Readers ought to know what to expect from John Scalzi by now, but that doesn’t seem to stop some of them complaining about the ever-so-slightly liberal world view in his novels. But you should know what you’re getting, which is: slightly off-beat science fiction plots, an out-of-their-depth central character, and pages of snappy dialogue. most of all, most important of all, Mr Scalzi can do funny in a way that makes it seem easy, which it is not. So here’s a warning that this book contains… unions.

It also contains billionaires, and while it maintains a light tone throughout, the novel doesn’t forget that these entitled trust fund babies too often think that being born super rich makes them super smart. Underneath all the fun it does ask the serious question of what is to be done with all the billionaires and their outsized egos and dumb ideas. Kim Stanley Robinson offered one solution in The Ministry for the Future. It’s no surprise that Mr Scalzi ends up offering something similar.

The startup dude approached the microphone on the stage. He paused dramatically.
And then he said, "I want you to consider your testicles … as a service.”

Scalzi is brilliant at placing characters in situations that become progressively and increasingly absurd until, like the proverbial boiled frog, you find yourself having “just gone with it” to the point of hilarious no return. My favourite example of this in the book is the Zoom meeting with the wannabe supervillain who doesn’t know how to encrypt the call. And forgets to unmute his mic.

Our hapless hero Charlie is bumping along near rock bottom – a former financial journalist who can’t pay the property taxes on his late father’s house – when his estranged rich uncle dies. Asked to represent his uncle Jack at the funeral in return for a small bequest, and thinking that might involve accepting condolences, Charlie is confronted with a cast of characters who seem more concerned with checking that his uncle is actually dead and are prepared to fight him to do so.

Turns out that uncle Jack’s car park business was the legitimate front of a much larger and less legal operation. And as to what makes this book science fiction, well. You’ll meet a cat who can type, a dolphin called Don’t Give a Shit, and a hidden volcano lair.

I really enjoyed this page-turning nonsense. There are not many books that make me laugh out loud, but this is one of them. Mr Scalzi’s hero gets distracted by exactly the same things we all would, which is why this is both absurd and relatable.

And for the first time ever, I get to say: Thank you to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Seeing the cover of John Scalzi’s Starter Villain, with its stylish and suited cat was more than enough to make me want to read it - but if that didn’t convince me, the blurb certainly did!

Charlie is down on his luck, running out of money and fighting with his family to keep his home. When a distant relative dies, he finds himself inheriting a Super Villain company and his life will be changed forever!

I always worry when I get my hopes up for a new book as expectations don’t always live up to the reality of the words on the page. I needn’t have worried about Starter Villain, it’s a fast-paced, fun and absurd read which kept me hooked. You do, of course have to suspend your disbelief for this one; there’s super villains, cat masterminds and rude dolphins at every turn with assassination plots and schemes aplenty.

Charlie is a great narrator for the story, he’s used as a normal person thrown into this bizarre world and asks all the questions that the reader is also asking such ‘why can my cat talk?’, ‘why does this person want to kill me?’ and ‘why can’t this Super Villain use Zoom correctly?’. The dry humour and witty writing style really help to engage the reader, and some big events are introduced in just a sentence that sometimes you have to go back and check you did just read what you thought you did!

It’s a short book and it’s also a standalone (in terms of Charlie’s story anyway), although I would love to read more. The plot itself is well constructed and there’s some great characters, particularly Hera and Persephone - the two cats on security detail. There’s also a lot of fun poked at governments, tech bros and corporations. I would love to read more about the universe in general even without Charlie in future.

Overall, Starter Villain is a book not to miss – a fun and absurd fast-paced read and one of my Kindig Gems for 2023. Thank you to NetGalley & Pan Macmillan – Tor Books for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

After reading something worthy and literary I like to read something that is light and fun. Starter Villain supplied that. In spades!
A story that romped between mainland USA, Caribbean islands, and the Italian lakes like the James Bond stories it lampooned, on the way taking swipes at Big Business and Old Money and was, in every way, great fun.
Charlie Fitzer, ex-reporter turned supply teacher, discovers that his estranged Uncle was not just extremely rich, but also a supervillain, with no other family to leave his volcanic lair to. Charlie is thrown headlong into a convoluted plot organised by a cabal of international villains.
I loved many parts of this book, not least the nod to the film Charade in the funeral parlour.
Great escapism by a great storyteller.

I've been meaning to read some John Scalzi for a while, and this presented the perfect opportunity. His writing style is very accessible, and tells the story with such a charm it is so easy to get through. At first, I thought to myself 'What the hell is this?' but it turned into a wonderful story with constant twists and turns and fun characters.

Highly recommended to anyone who wants a satisfying read with a whole load of fun! I'll definitely be exploring more Scalzi after this!

What if villainy had reached such a scale that it was incorporated? What if villainous operatives now extended beyond the human?

Follow Charlie as he learns just exactly what his absent billionaire uncle left him in his will Follow as Charlie learns that there is more to running a business empire than he thought. Follow as Charlie is repeatedly saved by cats...

There are plenty of clever twists, laughter, amazing characters, and spying cats (see, you always knew they were up to something!).

*Thank you to the Publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC copy of this title.*

Starter Villain was possibly the most entertaining book I have ever read. I don't generally re-read books but I'd re-read this one. It was wild. It had me laughing into the early hours. The characters, human and otherwise, were delightful. Overall, a brilliant read that I absolutely loved.

This was so much fun!
Charlie is a likeable, if somewhat hapless, protagonist who is chucked in at the deep end. Discovering his late uncle was a supervillain with cat spies and a shadowy organisation gunning for him is shocking enough - then finding out that Charlie’s the sole heir…
With humour and fun twists, this was an enjoyable read and I LOVE Hera with all my heart.
I look forward to reading more from this author!

My review:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Starter Villain is a great story! I found it to be fast paced and cinematic!

It's a very fun read, with fantastic twists, characters that delight and lots of comedy!

I have enjoyed every John Scalzi book I've read so far! They have all delivered on great plots, lots of action and all been very atmospheric!

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Pan Macmillain.

Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

SPOILERS!

Do you like:

Spies?
Cats?
Spy cats?
Unionised dolphins?
Volcano lairs?
Nazi treasure?

Then this is a must-read! Second Scalzi I’ve read this year following his Kaiju book and this one was a blast. A fast read, fun characters and plot and some genuinely funny moments. I’m not usually a fan of “funny books” but this one got me. Highly recommended!

This is a lightweight romp with a well paced plot, some interesting ideas, and some good (if not great) characters. The premise that the main character, Charlie, gets sucked into a world of high concept (and quite polite) villainy after the death of his uncle is an excellent set-up for this fish-out-of-water tale.

Charlie is new to the world of villainy, but he has some moments of clarity as he navigates through the potential pitfalls, aided by a small cast of supporting characters. I particularly liked his closest “colleague”, Matilda Morrison - whose pithy and slightly aloof take on a lot of the activity is a nice contrast to some of the more stylised thugs in Charlie’s new circle of acquaintances. If you’re looking for depth and emotion in the characters, then you won’t really find it here - but that’s not what this book is about. The plot unfolds nicely, and comes to a conclusion with all of the loose-ends tied up in ways that you wouldn’t necessarily expect - but I personally would have liked a slightly different outcome.

For me, the talking cats and dolphins were a nice addition (I particularly enjoyed the dolphins) - but other reviewers have mixed opinions about this.

Overall, this was a page-turner for me, with the plot and the enjoyable set-up pulling me forwards through the story.

Thank you #NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the free review copy of #StarterVillain in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

”So we're like Spotify, but for evil."
"We're much less evil than Spotify. We actually pay a living wage to the people whose work we're selling."

Charlie, a former journalist–turned–substitute teacher, is broke and more comfortable with stray cats than humans. Then his estranged uncle dies, leaving his business - his trillion-dollar supervillain empire - to Charlie.
Charlie doesn’t really have the skills (or desire) to manage the staff of the volcano lair and things only get worse when he’s pressured to attend the world-leading super villain conference. Most of whom seem to hate his uncle and, by proxy, him. Meaning he’s probably dead meat.

“I'm here on an island in the Caribbean, being told I need to talk to the dolphins in the middle of a labor action about some whales that might have torpedoes, armed by a secret society of villains who want access to a storeroom full of objects probably looted from the victims of the friggin' Nazis and who are maybe willing to blow up my volcano lair to get it."

There’s sentient, typing cats. Dolphins with an explicit swearing problem going on labour strike. Fake deaths, assassin exes, a villain conference… Did I mention cats?
What’s not to love?

This was a rollercoaster of fun - multiple laugh out loud moments, episodes of me staring at my own cats and wondering whether I should get a keyboard for them, and marvelling at how stupid and corrupt rich people can be.

Yes, this book is for you.

I expected this book to be a little bit crazy and it didn’t disappoint. The story line goes along swimmingly and we get introduced into all the villainy shenanigans happening on a secret base in the middle of the ocean. I have to admit the cats, dolphins and whales are the best about this book. The author wasn’t able to keep the pace throughout the whole book, but in general it was a great book!

This is definitely a book that knows what it is. Not usually my thing, but if you're into comical stories with cats involved in espionage and real estate, sweary dolphins with Marxist tendencies, Bond villains, explosions, volcano lairs, and more . . . Scalzi has got you covered.

The plot rolls along nicely and there are some genuinely funny moments (did I mention the sweary dolphins? They might be the best part of the novel), but for me it started to drag in the middle. Probably tipped into a little bit too much whimsy for me. Still, it finishes strong with a tidy resolution.

Nothing too heavy here, a solid and silly caper.

Excellent book. I enjoyed every aspect of this book. The protagonist is lovable with his love of cats and it is cute how he buys "meow mix" for them. But, things take a turn when he inherits his uncle's "villain business". He discovers a secret world of smart cats and dolphins and other villains who want to dominate him. Will he win? What's going to happen? The ending is as good as it was unexpected.

I've long been a fan of John Scalzi. He does what no author does, in my experience. He takes iconic concepts in speculative fiction and develops stories that explore their hidden nooks and crannies. He did this with his tribute to Star Trek with Redshirts. Recently he wrote the Kaiju Preservation Society and how it went about looking after Godzilla-like creatures. Now he's gone James Bond on us. We find out what it's like to be a super villain, complete with volcanic lair and a cat or two.

Another reason for my love of his stories is the balance he maintains between humour and excitement. It's not easy. His topics generate excitement readily enough. Any story with rampaging monsters, space battles and the like are going to have lots of ways to keep your reader turning the next page. But for there to be humour as well, that's a different thing completely. The humour must be grounded. We need to believe in the premise.

To sustain this belief is even more difficult. It can only be done one way. The story's characters need to be engaging and they need to be real. The premise can be fantastical. The characters cannot.

Scalzi achieves this perfectly with his protagonist in Starter Villain. Charlie is a nice guy. Life has treated him badly. He'd been made redundant from his job as a business journalist and he's earning a living as a substitute teacher. Except it's hardly a living. He's divorced and lives with his cat, Hera. His step-siblings want the family home sold but that would leave him homeless. And there we are, engaged and rooting for someone who needs help. He's real. We know people like this.

Into Charlie's plight steps someone who turns his life upside down. To avoid spoilers, I'm going to keep things vague from this point. Suffice to say, Charlie rapidly discovers himself in a very different life, as a super villain. At least, in a company which deals with other super villains. And yes, his base is a volcanic island. Even here, Scalzi makes a point of explaining how such a thing is possible. He leaves you wondering if such a sequence of events could have happened. It's not impossible!

Of course, events unfurl with increasing speed. Poor Charlie is faced with extreme dangers and his life is placed at risk repeatedly. But that need for credibility is there. With his background established, Charlie deals with things using his life experiences. We believe that a failed journalist cum substitute teacher might work things out as he does. Even when they are wonderfully bizarre.

If, like me, you enjoy stories that make you giggle while you are frantically turning the page, you will love Starter Villain and all Scalzi stories. He is unique in his style and the kind of stories he writes. I loved this one especially because of the way it tips its hat at so many of the classic Bond moments. It's fair to say I will never look at cats in the same way again. Or dolphins for that matter too!

I'm grateful to @NetGalley and @PanMacmillan for an ARC of this book. It is released in September. I strongly recommend you get a copy!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the arc. I was a big fan of the the Kaiju Preservation Society, and was eager to pick this new book up. It is a short read, but full of humour and interesting characters. I will never look at a Dolphin the same way again. Recommended for those that enjoy lighter reads!

STARTER VILLAIN by John Scalzi

An ARC was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. STARTER VILLAIN will be published on 21 September 2023.

Charlie Fitzer is a divorced thirty-something orphan and trained journalist that just about manages to keep his head above water with substitute teaching. When he unexpectedly hears about his estranged uncle's death, Charlie does not expect his life to change. But the late parking infrastructure mogul had different plans for his nephew and suddenly Charlie finds himself surrounded by super villains, secret lairs and sentient cats.

How to Train Your Supervillain

With its dialogue-heavy prose, Starter Villain reads like a lightly edited, almost-stream-of-consciousness-y story similar to a play or TV script. There is the occasional stabbing or explosion, but it is mostly a light-hearted romp about corporate villainy and bro culture and a delightful, quirky take on "what if bureaucracy was a(n evil) superpower?" It is not a particularly nuanced take at that but since the US cover features a cat in a business suit it seems fair to assume that the entertainment angle was chosen deliberately and on multiple levels.

Part of Starter Villain's entertainment value lies in its fish-out-of-water protagonist Charlie who is bright but also definitely in over his head, which makes it easy to root for him. He even calls out the predominantly white, male and (presumably) cishet business practices at work but, in true lampshading style, the story then just moves on. That and the fact that Starter Villain has trouble passing the low threshold of the Bechdel-Wallace test make that particular statement ring somewhat hollow. Other social(ist) issues, however, get much more room so there is no lack of social commentary overall.

Rating

I don't think I've ever read anything longer by John Scalzi than his Twitter threads and occasional blog posts. Despite (or maybe because of) that, Starter Villain feels thoroughly "him" in all the best ways. There is a lot of humour, witty banter and ideas drenched in social commentary. If not for its publication date, I'd call it a perfect beach read. In comparison with other three-star books I've read recently, I have to put Starter Villain towards the lower end of that scale. But then again it isn't Scalzi's fault that I didn't get to read it at the beach...

bwahahahahahaha. I laughed so much, tea came out my nose. Taken out of context that might seem completely inappropriate for a funeral scene (it isn't!). The modern day Art of Villainy has substantially evolved from the traditional Bondesque Villain template, including an impressive update in Catitude. Sweary dolphins, villainous PowerPoint presentations (is there any other type?), Evil as a Subscription Service, volcano lairs, spy satellites, cackling nemeses' - this book has it all! It was a LOT of fun and definitely one Scalzi fans will want to pick up.

Recommended for fans of: Christopher Brookmyre, Blake Crouch, Caimh McDonnell, Randall Munroe, All Systems Red, Mickey7, The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination, Hench, Confessions of a D-List Supervillain, The Rules of Supervillainy, Supervillainy and Other Poor Career Choices, The Henchmen's Book Club

Thank you to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the ARC.

Oh, no spoilers - Ok, Hmm. How do I describe this book then? Brilliant, fun, a blast, villains, cats, satirical humour, and so much more! Just don’t expect Villains to be nice, by definition they are not, and also they might not be honest, but if you do by chance get involved with them…. well… maybe not the best life insurance plan! Thank you to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.

The bad news is - this book isn't released until September 2023...

The good news is - I have an advance reader copy. So I get to revel in it now!

I appreciate that you might not consider that much of an upside. But sucks to be you, I guess?

Scalzi's writing reminds me why I love to read. It is fast, funny, and filled with righteous ire. The plot is... look, it's identical to Scalzi's other books. "Who? Me? A nerdy guy is called on to save the world? But all I have is my nerdy references and a healthy dose of meta-awareness!"

Much like his last book "The Kaiju Preservation Society" this is a brilliant and funny novel with a delightfully sideways look at the tropes of super-villains. It perfectly explains why villains always have cats on their laps.

I suppose my one criticism is its over-use of "show, don't tell". You know that movie trope where the entire conflict could have been avoided if the characters just explained things to each other - but inexplicably don't? I felt that frustration throughout the entire book. So many chapters were literally just "I could tell you what's going on in a 5 minute chat - but it'll be more dramatic if I just remain enigmatic!" That's fine once or twice, but it gets old fast.

I get that having long passages of exposition don't make for a dramatic or engaging chapter - but it could have used a flashback, or an eavesdropped conversation, or anything other than literally have a character say "I'll let you figure that out yourself."

But, it's a fun popcorny ride. You can't fault Scalzi's zingers and crowd-pleasers. Nor should you - or else he might set his cats on you...

Many thanks to NetGalley for the preview copy.