"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 ...
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"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"--
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Fine. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 272 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Seeing the cover of John Scalzi's Starter Villain, with its stylish and suited cat was more than enough to make me want to read it - but if that didn#t convince me, the blurb certainly did!
Charlie is down on his luck, running out of money and fighting with his family to keep his home. When a distant relative dies, he finds himself inheriting a Super Villain company and his life will be changed forever!
I always worry when I get my hopes up for a new book as expectations don't always live up to the reality of the words on the page. I needn't have worried about Starter Villain, it's a fast-paced, fun and absurd read which kept me hooked. You do, of course have to suspend your disbelief for this one; there's super villains, cat masterminds and rude dolphins at every turn with assassination plots and schemes aplenty.
Charlie is a great narrator for the story, he's used as a normal person thrown into this bizarre world and asks all the questions that the reader is also asking such 'why can my cat talk?', 'why does this person want to kill me?' and 'why can't this Super Villain use Zoom correctly?'. The dry humour and witty writing style really help to engage the reader, and some big events are introduced in just a sentence that sometimes you have to go back and check you did just read what you thought you did!
It's a short book and it's also a standalone (in terms of Charlie's story anyway), although I would love to read more. The plot itself is well constructed and there's some great characters, particularly Hera and Persephone - the two cats on security detail. There's also a lot of fun poked at governments, tech bros and corporations. I would love to read more about the universe in general even without Charlie in future.
Overall, Starter Villain is a book not to miss - a fun and absurd fast-paced read and one of my Kindig Gems for 2023. Thank you to NetGalley & Pan Macmillan - Tor Books for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
