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  • Bones of the Past

  • Villains' Code, Book 2
  • By: Drew Hayes
  • Narrated by: Amy Landon
  • Length: 35 hrs and 48 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (223 ratings)
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Bones of the Past cover art

Bones of the Past

By: Drew Hayes
Narrated by: Amy Landon
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Summary

After her apprenticeship was done and a place in the guild of villains secured, Tori's life was supposed to get simpler. Unfortunately, a poorly timed errand sees Tori caught in the debut of a new team of capes, one wearing an all-too-familiar name.

Thrust into the spotlight, Tori will have to navigate her unwanted fame as well as the suspiciously superheroic new neighbors down the hall, all while keeping up with her own villainous enterprises. With the guild no longer a secret, Hephaestus needs to grow as strong as possible to face her mounting threats.

Ambitious gangs, battling against mechanized traps, and brawling with capes are only the beginning. Behind the scenes, a hidden enemy works to settle an old score, one that has burned for decades. This secret scheme will not only endanger Tori, her friends, and the guild, but the very world itself.

©2020 Andrew Hayes (P)2021 Tantor

What listeners say about Bones of the Past

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Too long, needs an editor

I like all of Drew Hayes' novels but this one suffered from many of the same issues the Super-powereds series did. Too many characters and too many subplots. I just tried to do a quick mental tally of how many different perspectives the story is told from at different times and I could think of at least 18. That is too many!

On top of that there are so many inane subplots. Just little tangents here and there that take forever to get where they're going. Having finished the book I look back and realise how many could have been trimmed for a more engaging story experience.

It's a shame because the Fred series is trimmed to 10 hours per book roughly and is fantastic for the speed and excitement of its stories. It takes advantage of handwaving away some character development as "over the course of a few months Albert got better at bookkeeping" whereas here we'd get multiple scenes of studying and training. We even had multiple scenes of secondary characters working out in the gym.

It's just frustrating. With an editor to trim this it could be a really good book but currently it feels more like a TV series with many different threads. I honestly think if this was made for TV it would be better because of how much of the story relied on showing every little detail.

I mean, the audio is 35 hours. the epilogue is an hour and a half. That's just madness. Longer than Name of the Wind, Dune and possibly Stormlight 1. Yet it isn't engaging for much of that. Possibly because the main characters are both:

1. Not Villainous. Like, I think they committed maybe one proper crime and that was as lookouts for a crime.

2. Completely lacking in agency. The characters just get pinballed from one situation to another and never seem to do anything about it. If they were really villainous they might occasionally take life by the horns.

That being said, the story isn't bad. The characters are reasonable and their decisions often make some sense. I think the book could do with a lot of work and I likely won't listen to the third but it isn't bad enough to put me off the next Fred book.

The audio was pretty good although the robo-voices started to really grate on me by the end.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Making the unbelievable believable

Staggering world building. Fantastic characters, fully realised. A plot that dragged my attention away from the world for hours at a time, even when I wasn't listening.

When I got this, I listened to the first book all over again and glad I did. I'm looking forward to listening to all three books when the next one comes out.

Drew Hayes is, for whatever reason, an author capable of making worlds come alive in my brain.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Awesome awesome awesome

Bloody hell but Drew delivered brilliantly here as always

the story and character development is sublime and I was hooked for the full (and amazing valued) 35 hours!!!


Amy’s narration is second to none and you can easily differentiate between the seemingly endless characters Drew has subjected her too

Just great

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another fantastic book from Drew Hays

Another fantastic book from Drew Hays and a gripping continuation of Hephaestus's story. New villains, new superheroes and new & evolving superpowers - what's not to like? Excellent narration by Amy Landon too. Can't wait for the next book!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another Stonker

Another”superhero” book written with character development and humanity (capes can be arses too), twists and engaging characters with more clearly to come. Looking forward to the next one.
Drew Hayes clearly loves the genre :)
Next please.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The wait for the next will kill me

I found Drew Hayes first through his NPC series (another great listen btw) and saw Forging Haephestus thought give it a try and quickly loved it. I was very happy when the next book showed in my recommended books and quickly got it.

The story is a step up from book 1 as it can focus on the characters and expanding the already good world-building.

I found myself at times laughing and genuinely invested in the characters and what they were going through.

Amy Landon is a superb narrator and her giving each character their own voice is really appreciated especially as among my large library of audiobooks a number of narrators just keep the same voice for everything.

I honestly can't wait for the next in the series, hopefully, it won't be too long.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Better than Super Powereds

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Super Powereds quite a lot, and where this series has it beat is it doesn't have Vince in it. No Gary-stu in the lead role this time.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Absolutely fantastic

I absolutely loved this as much as I did the last. Less villainy than I would have expected but really a fantastic book. And we’ll preformed I enjoyed this so much.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

OK ish

not a bad story. the writing is simply. the flow was clunky. I hold out hope the writing throughout the series improves. these books could be really good.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Loved it

I love this world of super villains and heroes. made up in such an awesome way I love it

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