Clare L. Deming

I picked up the latest novel by John Scalzi for an upcoming book club discussion. Starter Villain is a stand-alone novel, and honestly, I was sold on this one by the cat on the cover (paid link). Read on to see what I thought of the story.

Here is the blurb:

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.

I have only read a couple of other books by John Scalzi prior to this (Old Man’s War and Redshirts, neither of which I reviewed here), and I have followed his blog. His writing style is generally light and humorous in the works I’ve read, and this novel follows that pattern.

Starter Villain was a lot of fun and was a quick and easy novel to read. The story is exactly as described in the blurb above and follows Charlie as he fumbles his way through his newfound responsibilities. The only disagreement that I had with the description in the blurb was that his henchperson didn’t terrify me at all, but she was a terribly competent woman which might be frightening to some people.

The intelligent spy cats were great and they gave plenty of opportunities for the author to insert some humor. Given the dangerous business that Charlie has entered, the humor throughout the story is essential to making this book enjoyable.

When I first read the blurb I had wondered how innocent Charlie was going to manage this transition into evil. However, the villainy that ensues pits him against the competing supervillains rather than against civilians. Much of their activity involves making threats and using their power to keep the others from calling their bluff. This keeps Charlie from doing anything truly evil in the book, which helped to keep him a likeable character.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and will continue to pick up John Scalzi’s novels when I have a chance. Have you read any of this other books? Which one is your favorite? Let me know in the comments (above).

Find more of my reviews here.