Title: Starter Villain
Author: John Scalzi
Genre: Scifi
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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, hyper-intelligent 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.

The snark and sarcasm in this made me laugh. And, of course, the cats. Because who doesn’t love super intelligent cats? This was a solid read, if you’re looking for pure entertainment in a not-believable premise. It was entertaining and creative and an easy, quick read. Pure fun, but not a lot of depth. And the dolphins were…underwhelming to me.

John Scalzi isa bestselling author. Starter Villian is his newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Tor in exchange for an honest review.)

This book is one of my favorite reads of 2023.

It plays on a lot of the "bad guy" tropes, showing that there's even evil among villains. I loved the sentient upper-management cats, the dolphins who were not taking anyone's crap, and the sarcastic banter all around.

Charlie is a great relatable character and I appreciated that he just accepted that there were other people in the room smarter than him. Was he a badass when he needed to be? Yes. But he never tried to be something he wasn't capable of being. We all need a little more of Charlie's honesty.

This book is a drop everything and read this now situation.

Also, where can I get a Hera?

Starter Villain by John Scalzi is a fun comedy that explores the scenario of a nice guy who inherits a criminal empire. The story has a lot of fun with the concept and portrays the criminal empire as a James Bond villain's fantasy. The volcano lair is fun visually for the reader. Scalzi has so much fun writing dialogue for the sentient cats and dolphins. The pacing of the book is rapid speed for a pretty short book at 262 pages. The book is hard to put down. My biggest complaint is the story is too short, I wanted the world a little more fleshed out and wanted more on-the-job training. The comedy works very well and made me laugh out loud numerous times. The story is a little complex with many double and triple crossings, but it is explained well, and I was not lost. There is not a whole lot of action but when there is it is intense and really fun. The intro hooked me right away for this fish-out-of-water story. The ending was perfect for the story. This is my second John Scalzi novel the first was The Kaiju Preservation Society which made it into my top ten books read of the year list, which I see Starter Villain doing this year. I read Starter Villain early thanks to Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group in exchange for a review. Starter Villain was published on September 19, 2023.

Plot Summary: Charlie is down on his luck substitute teacher who dreams of owning a local Chicago bar, but he doesn't have any money. He has just been informed that his Uncle Jack who owns parking lots all over the world has passed away and wants Charlie to perform the services for him as a dying wish. Charlie met Uncle Jack once when he was 5 and he did send him a wedding gift that predicted exactly how long his wedding would last 3 and a half years. Charlie agrees to bury Uncle Jack and is paid a good fee from his estate. When the flowers with obscene cards asking, Jack to rot in hell, and f-off and die. Charlie grows concerned that Jack isn't who he thought he was. The guests all look like hardened criminals who don't even like Jack and just really want to prove that he's dead. Charlie finds out the funeral was a test and is going to inherit his Uncle's real business villainy across the world. Charlie finds out that his uncle has been keeping track of him through his cat who can communicate and has been set up by his uncle for his protection. Charlie must fend off evil organizations hell-bent on killing him and taking over his uncle's business.

What I Liked: The humor throughout the novel is great and never stale. I love Charlie's conversations with his cat Hera after he finds out he can talk. I love the bit about apologizing for the Meow Mix which Hera likes and thinks of as chips, and admits to ordering door dash when he's out. The James Bond Villainy is great and the fact that all the bad guys have cats. The sentient dolphins that strike was a clever and good plot point that led to the conclusion. I liked that I was hooked from the beginning, it is the same setup for The Kaiju Preservation Society but it worked better in this story. I loved how well-rounded the storytelling is. Everything gets resolved in the story. I loved how everybody was let down by how a volcano's death works.

What I Disliked: The novel is too short, I think this is my first ever complaint that a story is too short, but at times it feels rushed. I wanted to see more of Charlie's on-the-job training, and all facets of the empire.

Recommendations: Starter Villain is highly recommended. if you like John Scalzi's writing you will not be disappointed. The Kaiju Preservation Society was nerdier but this one was funnier. It has some great humor that fits in with Douglas Adams meets Monty Python's.

Rating: I rated Starter Villain by John Scalzi 5 out of 5 stars.

I had very much enjoyed Scalzi’s novel The Kaiju Preservation Society, which I read with our Library’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Discussion Group, so was excited to check out his latest work Starter Villain. There are a lot of similarities between the two with both starting out with a well meaning young adult who has failed to achieve the level of success they had hoped for and who gets swept up in a worldwide conspiracy in this case it is a league of super villains rather than monster preservationists. Both novels play with the typical clichés of the genre like a volcano lair, in the case of Starter Villain, and champion the proletariat over the larger conglomerates that have been increasingly common in our world.

The ending felt a bit predictable, but if you enjoy referential geek humor and clever twists on genre conventions than this will charm you. Amongst the fun are also some interesting questions about what in today’s society truly makes a villain and how much of our lives are shaped by outside forces. Plus as the cover hints at there are genetically modified sentient cats as well as dolphins who are both hilarious.

Such a fun and entertaining premise. Imagine if Dr. Evil’s long-lost nephew inherits his Volcano lair but with managerial and super smart cats instead of sharks with freakin’ laser beams on their heads!
John Scalzi is quickly becoming one of my auto-read authors! His writing is so quirky and clever. And the audiobook performed by Wil Wheaton is a pure delight. Many thanks to the author, Tor Books, and Netgalley for this egalley.

Starter Villain is just fun, from beginning to end.

Charlie is down on his luck. He’s divorced, living in a house his half-siblings want to sell, and working as a substitute teacher. All he wants to do is buy the pub downtown, but he has no money and can’t get a loan. Then his estranged uncle dies and leaves him his business – parking garages/villainous empire. Suddenly he’s the owner of a top-secret lair (under a volcano, naturally), though the “sinister mission control room” is somewhat lacking. And now some people are pressuring him to join the Lombardy Convocation, a group of supervillainous villains who just happen to be having their annual meeting.

This story is laugh-out-loud funny. Charlie is in over his head but has some good guidance, including from his cat, Hera (who I adore by the way). Turns out villany is much more corporate than one would have thought. In addition to explosions, Bond-style bad guys, and assassination attempts, he has to deal with worker’s rights, animal liberation, unions, nepotism, and all the other trappings of big business.

It’s an easy, escapist read. The dialogue is witty and full of humor. The characters are a blast, and some are not as one-dimensional as they may seem. And the ending is perfect.

In seventh grade, Shannon—one of the popular girls—told a story about buying a fish at Petco with a friend and immediately dumping it onto the pavement. She and her friend felt bad for the fish after doing this, so they filled cups of water and splashed the fish occasionally to extend its miserable final moments (rather than, y’know, putting it in a bowl). I recalled this story from my childhood as I read John Scalzi’s Starter Villain. I promise it will make sense soon.

Charlie Fitzer is down on his luck. Laid off from his job, he lives in his late father’s old house. His siblings ravenously seek the payout that would come with selling said house, but Charlie resists, even as he tries to use the abode as collateral for a business loan. He substitute teaches in Barrington, Illinois, and generally wallows in directionlessness. Then his estranged uncle Jake dies, and Charlie inherits his parking garage business. That business is a front for Uncle Jake’s real job: villain. Thrust into a world he doesn’t understand—replete with volcano lairs, talking cats, and genetically engineered dolphin spies—Charlie is forced to reckon with his uncle’s legacy and confront billionaires set on killing him and/or thwarting his newly-owned businesses.

A brief peek at Goodreads reviews of Starter Villain will quickly reveal the repeated use of a single phrase: “fish out of water.” Here’s the problem with taking a fish out of water: the fish will die. Such is the case with Charlie in his new, villain-populated world. He desperately needs a Shannon to splash water on him. In Starter Villain, Charlie’s “Shannon” is Matilda Morrison, his late uncle’s right-hand woman. Matilda rescues Charlie from early assassination attempts and constantly splashes water on him in the form of lore dumps.

The fish out of water story doesn’t fit the style John Scalzi is attempting to write. Charlie’s complete lack of awareness makes the book feel like a story happening around him. He—the fish—is flopping around aimlessly while more powerful people splash him with narrative water. In the few moments where he has any sort of agency, he shines, but the novel’s ending (full of splashes of explanative lore) undoes most of the progress Charlie makes in the week or so during which the story takes place.

The concept is solid, but the delivery feels off. A lot of the jokes are overly explained by the characters that tell them, and the prose and dialogue feel clunky. Sometimes Scalzi uses ten words where three will do, and it’s easy to stumble on the awkward sentences. I read a galley copy, so I’m hopeful some of these transgressions will be tightened up in the final publication.

When I finished Starter Villain, I wished it had been Matilda’s story. I’m far more interested in a first mate taking over operations and finding her own place in a villainous world than Charlie’s layman perspective on everything. The story—full of twists I won’t spoil—could’ve remained gloriously intact with a more captivating point of view.

My structural problems with the story knocked some points off my final score, but I enjoyed a few things enough to finish the book. First, Scalzi’s interpretation of a villain slots neatly into the current cultural zeitgeist. In Starter Villain, the actual villainy at play is greed. The story reads as a takedown of capitalism. There are a few delightful scenes in which Scalzi uses hopeful finance startup bros as punching bags for the billionaire villains. Charlie’s experience reporting on the business world plays nicely into this aspect of the story. It leads to a few of the aforementioned moments of growth and achievement for our otherwise water-less fish. Plus, there are sentient cats.

Scalzi’s Starter Villain, despite its issues, doesn’t overstay its welcome. The book is fewer than 300 pages long, and it has all the trappings of a quick and fun-ish story. I wish the story didn’t require regular doses of splashed water to keep our protagonist fish alive, but others may enjoy Charlie’s bumbling journey through his cutthroat world.

This book started great. I read the first 40% in one sitting. The sense of mystery was really intriguing as set up.

But once we get to the main plot...I just found the joke to be played out. This book ends up being a big nothing burger. There are some bits I liked the whole way through - like the dolphins, which are a delight. But I absolutely, completely, hated the last 15-20% and it retroactively made me dislike a lot of the rest of it too. Not a great first try for Scalzi.

Starter Villain by John Scalzi offers a quick and amusing read, making it a decent choice if you're seeking a light-hearted diversion. As a first-time reader of Scalzi's work, I found myself drawn to this book after Anne Bogel's review from Modern Mrs. Darcy's Fall Book Preview. Bogel's assessment captured the essence of the story, and I went in with appropriate expectations.

While Starter Villain provides an enjoyable experience with its humor and wit, it's fair to say that it doesn't delve into groundbreaking territory in terms of substance. The brevity of the narrative leaves little room for deep exploration or intricate character development. Instead, it serves as a snack-sized entertainment, perfect for those moments when you're looking for a light and humorous diversion. The spy cats were very entertaining.

In the end, Starter Villain is a fun read that achieves what it sets out to do—deliver a dose of amusement without aspiring to be a literary masterpiece. If you're in the mood for a quick and quirky tale, it's worth a read, but don't expect it to redefine your reading experience.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an Advanced Reader Copy of this book.

This book was fun and incredibly unique. Somehow it was silly while also drawing attention to real-life issues like workers' rights (via marine creatures...). Similar vibes to his most recent book, The Kaiju Preservation Society, as opposed to the others of his that I've read that take place predominantly in space and/or the distant future.

How could I resist this cover? I love weird so I dug in! I actually loved the gear up to the weird more though. If this was just a normal story about a guy down on his luck I’d be good with it. The swearing dolphins were funny but a bit much. That said it was pretty entertaining and I’m glad I tried a scalzi!

John Scalzi is easily one of my favorite scifi authors. His books are always witty, quirky, and absolutely hilarious. When I saw the cover for this book with the cat in a suit, I just knew I needed to read it. I was so happy when NetGalley approved me for the ARC because I knew I wanted “hyper-intelligent talking spy cats” in my life.

Just imagine, you are just trying to buy a bar with no money, your half siblings are trying to kick you out of your deceased father’s house, and on top of all of it, your absentee uncle just died too. You think your luck might be turning when you find out that your uncle left you his assets of a multimillion dollar company but of course, there is a cost because your uncle was actually a villain and now you have to defend yourself and the business against a group of other villains. Oh and your cat is actually intelligent, can communicate with you, and has her own house.

One of my favorite scenes:
“What the actual hell are you doing?” I yelled. I decided that the man might gut me like a fish, but until then, there was no upside to backing away now. “I was about to stab your uncle…I may still.” “Why the fuck would you do that?” “Because your uncle has faked his death before and I was told to confirm it had taken this time around.”

I had such a great time reading this book. I was laughing out loud most of the time and the sassiness of the animal companions made me smile the entire time. I highly recommend this book. If you have read scifi books before and think scifi might not be for you, please try this book and other Scalzi books. You won’t be disappointed.

Starter Villain is my first book by John Scalzi. I was incredibly intrigued by the premise and found the story to be an easy and enjoyable read. The book follows many of the classic villain tropes and pokes holes in the stupidity that is your average villain, exposing their flaws and the ridiculousness of their plots. It exposes how corporate villainy is, especially on this global, all powerful scale, and how often money can make a person look the other way.

There is a lot of dialogue, which I think makes the book approachable, enjoyable, and a quick read. Though it is dialogue heavy, I don’t think it’s unbalanced. There’s just enough description, and the villain trope of a million movies, to help set the scene. We get some very snappy, amusing dialogue, with a lovely background of talking dolphins and intelligent cats. It leaves a lot up to the imagination but the villains are clearly based on the billionaires we have in real life.; it’s easy to insert their images into the book.

Charlie is a normal man, very relatable. He’s had a hard few years between a divorce and his dad dying, and working as a substitute teacher. Nothing is satisfying and all he wants to do is buy the local pub and become a business owner. His aspirations are a little grand, considering that the pub costs millions of dollars to purchase, but it’s something simple and satisfying. He’s looking for a place to belong and a purpose. When his uncle dies, suddenly his life is all assassination attempts and talking cats and a crumbling villain association that has run out of money. Having been a business reporter, Charlie has a view into what guides these men, as well as the many mistakes they have made to get where they are. He’s also quite an objective observer, taking things as they come. Even if he seems like he’s floundering, he doesn’t let the panic get the best of him. He just takes it in stride and keeps going. Everything happens over the course of a couple weeks and Charlie doesn’t truly falter once.

He does have a good guide in his uncle’s left hand man, Til. She keeps Charlie on his toes and there is not an ounce of romantic attraction between them. In fact, there’s no romance at all between the main character and anyone else. There’s a fun little villainous side character romance, but it’s relevant to the plot and very funny.

The cover does seem to imply that cats run the company, which isn’t exactly true. They are very smart, but they do not directly run the company, nor do they inherit it. They make decisions but are mostly information collectors. They are highly respected and independent creatures, though they assist the humans.

Starter Villain is a silly little quick read. It’s fun, has witty dialogue, and believable characters. The villainy makes sense and even the addition of talking dolphins and intelligent cats doesn’t make the story ridiculous. Charlie is a very likable character and I enjoyed reading from his perspective. I’m very curious about Scalzi’s other books and I wonder if they, too, are so dialogue and character focused.

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

Thank you for the opportunity to review Starter Villian by John Scalzi. Somehow I had missed the pending release on this one (life was a bit hectic) and was really excited to see it appear on NetGalley.

The things I like about Scalzi... well, he's brought all that to Starter Villian. A somewhat ridiculous (but entirely fun!) premise, relatable characters, a healthy dose of humor and snark, and (more obviously lately but it was ALWAYS there; anyone who didn't notice before just wasn't paying attention) social commentary.

Starter Villian was what I'd expect from Scalzi in 2023- interesting, well-written, fun, and deceptively light feeling despite keeping some real meat on its bones. So glad to have had the chance to review the ARC, and I absolutely recommend it to readers.

Are you ready for cats who are management, and dolphins who want to unionize? I love John Scalzi's imagination, and Starter Villain is a joy from start to finish.

Most people would look at Charlie Fitzer and see a loser. At thirty-two, he's divorced, working as a substitute teacher because journalism is a dying profession, and living with his cat, Hera, in a house he doesn't own. His father left the house in a trust to Charlie and his three successful half-siblings almost a generation older than their younger brother. He hears on the news that his Uncle Jake died, but he hasn't seen the wealthy businessman since he was five. Uncle Jake and Charlie's father had an argument at Charlie's mother's funeral, and that's the last time he saw him. But, it seems Uncle Jake had his eye on Charlie.

Mathilda Morrison represents Jake Baldwin when she shows up at Charlie's. She has some odd requests. Would Charlie stand for his uncle at his funeral in town? In return, Jake left everything to Charlie, and the estate will buy Charlie's house from the rest of the estate. It's only at the funeral home that Charlie wonders what Uncle Jake was involved in. He thought he only owned parking garages. But, the floral arrangements have messages saying they're glad Jake is dead, and the mourners are all males in their late 30s and early 40s. One even tries to stab the corpse to prove Jake is dead. Charlie doesn't understand at all, and he's even more confused when he returns home just in time to see his house blow up.

Morrison will handle all Charlie's difficulties. She sweeps him off to Saint Genevieve in the southern Caribbean. It seems Uncle Jake owned the entire island. He owned more than parking garages. He was a villain who offered countries and other businessmen opportunities to compete against each other. Now, it's all Charlie's. He knows nothing about the villain business, and he's too empathetic and kindhearted. But, he easily learns to listen and be ruthless when he's invited to a convocation of villains. He needs all the help he can get from Morrison and Charlie's cat, Hera. It seems Hera is sentient, can type, and owns real estate. She's been watching over Charlie all this time he thought he provided a home for a stray.

While some readers might find all their conspiracy theories confirmed in Starter Villain, I thought it was funny and slightly believable. I love the cats and the dolphins who are planning to go on strike. And, Charlie. Charlie is a nice guy caught up in an unbelievable world. If you read and enjoyed Scalzi's The Kaiju Preservation Society, you should enjoy this one.

Oh, and the cats. John Scalzi's cats are well-known on his blog. This book is dedicated to "Sugar, Spice, and Smudge, my current set of cats. You are a real pain in my ass, and I love your stupid fuzzy faces".

The cover and title of this book alone should make you want to read it. There is a stereotype that if any pet would be a villain, it would be a cat, and the team that designed the cover for Starter Villain has used this to their advantage. Hopefully many people will read this book because of the cover alone. When I saw it, I knew it was a must read before I even knew what the novel was about.

I read and reviewed Scalzi’s last novel The Kaiju Preservation Society and enjoyed it immensely. Starter Villain feels like it follows the same idea of The Kaiju Preservation Society. Both have main characters that are down on their luck, both get picked out of their circumstances to join an underground society that has immense challenges but immense rewards, and both of these “fish out of water” main characters have the uncanny ability to navigate these strange new roles to become unlikely successes. In Starter Villain, Charlie has a rich uncle that he has only met once who leaves his fortune to him. His uncle dies, and he quickly learns that his uncle’s fortune is not on in parking garages but in being a world villain. He has a secret lair on a volcanic island. He has dolphins that curse. He has genetically modified cats that are used as spies. Charlie quickly learns that there are other supervillains throughout the world that did not like his uncle, so by turn, they do not like him. He has to navigate this new world, find out how to do business with his new associates, and not get killed in the process.

This novel, like The Kaiju Preservation Society, spends a great deal of time with world building. This novel takes the first two-thirds to build his dead uncle’s world, and Charlie as a character. Fortunately this does not feels like an information dump as much as a slow build. It takes time, and the novel is almost done before we get a basic understanding of what Charlie’s uncle has pushed him into. By the time that the Charlie has to make some real decisions to save his life, the novel is over. I would not cut back on the first two-thirds as much as make the book a little longer, find some other things about this world to explore (because there are many things that are mentioned in passing that should be expanded). As it is, as soon as we get a good sense of how entertaining and fun this world is, the story is over.

Entertaining and fun is how I would describe both The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain. There are incredibly funny scenes (like the Zoom call and the dolphin union negotiations), and Scalzi gives the impression that he has a good time writing these novels. Starter Villain is very enjoyable, humorous, and has a great set of characters. I just wish there was a bit more plot after the world is built.

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Many thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for gifting me a digital ARC of the new book by John Scalzi - 4.5 stars rounded up!

Charlie is just scraping by, working as a middle school substitute teacher and living in his deceased dad's house. Even the house isn't his - it's shared by his step-siblings that have nothing to do with him. He dreams of buying the local pub where he has good memories, but has no money to do so. So when he gets a mysterious visit from someone who says that his uncle whom he hasn't seen since he was 5 left him his company, he was intrigued. But discovering that his uncle's in the supervillain business and you are now tasked with protecting it is a whole other thought process. And it gets weirder from there.

I was a big fan of this author's previous book, The Kaiju Preservation Society, and loved this one too. It takes place in present time, but quite a different reality underneath the surface. Super-smart cloned spy cats in management? Talking dolphins wanting to unionize? Super villains trying to outsmart each other? Buckle up - this is a fun, sci-fi light book that will have you laughing while flipping the pages to see how it will all end. Highly recommended - especially if you like cats!

What a weird and fun book, that took me ENTIRELY by surprise. The conceit of talking cats and supervillains at first completely sounds a bit corny, but there's something really sharp and surprisingly tender in this book, and the relationship between Charlie and his cat is really palpable...not to mention the odd and awesome world built around it. The writer's voice is definitely reminiscent of Douglas Adams but not in a way I'd describe as overly reverent or copying - some satire, some sarcasm, and really warm and often hilarious wit.

I can't endorse this novel enough! It is fantastic. Witty, thoughtful, well-written, and full of suspense. It is a great length to read in one sitting and I was laughing the whole way through.

Charlie is a down on his luck, recently divorced, substitute middle school teacher living back in his childhood home when he suddenly finds himself the heir to a Blofeld-like secret “rulers of the world cabal” in this always irreverent offering from John Scalzi. It is a definitely over simplified portrayal of evil villains one-upping each other triggering a lot of mayhem and plenty of sneering, but it’s fun and full of grade A snark. The uplifted cats and dolphins were the best part, the latter turning into foul-mouthed union organizers with some insults rivaling Shakespeare: “suppurating bourgeois fistula of oppression,” “ambulatory collection of skin tags,” and “smooth-brained last-gasp Habsburg” are some of my favorites. Honestly, not my favorite Scalzi book but worth reading.

GREAT COVER!!