cyberpunk series by C.T. Phipps and Michael Suttkus. I’ve read so many books by this pair of authors, I can’t even count. They write really fun stories with a lot of action and humor and even more pop culture references. This book is no different. This series takes place in the future where the US is not as it is today. Yellowstone volcano has erupted and made the world more dystopian. Kei was around and survived the eruption, but lost her family in the chaos that happened after. In this story, Kei and her adopted bioroid daughter try to go the more legal route than in the first book. But the closest thing Kei has to a father figure has other plans.

In Revenge of the Cyber Dragons, we meet some new characters and get to spend time with some beloved characters from the previous book (and one that crosses over to several series). Kei has always been one to try to avoid friendships and getting close to people, she doesn’t like to get hurt emotionally or possibly get someone else hurt physically. Despite all of that, she has more friends that she knows. And they won’t let her take on this new challenge on her own.

Kei also has to deal with a daughter who physically doesn’t grow up, but mentally does. Becky still looks fifteen, so when things get really dark, Kei really wants to shield her. However, Becky is a much older soul than she looks and she wants to be helpful, which makes her search out upgrades to her technology. That is something really new to this series and this author mostly too. We don’t often get to see a motherly side of characters in Phipp’s books (or well, we have, but they are nothing like Kei and in a different series).

The thing I really love about this author duo are the characters. I always fall in love with all the characters they create. I get really invested in them and their story. I always get really wrapped up in their lives and it helps me escape my own and the real world, which is always a good thing to have. I’m often made to laugh out loud and made to smile to myself even more. I know it will never be a boring time when I pick up one of these books. I always look forward to the next installment.

There is a bonus short story at the end, so make sure to keep going even when you think you’re finished. It is also worth a listen.

Narration:
Catherine Ho was new-to-me when I picked up book one, Daughters of the Cyber Dragons. I really liked her voices for all the characters then. That hasn’t changed. I really get lost in the story when she is performing. She has become the voice of Kei and well, Paradise too. She’s great with all the different characters, males included. I can’t imagine listening to this series with a different narrator. I would highly recommend the audiobook version of this book and would gladly pick up another book by this narrator.

**I'd like to thank the author for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

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Love the Shadowmaster

Revisado: 05-20-24 El oyente recibió este título gratis

I’m always ready to go back into the Shadowmaster world with Jackson Blackwell. He is just such a fun character. He always tells it like it is as he sees it. It’s been two years since the previous book (both in the book world and in real life). I was chomping at the bit to get back to this story. Jackson has been missing from his friends and family for all this time, while he learns his new titan powers. And a lot has changed since he last saw his minions.They are all scattered across several different multiverses.

This book has everything that we have come to expect from Jackson Blackwell. He is still very much a villain with a very snarky side. He also still only sees things from his own perspective, though he does come to see others through this book. I love seeing Jackson become more human, even as he becomes less human. He learns to not take his friends and family for granted. He even teaches his former boss about how vengeance can be very self destructive.

I would not start with this book, if you’ve never tried Shadowmaster. This is a series that is meant to be read from the beginning. I will say this story does pull in a lot from previous books, reminding Jackson where things once were. There is also a large number of pop culture references, a huge amount of humor, and internal monologue.

I’ve always loved how Jackson speaks directly to the listeners. I also love how Gibson changes things up for the audiobooks and adds some stuff specifically for us. I keep saying I’m going to try an ebook, just so I can see the differences, but it has yet to happen. The audiobooks are just too fun.

If you haven’t tried this series, I highly recommend it. It always makes me laugh. And this came at a time when I could use one.

Narration:
Jeffery Kafer always does an amazing job when he narrates a book, but I have to say, I love when he performs the snarky ones best. I think he does such an amazing job bringing Jackson to life. I don’t think I could just read one of these books, I have to listen. And even if I did read, it would be with Kafer’s voice in my head.

There is also a blooper reel at the end of this audiobook. I think all snarky books should include them. I felt it made the jokes even better. I’ve often wondered how narrators would get through some of these scenes without laughing. The answer, several takes.

**I'd like to thank the author for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

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So much better than I expected. Great story

Revisado: 05-20-24

I saw FantasticLand on the Audible 2-for-1 deal and decided to give it a chance. While I had never read the author before, I knew both the narrators and really enjoyed them in the past. I liked the dystopian look of the cover and when I read the blurb, I thought the story sounded really good. So, I decided to give it a try. I’m really glad I did. I had a great time with this story.

The story is written as a book, which I know sounds silly, but it is literally a story that is told in a book about the natural disaster and the aftermath that takes place at an amusement park in Florida. Each chapter is an interview, which is mostly the person telling you their story about the disaster. Each interview takes you a little bit further down the timeline.

One of the early chapters there’s interviews with a historian for the park and former director for the region’s Red Cross. Then you get an interview with a guest who was supposed to visit the park the day of evacuation. Then you start getting interviews with the employees who volunteered to stay at the park during the event. There was a bunker and plenty of food. Things should’ve gone okay, but they did not.

This story was really captivating. I loved hearing from all the people involved. You could really see how things started to go awry very early and just escalated from there. After a death in the bunker, people spread out and went to the areas they felt most comfortable and became part of a “tribe”. There was the Molemen (mostly maintenance workers who stayed in the tunnels under the park), Deadpools (people in the superhero/comic book themed area of the park), Robots (people from Futureworld part of the park), ShopGirls (girl who worked in the shops on the Golden Road, kinda like Main Street USA in Disney), Pirates (there was a pirate themed area), and the Freaks (from the World’s Circus area). There was also a Fairyland, but they didn’t last long.

As I was listening, I did compare this to Yellowjackets, where you have these kids (most of the people in FantasticLand were college students) who were put into a bad situation and things then got worse. I really got pulled into the story. The ending was different from what I expected.

Narration:
As I said, it was Angela Dawe and Luke Daniels that really sealed the deal for me to grab this story. They did an amazing job. As they did each of these interviews, which was more of a person sitting down and telling their part of the story, they really made me get into each of their stories. Each person had their own voice and personality. And you could really hear the emotion as people told some pretty crazy and horrific stories about what happened in the park. If you’ve never listened to them, I highly recommend you give them a try.

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