Hench audiobook

the villain origin story i've always wanted!!! after an encounter with a superhero that leaves her leg shattered and with a permanent limp, Anna sets out on a path for revenge and to expose the collateral damage and pain inflicted by superheroes.

November 2022Reading Vlog: https://youtu.be/pry2D9eSGnsReread this to annotate and see if it should go on my top 10 of 2022. While it didn't meet that criteria, I stand by this book whole heartedly.It's not 5 stars per se. The chapters are far too long and it doesn't solidify any depth with the characters. BUTBUTBUT! I love this book.I highly recommend. It's so unique and WEIRD and quirky and interesting. I've never read anything like this and I doubt I will again. I adore Anna and Leviathan. I'd read fanfic about them to be honest.If you love Marvel or DC, you might like this fresh twist on superheroes and what cataclysmic effects they have on everyday society.March 2022I loved it! What an absurd and spectacular setting and plot?A henchwoman for a super villain exposing the nefarious deeds of superheroes? Sign me UP!I love a Selina Kyle MOMENT.This wasn't fully realized or fleshed out the way a 5 star would be for me. But I had a great time. I loved the weird relationship between Anna and her villain. I want fanfiction about them to be honest.I really enjoyed it and can see myself rereading it in the future.

Hench didn’t end up being what I thought it was going to be. I suppose that’s my fault, because halfway through I went to re-read the synopsis and it turned out to be pretty faithful to the events of the novel. Suffice to say, I was expecting more action. What this was instead was essentially ‘super accounting’ with some mean-spirited pranks thrown in for good measure.I don’t think that’s necessarily a knock against the book. Natalie Zina Walschots writes with a lot of momentum and charisma. Her characters are interesting, even if some end up being a little flat. But I initially used a gif of Homelander from the Amazon Prime show The Boys and I don’t think that was an apt comparison at all. It wasn’t a comparison I came up with myself, but one that was used in some of the marketing material by the publisher. I just want to dispel any assumptions that might be made about Hench resembling something like The Boys or Watchmen so that people don’t go into this expecting one thing and then leave feeling disappointed.What Hench is very successful at is larger societal observations and critiques. There are parallels between the ‘Heroes’ and the damage and cost inflicted by, say, the military industrial complex. There’s commentary on the role of social media in spreading both information and misinformation, some of which may be applicable to the #MeToo movement. The way that the super-powered act with impunity and are glorified to the point of being worshipped resembles how law enforcement in this country are treated much the same way. It’s impressive the way Walschots is able to extract some of these finer points which are typically ignored in superhero stories.That said, the story itself was pretty mundane. A lot of time is spent analyzing data or trying to cause interpersonal conflicts between supers. For someone supposedly working for one of the great ‘Super Villains’, Anna’s antics are fairly benign. There’s also a substantial part spent going over her various injuries and healing time and procedures and physical therapy, etc. I just got bored when it felt like her story had stalled yet again. I understand this is probably one of the more realistic depictions of what a society with super-powered people would be like, but to be honest I didn’t go into a book like this hoping for someone struggling to pay medical bills or dealing with roommate drama. That’s just a little real for me, with not enough of the fantastical mixed in.I still think this is a good book, and I’d read more by the author. But I just don’t know if this is one that I would prioritize in an already bloated genre. The ending also gets unexpectedly gruesome in a way that was difficult to sit through. I don’t know, maybe someone who usually avoids the Marvel of it all or is just *deep* into the lore would enjoy this more. I just can’t stop thinking about some of those earlier Agents of Shield episodes where they had Phil Coulson with a broom and dustpan cleaning up whatever mess the Avengers had just made. It’s all a little to bleak and ordinary for me to really enjoy.

For a great deal of this novel, I was practicing -- or rather, reveling -- in my nefarious "muahahahahahaha" laugh. Sometimes, I had to hold back and try to unleash my vast coil of villainy in tiny little bursts, but by the final action scene, it all came bubbling out in waves of gut-propelled dark joy.Seriously though, the first part of the novel felt like I was back in my old job as a customer support rep for a big cell-phone agency. The sheer evil that I had to endure, with me as a lowly peon, felt like I was BACK.And then the middle of the book, the rise of Hench stardom, becoming an evil mastermind from deep within the bowels of the leviathan... or rather, under the auspices of Leviathan, was pure joy. I felt like I was reading Flex again for the first time.On the other side of it, I felt like I was watching (or reading the comic of) The Boys, but having the story told from the funny and unique perspective of a smart middle-manager go-getter. But it was the end that made my innards boil. What an end! Deliciously evil.But the very, very end? I didn't expect that. It's not a celluloid ending. It's dark and cruel and if I'm to be utterly honest: I really appreciate it. Most of the novel definitely IS a darkly realistic trip into a moral trap, but it also satisfies all those revenge fantasy cravings, too. It's the very end that elevates this to a question of philosophy. And I loved it. Well worth the read. Truly.

Hench expertly deconstructs superhero stories and offers a fresh perspective on the subgenre. Instead of following heroes, it focuses on Henches, expendable employees of supervillains. Anna Tromedlov works temp jobs for minor baddies. Her newest job ends in a disaster - Anna ends injured, out of work, and disillusioned with reckless superheroes who pay no attention to casualties of their superhuman feats. Her data-based research confirms superheroes, for all their good PR, are terrible for the world. They're a pest. Or worse.When Leviathan, an A-List Supervillain, hires her as a Hench, she can use her anger, data analysis skills, and excel sheets to wreak havoc in heroes' lives. Trust me when I say data analysis proves more lethal than laser beams or psychic powers. Make them late; make things go wrong around them; ruin their dry cleaning and dinners and marriages. Fuck with their social media profiles and public perception. Anna's work has one goal - to publicly humiliate heroes and make their private and public lives as miserable as possible. Thanks to modern technology, rumors, social-engineering, social media, and viral videos, she controls how the public perceives them and how they interact with others.While Hench doesn't have a lot to say about superheroes that hasn't been said before, it offers a unique perspective. I wouldn't call Anna relatable, but I appreciate her agency. Despite the success of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel many superhero stories lack strong female leads. It's good to finally see a competent female character with an understandable backstory, her own agenda, and loads of screen-time. Her doubts make her more believable and human. The way she ruins her private life shows everything comes at a cost.Interestingly, Anna bores most superheroes no ill will. She destroys them to get to a Supercollider, her, and her employer's Nemesis. Walschots' take on emotional detachment impressed me. Thanks to snarky (and slightly cynical) humor, the story never gets depressing or too dark. Even when things do get dark and depressive.The plot follows her jobs, and it's not linear. Instead, we witness the turning points of her professional life leading to a brutal climax and excellent ending that I find fitting, even if it's more bitter than sweet.In all, a worthwhile read for fans of the subgenre.

I loved this!Hench imagines what life is like when you are part of the Supervillain's admin staff. Anna's speciality is data analysis and strategizing the downfall of Heroes through careful planning. Her technique is the data analysis equivalent of death by 1000 cuts, or in this case, micro-manipula

This book was on my radar, but Charles’ review made me fast-track it. Thank you very much, friend, I had a lot of fun with this one!One of my favorite characters in adult animation is Henchman 21/Gary/The Viceroy from the brilliant series “The Venture Bros.”. He is a henchman to a super-villain called The Monarch, and while he is a simple underling early in the series, he eventually becomes his boss’ sidekick and close friend. And he has a tattoo on his chest that says “HENCH4LIFE”. When I first hear about this novel, I immediately thought of 21, and I knew I had to read it. Also, you should watch “The Venture Bros.” (available for streaming on the Adult Swim website – they are not paying me to promote it, it is just that good).I don’t know if Walschots is a “Venture Bros.” fan, but if she isn’t, she is tapping into the same vein of the collective unconscious Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick draw from when they write their show, because she has wondered a lot about the real-life effect superheroes and supervillains would have on our existence if they were real (though their take on it is very much tongue in cheek, as where hers is more serious). To run any good project, you need a brain and a face, but you also need support staff: people who crunch the numbers, give you tech support, cover your various legal quibbles, make you coffee. It only makes sense that such people would go through a temp agency in order to find work, as being part of a supervillain’s rank and file must have a high turnover…That’s what Anna and her friends June and Greg do: short contracts working with various bad guys in support roles; it’s not glamourous but it pays the bills! Anna had been working building spreadsheets for Electric Eel, when her boss asks her to come with him for a public appearance – what she thinks might be her big break turns out to be the event that will derail her life. E’s team is thwarted in their nefarious plan by one of the world’s most famous superhero: Supercollider. In the process of stopping Electric Eel, the hero throws Anna across the room and when she comes to, it’s to a spiral fracture of the femur and an early termination from her work contract. Traumatized, depressed and going through a painful physical recovery, Anna needs to make sense of what happened to her, and she begins to realize her experience is not unique. She puts together a database to compute how many lives were affected, and years ultimately taken from people by superheroes’ actions and begins to see that the harm they cause is not made up for by the good they do. Her work is eventually noticed by a very notorious villain, Leviathan, who offers her not only a job, but a purpose: the opportunity to channel her knowledge and her hate towards the superheroes to fight against them in a way no one has ever done before.The writing is snappy and witty, and it’s very easy to just sit there and devour huge chunks of the book, as the pacing is perfectly executed. But there is something about Anna’s evolution that is terribly upsetting: Walschots deconstructs how villains become villains, and while of course it is not pretty, I think the disturbing thing is how easily it happens. Sure, she was working for bad guys, but Anna was not really a bad person when her story begins, she was just trying to make ends meet. Her injury and the way it is handled by the so-called good guys plant a seed in her, a need for revenge that she sustains through her work. Of course her new boss encourages it. Of course, the truly awful way the heroes behave make her feel justified. And that’s the bitter center of this story: justifying your bad actions is a slippery slope, because eventually, down that road, all bad actions can be justified.This is nothing revolutionary: read any comic book! Loki and Magneto are perfect example of “bad guys” people can root for, and the question of how good are the good guys is deeply looked at in “Watchmen”. But the way Walschots blends those tropes with millennial office politics, and from a first person point of view, makes this story very interesting, because it highlights the hypocrisies and small-mindedness that anyone can relate to. It turns a premise that could be seen as quite over-the-top into something that might be a little close to home for comfort. I was curious to see how Anna’s story would warp up, and I found the ending to fit quite well with the spirit of the story. There is not real end to the cycle of vengeance and violence, in fact or fiction.A very interesting, often fun and sometimes gross book about doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Recommended for comic book fans who like their stories gritty and who don’t mind grey areas and flexible moral barometers in their “protagonists”.

Anna Tromedlov is a tiny cog in the villain gig economy. Henching means filling out the ancillary roles that make up a traditional bad guy roster. The camera crew that films the dramatic hostage situation, the IT resources hacking into the network feed, the getaway driver at the ready should things go south and Anna, behind the scenes crunching the numbers. But her latest gig drags her into the spotlight and she joins the line of Meat at the latest villain presser, a token diversity prop to better show off evolving bad guy allyship. In typical hero fashion the uber-hero of the book, Supercollider arrives to save the day but leaves Anna with a shattered femur, incapacitated, jobless and probably never able to walk again without the aid of a cane. While recuperating she starts calculating the cost of heroes in the world and shares the numbers in her tiny blog The Injury Report. The thousands of hours of lost productivity, not just from the Meat horribly injured as the hero sweeps in to save the day but the innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire, the firefighters dying under the rubble of a collapsing building and the millions in property damage. The arrival of Supercollider is akin to a catastrophic earthquake and no less expensive. Heroes are just villains with better PR.I could go on. What starts out as a clever examination of the hench ecosystem, the oft overlooked infrastructure of villain endeavours which could easily fill an entire novel swiftly morphs into superhero economics drawing on the real-world research of Ilan Noy and his examination of the "Disability Adjusted Lifeyears Measure of the Direct Impact of Natural Disasters". All carried out by the wickedly snarky Anna and the sharp banter between her and June. But it's also such a perfect office novel once Anna finds herself at Leviathan HQ. Walschots nails the adrenaline and camaraderie of a functioning office in contrast to the psychotic disfunction built mostly on hype and ego of Anna's earlier experiences. Social media and its impact in this new reality is smartly deployed and we still get a classic good guy/bad guy showdown to boot. This would make a perfect punk rock, alt superhero movie in contrast to the grim bluster of DC and the candy coloured optimism of Marvel. As it stands, it's a near perfect read that is a blistering fastball right down the centre of my own personal strike zone. Worth check out true believers.

I loved so much about this book. It is such a fun and (slightly) unique take on the superhero & villain story. If you're looking for a more character-drive story that has those superhero/villain elements & themes to it, this is one to check outYou can watch me discuss the book in my July wrap up: https://youtu.be/f6wmudTzrno

This was an impromptu buddy-read and it couldn't have been more perfect.I watched The Boys and loved the show not only for the blood and gore but also the quirky look on heroes and their impact on the world, the PR bullshit surrounding them. This novel had all of that and then some.You see, we don't get someone working in the CIA or some special forces soldier. Instead, we get a temp working odd jobs for this or that villain, just trying to get by. And there is a point to be made (in fact, the book greatly made that point) about it being more honest work. I tend to agree.One day, while working for one of the more important villains in the world, Anna is suddenly in the room with several "heroes" and gets injured badly. This starts her down the path of revenge - using her internet research acumen and a spreadsheet. *snickers*Soon, she's working for a big-shot villain and proving that you don't need superpowers to stir some serious trouble. Though to be fair, the trouble chiefly comes from all the "heroes" being such godawful people! What they get is what they deserve and they deserve what they are getting.Naturally, it's about taking down the big bad greatest hero, the one who injured Anna so badly and that turns out to be one hell of a challenge not just because of that guy’s superpowers.Data is key. So this book is not just looking at person-cults and hero-worship (though it does), but also at the falseness in how most people present themselves to the world (in our actual world). Just cranked up to 11. *lol* One PR team battling the other, trying to take each other down. It was quite riveting.I seriously loved how this novel so effortlessly explored the cost of justice to individuals and how humans tend to gloss over what doesn't fit the narrative - until someone won't let you any longer. To quote Mr. Nancy from the TV show American Gods: „Angry gets shit done.“ *lol*The writing style was amicable and fast-paced, the story had plenty of action and blood and gore, but also wonderfully detailed (though effortless) characterization that made you care deeply about the people and the issues addressed here. Thrown in for good measure and not too little comedic effect is office politics amongst other things and it was delicious.A fantastic novel (and a debut at that) with many wonderful twists and lots of opportunities for that evil cackle we all like to use every once in a while (or frequently)! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (See?)

“When the temp agency called, I was struggling to make the math work. In one window, I was logged in to my checking account; in the other, I was whittling down my grocery delivery shopping cart into something that would fit into the sliver of overdraft I had available. I kept dragging different configurations of noodles and vegetables in and out of the cart, grimly trying to ward off scurvy until one of several outstanding invoices was paid.”So begins Walschots novel Hench. This description was me in the early '80s, minus the tech (which didn't exist back in the dark ages when I was an undergrad), living on happy hour food for dinner. I immediately empathized with Anna.Walschots tells the tale of Anna Tromedlov and her slide from sympathetic gig worker into villainy.In the course of her deft storytelling there is action, adventure, death, destruction and lots of moral questions. Walscots asks:What is the value of friendship and love?How much of oneself and one's humanity is one willing to give up for revenge?How much can society expect someone to sacrifice for "the greater good?" and what is meant by the greater good? How much collateral damage is our society willing to tolerate for the greater good?What does it truly mean to do good?What is the accountability for those in power?This always clever, sometimes funny, frequently disturbing novel had much more depth than I expected. While not my usual genre, I'm glad I read it.