H.I.V.E. Higher Institute of Villainous Education by Mark Walden

The book's probably one that will appeal to younger readers who are less worried about well-rounded people and just want a decent action adventure. On the less appealing side, the majority of characters are on the two-dimensional side, worst offenders being the two girls Otto and Wing grow friendly with, Laura and Shelby, while the explanation for the school's existence never seemed particularly convincing – it's been founded because even supervillains don't want complete chaos, apparently. There's also a number of laugh out loud lines, my personal favourite being Friends, as they say, may come and go, but high powered laser-beam weapons were forever. I also thought the development of the friendshipīetween Otto and Wing worked well. The good points – Walden writes action scenes and dialogue well, the finale is genuinely exciting, and the book rattles along at a decent pace as the children are exposed to a variety of classes such as Tactical Education, Stealth and Evasion and Biotechnology. Having picked this first novel up from the library, I found it fairly enjoyable – I'm not racing to order the follow-up, but it's readable enough.

HIVE is one of those series I've seen in bookshops a lot but never got round to reading before.

As you'd expect, neither of them are keen to stay there – although this is less to do with moral scruples than with the thought of wasting six years studying how to be evil when they consider they're rather good at it already, thank you very much. Otto Malpense is one of the newest students at the Higher Institute of Villainous Education, better known as HIVE. Summary: Despite some fairly thin characterization, this is an entertaining enough vision of a school for villains.

H.I.V.E. Higher Institute of Villainous Education by Mark Walden