Starter Villain - Review
Link to the author's (J. Scalzi) personal website
Genre: Sci-Fi
Publication Type: Book
Tags:
- Average Age of Main Characters (30)
- Length (3 / 10)
Link to Goodreads
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.
Review: This is a story that I can get behind. Unionising dolphins working at a "secret" volcano lair that's public knowledge combined with the modern flexibility for the definition of the word "villain". I was sold before I started and continuing with the analogy, never at any point experienced a second of buyers remorse. The story is charming, uplifting despite its setting, and full of brilliantly funny dialogue. I read this while on a train and could not refrain myself from laughing out loud multiple times. An easy recommendation for near anyone. It's simply well written fun fantasy.