Publisher: Tor (ebook – 23 September 2023)

Series: Standalone

Length: 256 pages

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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As we are getting towards the end of 2024, it’s probably about time I got around to writing something about one of the more hilarious and wildly entertaining books I checked out last year, the outstanding novel Starter Villain by John Scalzi.

John Scalzi is an outstanding science fiction author who has produced some intriguing and thoughtful books over the years.  Best known for his Old Man’s War series that followed the science fiction adventures of old human military volunteers whose minds are transferred to younger, genetically modified body, Scalzi is a highly inventive writer who creates some elaborate and powerful scenarios.  While he has written some very compelling science fiction series, I best know Scalzi from his standalone books where he and turns some outrageous ideas into wonderful tales of humanity.  My favourite is Redshirts, a fantastic and very clever Star Trek parody that imagines life aboard an Enterprise-esque ship from the point of view of the expendable lower-decks crew.  I also had a ton of fun with Scalzi’s 2022 novel, The Kaiju Preservation Society, which showcased the intriguing adventures of an organisation dedicated to preserving kaiju in a parallel universe.  All these books were very fun, which is why I made sure to grab a copy of the 2023 release, Starter Villian, which had a great plot behind it.

Plot Synopsis:

Inheriting your uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who’s running the place.

Charlie’s life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn’t all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they’re coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It’s up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyperintelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world…be a cat.

This was a highly entertaining novel from Scalzi, who provides his own unique take on supervillains in all the best ways.  Starting off with a very comical funeral scene, Starter Villain only gets better from there as the protagonist, Charlie, finds his life unexpectantly changed when he inherits his uncle’s supervillain business and associated wealth.  Scalzi provides a fantastic introduction to the unique new world of super science and sinister business practices, and you are soon caught up in Charlie’s unlikely rise to the top.  The first half of the book is loaded with intriguing scenes as Scalzi lets his imagination run wild, and you have a fantastic time learning about sentient cats, crude talking dolphins constantly going on strike, and the other unlikely inventions and people that now make up Charlie’s life.  This compelling introduction to the world works well in setting up the second half of the story, as Charlie meets a cabal of similar uber-rich supervillains who all seek to exploit him.  When a series of events outside of his control force him into a battle of survival against these supervillains, Charlie needs all his new allies and his own unique ideas to win the day, even if victory isn’t quite what he imagined.

Starter Villain was such a lovely and impressive read, and I loved seeing Scalzi utilise his humour into something more terrestrial, yet still out of this world.  Featuring the author’s typical fast pace, Starter Villain hits the ground running and throws you right into the middle of Scalzi’s fantastic and memorable ideas.  The resulting story is clever, addictive, and features some amazing twists, all of which is very awesome to see unfold.  While there is a lot of mad science, Scalzi does try to ground the supervillain antics, and I loved the author’s thoughts on how such an organisation could exist in the modern world and what sort of nefarious actions they would participate in.  Naturally this means corporations and the uber-wealthy, which is depressingly accurate if you consider recent events, although this does mean that the antagonists are very easy to dislike and entirely unredeemable.  The author loads in so much clever humour around the general supervillain scenario, and I loved the fantastic jokes about the profession, the inventions that are being created, and the unusual ways they stay in power.  A lot of jokes about supervillains also provide some excellent commentary on current society, which cynical people like me will enjoy (a joke about a potential Australian recruit to the supervillain cabal hit close to home, which was just perfect).  This is a hilarious and well-put together read that expertly showcases the author’s inventive spirit.

I also want to mention the fantastic range of complex and eccentric characters featured throughout Starter Villain, who helped to make the story even more unique and funny.  Most of the book’s focus goes around the protagonist, Charlie, who finds himself thrust into a new world of dangerous rich elites and supervillain logic.  Charlie proves to be a great central figure for Starter Villain’s plot, mainly because he plays a great everyman character whose reaction to the narrative’s crazy events mirrors that of the reader.  While slightly bland compared to the other outrageous characters, Charlie does experience some excellent growth, especially as he learns to take responsibility and to appreciate the life he has.  I also enjoyed how Charlie, despite being new to the supervillain lifestyle, was able to work out solutions to his organisation’s big problems often by being his typical thoughtful self.  The rest of the characters in Starter Villain are all allowed to go wild due to having Charlie as the perspective protagonist, and I loved the array of talking dolphins, unusual scientists, murderous goons and rich manipulators that Charlie had to either work with or overcome.  My favourite figures were easily the highly intelligent sentient cats, who really run the company and who have been manipulating Charlie his whole life.  Scalzi has a lot of fun showcasing the cunning cats in charge, and I felt this whole awesome crew of characters helped to turn Starter Villain into an extremely fun read.

Overall, Starter Villain was an amazing read from John Scalzi that proves impossible not to love.  Featuring the author’s infectious humour and love for inventive scenarios, Starter Villain was such a great book, and I deeply enjoyed the author’s take on supervillain fiction.  Clever, unique and so much fun, Starter Villian is an exceptional read, and I really wish I had written a review for it sooner.  I will have to pick up my Scalzi game in the future, and not only have I got a copy of Old Man’s War to read at home, but I am eagerly awaiting his next book, When the Moon Hits Your Eye, which features a very, very interesting sounding story about the moon literally transforming into cheese, an idea I have so much love for and cannot wait to check out.

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