Charlie, a failed journalist and temporary supply teacher inherits a multi-millionaire company along with a secret volcano island lair jam-packed with villainous spy tech from his reclusive uncle. Talking spy cats, unionised dolphins and exploding torpedo whales all abound, what’s not to love?
This was my first Scalzi and it definitely won’t be the last.
Utterly brilliant, a great laugh out loud book that doesn’t fail to entertain.

Satire in a world like ours is hard. When politicians claim doing nothing is actually brave decision making and lies are uttered every minutes and go unchecked it can often feel redundant. Great satire holds though a mirror to the world to highlight the unfairness and hypocrisy of the world and gives us insight, solidarity and perhaps compassion. The worst kind of satire takes the bleeding obvious and tries to add cute jokes that fail as flat as the characters and that sadly was my experience of Starter Villain by John Scalzi.

Charlie Fisher was once a journalist, but that career path has vanished and now is a substitute teacher living in his father’s house. The 32-year-old is battling his older step-siblings to stay in it and he hungers to manage and own a pub. But a lack of cash takes his dreams away. Then his uncle a reclusive billionaire dies, and it turns out Charlie could manage the company –which is not a giant of US parking lot industry but actually running massive and dangerous schemes on behalf of anyone who pays enough. They are Villains, they have talking cats and dolphins, and Charlie is well over his head.

I know I’m not the hugest fan of comedy in fantasy or the lighter tone but this is a shallow inconsequential novel where Scalzi talks about capitalism being you know actually evil as if you may not be aware – long info dumps of finance discussion and business follow. That is a path many a fine SF tale has done this but the main character her here is a floating ball of nothingness who tends to stand and be told things to go ‘that’s terrible’… then some more. The talking cats run out of humour after their second appearance, and everything feels shallow. Very little happens bar scrapes and infodumps. Its massively unforgettable and drama free The annoying thing is Scalzi can write a decent plot and characters and this tale is just plain insipid. Charlie sounds less a 32-year-old and more a much older middle-aged guy who looks at the world and tuts but thinks some rubbish jokes will help get the message out. Its satire on easy level and even then, I feel misses it targets and will make all the impact of being hit by a soap bubble. The idea of talking dolphins unionising against Villains is just poorly handled. Scalzi seems to say it’s just bad people in charge and good people can take over and make a difference - it’s simplistic analysis at best of why big business can often be morally bankrupt and unethical.

Overall I felt that this was an incredibly disappointing lightweight unfunny novel that I have no desire to read again and cannot recommend.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the free book in return for an honest review.

So your uncle dies one day and at their funeral, a whole bunch of unknowns turn up, not to pay their respects...

But to make sure he's dead...

and you learn that he wasn't a car park magnate, but a villain, and not just a villain, but a supervillain.

with sentient cats... and dolphins that go on strike.

I'm guessing this is painting a surreal picture, and that's not a bad thing, because this is a reasonably surreal book, the twists aren't entirely unexpected, callbacks are obvious, and references to films are often pointed out, but everything is done with tongue firmly in cheek, and works because of it, if this had been done as a serious book about supervillains, it wouldn't have worked. It's set up for a potential sequel but wraps up as a stand alone story, which is more than a lot of books do these days and all the better for it.

Recommended.

This is another of Scalzi's recent "idea workouts", a bit of frippery outside bigger works to test out an aspect of genre. The idea here is, what if you suddenly inherited a supervillain's organisation, their lair and their fingers in lots of organised crime pies. Could you run it ethically, could it be used for good? And in case that doesn't quite work, Scalzi throws in talking cats and labor disputes with spy dolphins.

There is a lot of silliness in here, which is welcome, but much of it comes from a surprisingly rigorous work through of the premise. He is trying to show that the a good person, indeed a lazy person, with solid morals could find a way to negotiate living within this system if only for a short time. There is also a broader satirical point regarding the difference between a Bond style supervillain and what we think of a tech disruptors. Once you get used to the language of moral turpitude and equivalence, you are already pretty compromised.

Scalzi doesn't completely succeed by the way. Not in leaving his hero completely untainted, and not in showing that it is possible to run these organisations without stepping into grey areas. But that is part of his point, and he has a fun time getting there. Whilst some of these ideas have been batted around before (certainly aspects about henchperson/creature rights has been done to death by the Venture Bros), there is a lightness of tough here that I really enjoyed, plus a sense of a high-wire act that might not be completed. And that eventually is what actually made it more enjoyable to me. Because I am immune to the charm of talking cats.

I don't know if I feel desperately in love with this story when I got to the funeral, the cats or the unionized dolphins.
I know I'm loving it and I'm reading it in parallel with another great story and it's a sort of literary love triangle.
That said there's a lot of humour, a lot of laugh out loud moments and some sharp and realistic parts about how the world of "villains" works.
A great and well plotted story. Will be back when I'm over as I'm loving it
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

My word this was blooming brilliant and the first book that I’ve ever actually laughed out loud at….apparently trash talking dolphins is what does it for me, who would have thought!

The story follows Charlie who inherits his late Uncles business and he just happens to be a super villain. Charlie must navigate the world of ‘villains’ whilst also dealing with highly intelligent talking cats, trash talking dolphins and of course other villains that are out to get him.

It sounds crazy and it is, but it was an absolute joy to read. So much fun and humour with a great plot, I just did not want to put this down. It reminded me at times of Despicable Me and I could definitely see this as a film, I was reading the dolphins voice as Will Ferrell.

My only criticism is that it ended…I wanted so much more. I miss Charlie, the cats and those dolphins honestly are the funniest thing I’ve ever read. In fact if the author reads this please can we have a story just focussing on those dolphins.

Go read it it’s amazing!

“We have cats because they amuse us and because otherwise our clothes would lack the texture only cat hair can provide.”

This book is absolutely incredible. I loved it so much! It’s absolute chaos in the best way and even better there’s cats…who are computer savvy and in management.

The story is follows Charlie who inherits his uncle’s business who turns out to be a supervillain. So now he has to figure out how to run the business while also dealing with suddenly inheriting his uncle’s role as a supervillain. Of course chaos ensues.
This book is fast paced and action packed and once I started reading I was completely hooked and ended up finishing the book in a day.

The characters are all so interesting and it was so funny how out of depth Charlie is but still tries his best to manage everything. And the cat, Hera, is absolutely amazing. Truly the star of the story.
The side characters were all so interesting and being villains it was so hard to trust what they were saying, even those who said they were there to help Charlie which meant that there was a lot of suspense and mystery throughout the story as you try to work out what’s happening.

There are lots of plot twists which keeps you guessing and just when you think you know what’s going on something happens and your mind is blown!
This story is an absolute delight to read and so funny, I giggled so many times. I truly loved this book and the wild ride it takes us on.

John Scalzi's sense of humour is more and more present these days, which results in his books being a lot of fun and funny. There's part of me that still misses and wants the serious science fiction, but I get that the author probably just wants to stretch his artistic wings.
This book is fun to read, aiming and hitting some obvious comedic targets and not taking itself so seriously. I'm not sure how challenged the author was in writing this, as it feels lightweight but I absolutely appreciate the creative effort required here.
Good fun, just missing some depth for me.

Brilliant! Scalzi has done it again.
This will be one of my favourite reads of the year. Charlie was such a brilliantly inept and adorable character. As a fellow millennial, I felt for his very prosaic approach to everything that happened to him. Sentient cats, foul-mouthed Dolphins, corpse stabbing- all of them taken with a "yep, okay then" attitude that made me laugh.
And laugh I did. During a certain Zoom call, the dialogue made me laugh so hard I couldn't catch my breath.
I love his whimsical side and the way he managed to add serious topical issues, such as unionisation, climate change and workplace disputes with tongue firmly in cheek.
The plot wasn't complicated but did have you trying to follow a "Who double-crossed whom" cats cradle of treachery. The characters were brilliant and the dialogue witty.
Wonderful

I found this pretty amusing and enjoyed it until about halfway through by which time the humour was wearing thin. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

I love John Scalzi's writing, and as always he gets right into the story, no long introductions. Overall I really enjoyed this book, it made me chuckle and it was different from all the other books being published. Scalzi stands out by daring to take a bonkers topic and run with it.

From start to finish, "Starter Villain" was an excellent read. It's the kind of book that leaves you wide-eyed and wondering how such a brilliant story can also be so funny. There's something about the writing too. Something that makes reading effortless as well as entertaining. I wish I could add an extra 5 stars to my rating just for the cats, and I'd like to request a copy of John Scalzi's to-do list, please...

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

Five stars from me. But do take into account that this is a fun, light, very silly and really quite sweary SF book. It's not going to hit that hard for everyone. (But maybe it will!)

Charlie is a substitute teacher with money troubles and a yearning desire to buy a local bar. Then his estranged uncle dies, making him the heir to a very strange and slightly villainous business.

Turns out his pet cat has been spying on him all along, there are swearing dolphins at his command, and he now has access to satellite-exploding lasers (and more than a few moral dilemmas).

It's ridiculous and hilarious. And a little bit brilliant. End of review.

Wow!

This book follows a man who discovers that he's due to inherit his long lost relative's business. Except, this is no ordinary business involving privileged men in suits, oh no. This is a villainous empire, and instead we have TALKING CATS!

The first half of the book was highly enjoyable, and the pacing followed through well. We meet sassy cats, swearing aquatic animals and just a whole lot of fun. With our main character, we navigate this new world. I just hoped for more plot twists and the pacing lacked in the second half. That being said, I really had a good time with this one and I just loved the main character's cats and their true identities. Overall, well-written and a fun time!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the e-arc!

I am obsessed.
This book was an easy 5 stars. I don't know if it's wholly amusing or if I just 'get' John Scalzi's sense of humor but I laughed endlessly and actually teared up a couple of times during this read.
If you enjoyed his last book - The Kaiju Preservation Society, you will love this one too!!

This is a fun, wry, entertaining spin on a global collective of Bond villains who are challenged by a former substitute teacher who's inherited his uncles place at the table.

Scalzi has an engaging writing style that keeps you hooked, while smiling at the sometimes absurd story highlights that zip off the page.

If you love watching a James Bond repeat on TV and want to read an innovative, humourous take of the world of Blofeld and his cat, you'll enjoy this book.

Recommended.

John Scalzi has become something of a comfort author for me, I enjoy every one of his books and I love the fact that they are both silly and smart. Starter Villian is no different, it is an extremely well executed book that is fun, thrilling and will leave you guessing what will happen next.

Its not quite what I was expecting, we have an ordinary guy, Charlie, as our main character being thrust into a world of villiany when he himself is not a bad person nor does he approve of doing bad things. He tries his very best but soon realises that the essentially super villian organisation he is up against do not play by the rules and can be difficult to predict. There are definitely a few good twisty moments!

I did like Charlie, hes so normal and his reactions are some that anyone in his situation would have. Hes both overwhelmed by some of it and extremely disapppointed with how ordinary other bits are. The best part of this book however was the intelligent cats and dolphins. Charlie is shocked and a bit embarrassed to find out his cats life is much more complex than he thought (and she is more successful than him), I did like his and Hera's relationship, he cares a lot for his cat and its clear she also cares a lot for him and helps him get out of some bad situations. The ending was also really good and it wrapped up in a very satisfying way and with a nice twist.

If you enjoyed Scalzi's other books you will also enjoy this, its perfect for those looking for something quick, fun and not too serious.

Scalzi's latest novel packs a lot of fun in its short page count, and is his best work since The Last Emperox.

Charlie, a down-on-his-luck former journalist, finds himself suddenly thrust into a surreal world of villains (read disaster capitalists), sentient animals, and high stakes backstabbing.

The plot moves swiftly, and keeps delivering surprises until the very end. There are genuinely funny moments as Charlie finds himself in over his head and tries to get to grips with events.

As is typical of a Scalzi novel, the dialogue is a main attraction, but the repartee can feel a little too much after a while.

Light-hearted, fun, recommended.

I absolutely loved The Kaiju Preservation Society so was super eager to read Starter Villains and let me tell you, it did not disappoint in the slightest. It was one of the easiest 5 stars I've given! ⁣
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I love John Scalzi's writing and the humour is just brilliant! I found myself flying through this book and reading it in one sitting! I quickly found myself so invested in this story and Charlie's story. Honestly, the amount of things that were revealed to Charlie I don't know how he didn't have a complete meltdown! ⁣
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Starter Villain had me laughing out loud countless times. With awful billionaires, a volcano lair, amazing characters and intellectual animals this is the perfect book for anyone who needs a light-hearted, witty and funny book! ⁣

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Your life is normal, mediocre at best. You have a roof over your head, you have some money in the bank to see you through to the next pay cheque and a cat, who let’s face it, eats better than you do right now. Then out of the blue your uncle, who you haven’t seen for almost 3 decades, dies and leaves you his estate and businesses in his will. The only catch is, he’s a villain.

That’s essentially the start of Charlie’s story in “Starter Villain”. Scalzi can no doubt right fast-paced action/comedy (quite a few moments I caught myself chuckling, and in public no less).

My first foray into the works of Scalzi was “Kaiju Preservation Society”, so I knew what to expect. Scalzi has delivered another rip-roaring story filled with pop culture references to appease those in their 40s, and for the younger nerds to get. He also takes a dig at a few big company names (the Spotify jibe was not so much as a sneaky stab in the back but more like looking you in the eye while twisting the knife).

This was a lot more fun than KPS. If you like pop culture references, outlandish characters and scenarios (and cats who can type, oh! And dolphins that can talk) and are a fan of Scalzi, then you will no doubt find this to be a hoot.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan and Tor for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.