ARC Review – Shaken, Not Stirred – Confessions of a Serial Reader

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

Publication Date: September 19, 2023

Summary from NetGalley:

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, 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.

ARC provided by Tor Books via NetGalley for an honest review.

Confession:

This was a marvelously funny read that I really enjoyed! There were times that I found myself laughing out loud, but mostly there was just a smile on my face from start to finish. If you are a fan of the Bond movies, especially the older ones, you will enjoy this tongue in cheek look at modern villainy.

I really liked Charlie from the get go. He is a nice guy, down on his luck after losing his business journalist job. At the start of the book, he is trying to get by on a substitute teacher’s salary, while fending off his siblings who want to sell the family home. Charlie is pretty smart, especially about business, but doesn’t know what to do with his life. Then his estranged uncle dies, and leaves Charlie everything, and his life is turned upside down and sideways as he discovers what his uncle’s business really is.

There is a great cast of characters, from your usual thugs that just want to do their jobs, to the villains that seemingly run the world, to the people who worked for his uncle. Charlie manages to hold his own against them though, and even at times out smart them while he is dodging bullets and bombs. I loved his uncle’s island lair, which of course comes with an active volcano. All of the fun and villainous tech that you come to expect in a Bond movie is there as well, but with a twist, like the satellite destroying laser gun that will also make it rain when used for good.

The plot is very fast moving, with wonderful dialogue between the characters. I loved the part where Charlie is having a zoom meeting with one of the other villains and he hangs up on him because he didn’t make the call private. It was perfect. There are lots of double dealings amongst all of the villains, including Charlie, but the final twist at the end was a little unexpected. This is a short book, but it packs quite a lot into it.

The animal characters in the book, just added to the fun. I loved Charlie’s cats, Hera and Persephone, who were both very smart and looked out for Charlie. The dolphins were pretty much what I would expect dolphins to be like if they could talk to us humans, crude and rather rude, but willing to negotiate and help out when needed. There are other animals that get pulled into this complex web of villainy, but these are the most fun ones.

Overall a really fun time. This is the first book that I have read by this author, but I don’t think it will be the last. If you are looking for a fun, fast read with lots of villainous deeds and plots, then you need to add this one to your list of books to pick up next month.