Reader: Patrick E. McLean
Listened to: June 2010 (at age 32)
First time read
What to Expect:
This is the first book in a series. It’s the only one written at this time, so I don’t know how long the series will go. It stands alone pretty well. There’s mature language and content, so be warned.
On the cover:
How to Succeed in Evil is not a self-help page for the maladjusted. It is the story of Edwin Windsor, Evil Efficiency Consultant. He’s like Arthur Andersen for Supervillians.
My Reactions (spoilers!):
Overall:
In general, I really enjoyed this book. It’s a superhero parody, supervillian origin story, and even has a bit of social commentary. The characters, while none are particularly sympathetic, are all interesting in different ways. I particularly enjoyed the secretary, Edna, who stole about every scene she appeared in. The reader (also the author) was excellent, and certainly reinforced the various tones throughout the book.
Rating: 4
Characters
Good. As is appropriate for a superhero parody, the characters were larger-than-life, and defined with generally broad strokes. However, there were little hints to depth in pretty much every character. Here are the main guys:
Edwin Windsor: Our hero. It’s kind of hard to like him in many ways – he’s overly detached, overly rational, and overly cerebral. It doesn’t stop him from making mistakes, and it’s interesting to see him slowly turn from the advisor to the do-er. Oh, and he’s tall, to contrast with his sidekick, Topper.
Topper: He has a last name, but I can’t think of it. It doesn’t come up much. In many ways, he’s the opposite of Edwin – impulsive, hedonistic, violent, loud, short. He’s also a lawyer, and intelligent, although he hides it well. He’s a good foil for Edwin.
Edna: Edwin’s secretary, a proper old Englishwoman. My favorite character in the book, it’s very comical how she attempts to enforce proper and reasonable behavior in completely ludicrous situations.
Excelsior: The main opponent for Edwin, he’s a take on Superman, if superman were a whiny little snot. He was probably the most sympathetic character, to me. Even if I didn’t like him much, I could sympathize with his troubles.
The Cro-moglodon: I’m not sure if he’s really a character, or just a plot point. He’s the Hulk, except tougher, and without Bruce Banner.
Premise:
Good. There’s a guy. He’s really smart, and he tries to get supervillians to act smart, too. Hijinks ensue. It was a fun idea.
Setting:
Fine. The setting was a near-future world where superheroes and villains had arisen within the lifetime of many still-living people.
Plot:
Ok. The story was an attempt to show how a rational, intelligent man might just decide that he needs to take over the world. Generally, it works well.
There were some odd choices made in the plot order and pacing, and I suspect most of them had to do with the book’s origin as a podcast serial. Many of the sections seemed somewhat episodic, rather than parts of a greater story. It wasn’t bad, but it was odd. My biggest complaint along these lines was the introduction of the Cro-moglodon at the beginning of Act 2. It was late to add a whole new major, major character, and the focus on him for a long chunk of the book broke up the greater narrative. I wonder if it would have worked better if he had been introduced in smaller segments earlier, before the narrative really got rolling along. It’s a minor gripe, but I did notice a sag right where he came in.
Readability:
Good. Easy to listen to. Mr. McLean has a wonderfully flexible voice that was well-suited for bringing his characters and the tone of the book to life. There were a few technical glitches, mostly repeated sentences that got missed by the sound editor, but nothing to interfere with enjoyment of the book.
I listened to the version he’s giving away for free online at his website. Each chapter had an intro with ad (about 30 seconds) and there was a closing theme, too. Since most of the chapters were only about 5 minutes long, this seemed excessive. It wasn’t so bad listening on the way to work (I’d only get a couple of files) but trying to drive for a few hours and listen didn’t work very well. That’s the point of the freebie, I guess, but even without having listened to it, I’d recommend the pay version. Hopefully it’ll have larger files spanning multiple chapters. Update: The pay version does not appear to be offered anymore. Sigh.
Audiobook Narrator:
Excellent. Effective use of different voices and a very appropriate reading style to the material.
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