Hi, my name is CT Phipps, and I am a crazy nerd from Ashland, Ky. I'm married with two dogs and love superheroes. I mean love. I used to wallpaper my bedroom wall with Spider-Man comics in their polybags. I've been a lifelong superhero fan and just love all the melodrama, hilarity, and weird science as well as magic that are the undercurrents of the genre. I've never lost my love of the characters and their stories, so when the MCU first came out, I ended up writing this book as well as its sequels. I’ve also written a bunch of other humorous sci-fi/fantasy books but this is the series closest to my heart.
Forging Hephaestus is a fantastic book about a tenuous treaty between superheroes and villains in a four-color world.
Hephaestus AKA Tori Rivas is a new supervillain and is learning the ropes from the most powerful one of them all, Fornax. Fornax is a lot nicer guy than you'd expect from the most terrifying of all villains, which shows this world is a lot more complicated than it seems.
I love the complexity, deep characterization, and thickness of this book. It’s over six hundred pages and full of fantastic details about a complicated but believable superhero world. By the end, I wanted to read a dozen more giant-sized volumes.
From Drew Hayes, author of Super Powereds and Fred, the Vampire Accountant, comes a series set in a new world of capes, cowls, and superheroes.
Gifted with metahuman powers in a world full of capes and villains, Tori Rivas kept away from the limelight, preferring to work as a thief in the shadows. But when she’s captured trying to rob a vault that belongs to a secret guild of villains, she’s offered a hard choice: prove she has what it takes to join them or be eliminated.
Apprenticed to one of the world’s most powerful (and supposedly dead) villains, she…
Dreadnought is a fantastic story about a young trans girl who inherits the powers of the most powerful superhero in the world.
Like Captain Marvel, it bestows upon her the looks of her idealized form. Unfortunately, this goes over like a ton of bricks with her family that she hadn't revealed herself to. The coming-of-age drama doesn't take a back seat to the superheroics, though, and I absolutely love the characters created by the author.
An action-packed series-starter perfect for fans of The Heroine Complex and Not Your Sidekick.
"I didn't know how much I needed this brave, thrilling book until it rocked my world. Dreadnought is the superhero adventure we all need right now."-Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky
Danny Tozer has a problem: she just inherited the powers of Dreadnought, the world's greatest superhero. Until Dreadnought fell out of the sky and died right in front of her, Danny was trying to keep people from finding out she's transgender. But before he expired, Dreadnought passed his mantle to…
Richard Roberts creates a fantastic YA world where villains and heroes, again, have a treaty in the city of Los Angeles.
It's a treaty about to be broken by a bunch of adorable middle schoolers who get wrongfully accused of being supervillains before deciding to roll with it. All of them possess powers from their superhero and supervillain parents, so they have better qualifications than a lot of adult villains.
It's cute, fun, and just plain enjoyable from start to end. All hail the Inscrutable Machine and its leader, Bad Penny!
Penelope Akk wants to be a superhero. She's got superhero parents. She's got the ultimate mad science power, filling her life with crazy gadgets even she doesn't understand. She has two super-powered best friends. In middle school, the line between good and evil looks clear. In real life, nothing is that clear. All it takes is one hero's sidekick picking a fight, and Penny and her friends are labeled supervillains. In the process, Penny learns a hard lesson about villainy: She's good at it. Criminal masterminds, heroes in power armor, bottles of dragon blood, alien war drones, shapeshifters and ghosts,…
Sometimes you want your heroes to be serious and sometimes you want them to be wacky.
Andrea Vernon is a series that goes running toward wackiness then sails right past it. The story of a secretary at a private military contractor that specializes in goofy, ridiculous, and terrifying effective superheroes, this is one of the most fun novels I've enjoyed in years.
Andrea is a delightful Lois Lane figure who is stuck being the only normal person in the weirdest office in the world. It reminded me of the old Damage Control comics.
Back by popular demand! The further, fearsome, and funny adventures of Andrea Vernon and the Corporation for UltraHuman Protection - written by Alexander C. Kane and performed by Bahni Turpin, 2018 Audie Award winner for Best Female Narrator.
More than a year after she helped save the world from the Sparnaxian invasion, Andrea Vernon is in a good place. Her boss is giving her greater responsibility and she's getting to travel a lot (although her fill-in is hopeless at making coffee); things could be getting even more serious with her 8' 4” superhero boyfriend, The Big Axe; and she has…
Superheroes and zombies seem like a terrible combination, but Peter Clines makes a fascinating story of zombies destroying the Earth but for a collection of superhero guarded survivors.
It's a bit like The Walking Dead combined with the Justice League, though the power level of the people involved is closer to Marvel's street level. The first book has some crass jokes that get dropped from the sequels but not enough that I didn't enjoy it. I have to say my favorite characters are Saint George (a Superman analog) and Stealth (a female Batman).
The Mighty Dragon. Stealth. Gorgon. Regenerator. Cerberus. Zzzap.
They were superheroes fighting to make Los Angeles a better place.
Then the plague of living death spread. Billions died, civilization fell, and the City of Angels was left a desolate zombie wasteland.
But the ex-humans aren't the only threats the heroes face. Another group is amassing power . . . led by an enemy with the most terrifying ability of all.
Ever since Gary Karkofsky was a child, all he’s ever wanted to be a supervillain. He finally gets his chance when he receives the magical cloak of Falconcrest City’s recently deceased hero: The Nightwalker. Gary isn’t cut out for villainy, though, and soon finds himself up against the city’s worst villains as his wife encourages him to follow his better nature. However, he’s getting coaching from his ex-girlfriend, who’s become a professional henchwench since they broke up, and a supervillain who once terrified the world with his demonic wrestling! Will Gary be a hero, villain, or both? Either way he will be Merciless: The Supervillain without MercyTM!
My favorite fantasy novels tend to be rather complex. Winding plotlines, mysteriously interconnected characters, whimsical settings, and intricate, thoughtful worldbuilding combine to create immersive stories that stick in the mind like overworn folklore. Time travel or interworld travel lend additional layers of intrigue and mystery, forcing the inescapable contemplation of a more thrilling, alternate reality. And if it’s all packaged in artful, breathtaking prose that breeds full-color images, audible noises, indelible flavors, nose-crumpling odors, and tangible textures, I will happily lose myself in the pages, truly forgetting about the strictures of everyday life… at least until I get hungry and remember I need to consume more than books to survive.
An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction.
Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to Ride, but her destiny will pit her against her uncle and king, who have scorned her since before her birth.
In the Exchange, the waystation between realms, Emmelyn fights the G’Ambit, a gambling ring with members more intent on lining their pockets than protecting the realms—or their own lives.
Realm-devouring parasites threaten all existence. The Exchange is desperate to destroy them. But could their radical plans endanger the realms, too?
Soul-sucking parasites are overwhelming the realms.
Rhoswen of Stanburh is of age to train as a Realm Rider—a defender of the realms. Riders and their dragons work together to burn away infiltrating Narxon as they swarm in through tears in a realm’s fabric. But it’s not an easy battle: the mere touch of the smoky, dragon-like adversaries can reduce the lively winged beasts—and their Riders—to ash.
Becoming a Realm Rider is Rhoswen’s dream, but she carries far more responsibility…
