Forging Hephaestus (Villains' Code, #1)

by Drew Hayes

[Melanie]

My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.

Back in 2015, I stumbled across Drew Hayes’s audiobook, [b:The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant|22081680|The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant (Fred, the Vampire Accountant, #1)|Drew Hayes|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1403014158s/22081680.jpg|41419594]. That title really caught my eye. After listening to it, and the two books that are also in that series, I found that I really liked Drew Hayes. So, then I see a new audiobook available for review. And score, the is a narrator that I really like in Amy Landon.

I went into this book not knowing a lot about it. I skimmed the blurb and knew it about superheros. What I didn’t realize was the length. I was very surprised at 26 hour book, when all the Fred books were more like 7 hours. I kept putting off starting this book, wanting to get some of my shorter review books tackled. Once I started this book, I had a great time with it.

So this story starts out with Tori, a thief with metahuman powers, breaking into a vault and getting caught by the vault owner, who is none other than the Doctor Mechaniacal. He leads the Guild of Villains. He gives Tori an offer she can’t refuse. Join them or die.

Ivan is now retired and working in corporate America. He was once know that the mighty Fornax. He still serves on the council of villains, representing the other retired villains. He is currently going by Pseudonym. Doctor Mechaniacal convinces Ivan to take an apprentice. Tori not only has to be his apprentice in the villain world, she also goes to work for him in the corporate world as an intern, which is the hardest part for her.

It isn’t long into his new apprenticeship, that a Confluence happens. This is a weird kind of storm that happens and results in the creation of new metahumans. These new metahumans are swiped up by the Guild of Villains and also the Alliance of Heroic Champions (a.k.a. The Capes), these are the good guys.

While this story follows mostly Tori and her path to joining the Guild, there are also stories of some of the other newly turned metahumans. This includes her cubicle neighbor, Donald, who can pull any equipment from a video game he’s played. Donald tries to hide his powers until he’s forced to show the world what he can do. Then Capes quickly grab him to make him a superhero.

We meet some new characters too; Beverly, who can turn into a dragon, Lance, who can summon swarms of bugs and even see through their eyes and Warren, who can do magic through drawing runes. These are all recruits to the Guild.

The Capes get several new recruits too. Ren is a guy that his entire body has transformed into a mix of several different animals, not a shifter, but a chimera of different animals. He is always in this shape, but AHC is able to supply him with a charm to hide what he looks like from the general public.

So this is a great story about how all of these new recruits come into their own as both heroes and villains. I love that this story shows that things are not always black and white, but really many shades of grey. One of the Capes, Apollo, thinks it is horrible that they allow the villains to exist, but the Guild isn’t all bad. They have a code and they live and die by it. There are lines that they won’t cross. If you break the Villain’s Code, the penalty is death. One of the council will find you and kill you (not always in a pleasant way).

There is a ton that goes on in this story. It is really hard to summarize, because so much happens. I was truly immersed in this story. I love all the characters. There are villains that I loved and loved to hate. There are capes that I loved and hated. Truthfully, there was good and bad on both sides and Ivan has a scene where he explains this really well to Tori. I will be eagerly awaiting the next book in this series too.

Narration
Amy Landon really nailed the narration for this book. There is a large cast of characters and she had several distinct voices for each of them. She also did a great job of picking the voices for the different characters. There are characters that are more machine than human and she chose the voices for them perfect. All the voices are the right fit for each character. I loved all the fight scenes. There were some times when things looked desperate and she nailed the tone.

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