All good things must come to an end

This book is a kind of bittersweet, in that it’s the last one in the main series.  It’s a crazy long four books (well, five if you count the spinoff**) and it truly is the end of a journey.  We’ve seen these characters grow from immature teens to adults who are willing to make tough decisions, and who are tangled in things far beyond them.  The four years (or more) you spend at college change who you are as a person, and we get to see that through these books.

A few times characters acknowledge their growth.  They go into a situation, and think of what they would have done freshman year, and then make a smarter choice.  People fail. And that failure either pushes them to new heights or makes them realize that there is another path available.   

One thing Drew Hayes has mentioned in his Q&A sessions is that he always knows the ends of his books and his series.  He knew going in to Year 1 where we would be at the end of Year 4. And there are little things that show that. There’s a class that Nick takes in Year 3 that foreshadows what happens in Year 4.  A character you didn’t think would show up again reappears. And questions you had at the beginning get answered. I mean, there are still some questions at the end. But all the major points got covered.  (I want to know their cover identities. It’s not really stressed, but it’s mentioned once and then not really again. It’s a much bigger plot point in the Villain’s Code books, but I still want to know!) Each book and series he writes is telling a certain story.  Super Powereds was meant to show the period of time the students had at Lander and all of the plots and twists that happened during that 4-year time period. Corpies tells the story of that part of Titan’s life. There will not be another Super Powereds book, because that story is done.  There will not be a Corpies 2, because having Titan go back to that wouldn’t make sense. There will most likely be more spin-off books, because it’s an awesome universe, (and he hints at a crossover with Villain’s Code!) but that may be like, 10 years down the line. That’s okay. We’ll wait.  Because it’s worth waiting for. And while this story has been masterfully told, we have an ending. And I’m okay with that.

**And to put these in a bit of a scale, the longer of the Harry Potter audiobooks (narrated by Stephen Fry) come to a total of 127 hours and 39 minutes.  Super Powereds is 159 hours and 59 minutes, and 179 hours and 49 minutes if you count the spinoff. That’s a lot. That’s 7.5 days! And the first Super Powered book was only published in 2014!  This dude is crazy! (Also crazy – me. Because I’ve listened to Years 3 and 4 twice.) Yes, Harry Potter may have about 1,000 more pages as a series, but keep in mind that Drew Hayes has two more series going at the same time with the start of a third and some stand-alone novels as well.  And if you go with word counts, Harry Potter has 1,084,170 words, while Super Powereds has 1,418,682 words! (1,252,067 if you don’t count Corpies and just go with the main storyline.)

This fulfills the CBR10 Bingo square of “This is the End”