Starter Villain

Meet the new boss.

by John Scalzi, Wil Wheaton

Audiobook

English language

Published Sept. 18, 2023 by John Scalzi, Audible, Inc..

ASIN:: B0C6FL35YR

(6 reviews)

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, …

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

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

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.

4 editions

brenticus reviewed Starter Villain by John Scalzi

None

4 stars

It's sort of what I think of as a typical Scalzi book, with the down-on-their-luck protagonist suddenly being thrust into a much more sci-fi life than expected, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. Hera may be one of my all-time favourite characters. The whole thing is just funny, with a serious of ridiculous situations and a man who is too shell-shocked to do anything other than accept that it's happening and joke about it a bit.

If the end wasn't so deflating, where it all just sort of wraps up nicely with a cute bow and everyone's chill, it would probably be a 5-stars from me, but it sort of felt like the default expected ending. Enjoyable enough, but not really interesting.

Still, if you want something light and goofy this is a lot of fun. Highly recommend.