Please Don't Tell My Parents I Started a Thread.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Has anyone else read the Penelope Akk books? By far the best thing I've read in the; kid gets awesome powers and becomes one of the central figures of the supernatural world genre. There are a number of big reasons for this.

Heroes and Villians have an interesting culture that makes sense and is fun. e.g Most of them can't get drunk or high and have increased caloric needs, so villians hang out in malt shops instead of dingy bars.

Though the main character has incredible potential and many spotlight moments, there are plenty of people out of her league even after several books. edit: and these characters a present and not off screen force of nature types.

Most of the big problems are solved with thinking or negotiation rather than the main character having more power.

The friendship and family relationships are genuinely warm.

I'd love to get into specifics and theories and junk if some people have read them. Also good news the Author recently recovered his rights to the characters/world from his publisher and will be working on more. Not sure if he intends to do more Penelope Akk or branch out in the same world as he already has once in Book 0: I did not give that Spider Superhuman Intelligence.

[Rysto]

The first book is completely brilliant. The rest of the series isn't quite up to the same standard, but still fun.

I like some of the world-building he's done, like the explanation as to why supervillains (and heroes) are so careful to avoid civilian casualties in their superpowered battles.


Also, I'd very much recommend Richard Roberts' Quite Contrary, which is a completely unrelated universe but also excellent.

[Ibrinar]

The last book wasn't the greatest ending for the series imo but I quite liked the series.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

The first book is completely brilliant. The rest of the series isn't quite up to the same standard, but still fun.


The last book wasn't the greatest ending for the series imo but I quite liked the series.

I feel the need to warn people who are mostly through the first book that the second book drops off. I feel like the second thing in a series missing the mark is often an important step to a creator understanding what made the first thing so good and allow them to recover. In this case the second book is an over the top adventure which I assume Roberts thought he could do after the Origin story of the first book. This made it lack the relationships with parents, mentors in the Community, and between Penelope, Ray, and Claire. My wife told me that being prepared for that made it easier for her to enjoy the book for what it is.

I found both three and Four to be healthy returns to form and 3 may actually be my personal favorite with the introduction of a huge cast of junior heroes and villians.

Ya, I felt like the ending really lowered the stakes. The book really took me on a ride emotionally and was expecting a tougher ending. I believe very strongly in happy endings. I believe they're so important they should be earned. With blood, if necessary. Most of my stories have happy endings. (Roberts http://frankensteinbeck.blogspot.com/) I was expecting something between a happy ending where Penelope is no longer a mad scientist but has the potential to become as skilled as the Audit with the added bonus of the Machine, the propellar gaunlets and one or two other surviving toys or a really heavy ending where Penny put Heart of Gold in her meat body and stayed in the doll body.

[Friv]

I was a fan of the series; unfortunately, I didn't get to finishing it before Curiousity Quills turned into a complete gong show and all of Roberts' books got pulled from Amazon. Hopefully, now that he has the rights back, it'll pop up again and I can finally find out what the heck happens.