In this party of a book, John Scalzi answers the question of what might it be like if our estranged uncle we knew very little about died and left us in charge of his supervillain empire that is essentially run by hyper-intelligent cats with the dolphins threatening to strike.

I'm not sure any of us would be ready to handle any of this, which makes the book such a treat. The plot is outlandish, but the people feel grounded and real, which is a hallmark of the best Scalzi writing. It is also frequently hilarious.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough so get reading!

Starter Villain by John Scalzi is a great cozy sci-fi book to read curled up with your cat and a nice cup of tea. It tells the story of Charlie, a burnt out substitute and former journalist whose over it attitude is entirely relatable. He inherits his estranged uncle's businesses and comes to the discovery that his uncle was a Villain. It becomes his job to manage everything from parking garages to super intelligent cats.

This book feels very low stakes, despite the premise. Like with previous books by Scalzi, such as Redshirts and Kaiju Preservation Society, the plot unfolds much like a action comedy movie, where you understand a lot of the broad strokes, but the ride is so fun you don't mind. Like with most of Scalzi's books, there were sections where I found myself laughing out loud, though I won't spoil about what in the review. This was a delight to read and a perfect palate cleanser between heavier subject matter.

QUICK TAKE: it's Scalzi, so you know you're gonna have fun. This is humorous, sharply-written, a little over the top, and a bit convoluted in the back half, but ultimately a really good addition to the Scalzi oeuvre.

"In a dog-eat-dog world, be a cat."

An excellent examination of the power dynamics, competition, and minds of supervillains...if they existed.

The main character provides the reader with an excellent entry point to the world of supervillains, whose motives and methods just might surprise you.

Scalzi has written a fantastic book that examines what makes a villain. There's plenty of humor from Charlie's reaction to his newfound status and discovery of what his uncle actually did for "business" combined with some action and commentary about wealth, privilege, and even labor unions.

Hilarious and delightful! I had so much fun between the Bond Level plot and twists to the hysterical hyper-intelligent cats and foul mouth dolphins. John Scalzi has found the perfect balance between humor and somber. You never know what laugh-out-loud antics will devolve into nail-biting scenarios. 10/10 would recommend to anyone.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy. I really enjoyed this and will be getting copies for my shop.

Scalzi strikes again with his razor sharp wit and twisting schemes. He writes as if he's in a playground of his own delights. This was a really light and fun read akin to Autin Powers meets something like Oceans Eleven with a revenge undertone.
I really liked the finale of this book and the 'keep you in the dark' feeling about some of his uncle's backstory and dealings.

The cats were an especially nice touch as well. F the dolphine!

I was curious about Starter Villain by John Scalzi. What exactly is a Starter Villain and how do cats play into it? Since I have enjoyed this author's previous works, I decided to give it a try. This book was full of action and intrigue and had plenty of humor. The plot wasn't terribly complicated, but there were plenty of twists which made for an interesting read. This will be recommended to mystery lovers who want to try something a little different.

Really disappointed in this one. It started out with so much promise, but became really tell and don't show in the back half. The idea of a villian learning on the job should be so fun, but it turned into business deals and corporate speak. No one is trustworthy which means you never actually learn anything, you can't believe what anyone is telling you, and you end up just waiting for the conclusion to bring it all together.
But there are some bright moments in this book. I love the many cats and there are some excellent jokes. The writing is also a stand out. But the direction of the book wasn't something I was interested in.

Scalzi is just the greatest. His books are so much fun, and "Starter Villain" is no different. When his Uncle Jake dies, a mysterious woman shows up and asks Charlie to represent the family at the funeral. If he does, he will be rewarded. This comes at a great time since he is basically broke, and his job as a substitute teacher isn't making him a fortune any time soon.
At the funeral, as Charlie stands near his Uncle Jake's body to greet the well-wishers, he is shocked when multiple people attempt to "kill" the body. When Charlie stops them and asks them why they're trying to kill someone who is already dead, the response is that his Uncle Jake has faked his own death before.
And so, Charlie is introduced to his uncle's behind the shadows job of being a super-villain. If you're thinking of James Bond and SPECTRE, you're in the right mindset. As Charlie learns more and more about his uncle's past, he also learns what his own present and possible future could be, that is, if he survives the Lombardy Convocation.
A great ride, a quick read, highly recommend!

I think I actually like this book even more than I expected because I didn’t know exactly what it was about, I went in with very low plot expectations.

What I didn’t know was how much I was going to absolutely cry with laughter, especially in the first 35% of the book. There are a couple scenes here that just Had me absolutely hysterically laughing. At one point I had to get up out of bed and stop reading next to Johnny because he was trying to go to sleep.

This book is just so much fun. It’s fresh and different and I had no idea what was going to happen next.

There are some elements of Hench , as well as some elements of what’s that book I read where the woman wakes up with bodies around her and she has no idea how she got there? Like both of those, there are interesting, behind-the-scenes elements of what it’s like to join a global cabal. But as with both of those books, there is a lot of tongue in cheek styling that I absolutely love.

I know there are a couple people who have said that once the true villain work starts they became a little bit less interested but for me, I was interested the entire time in this book absolutely flew by.

It broke me out of my book slump, and was a book that I chose to keep reading even though iron flame came out, smack in the middle of the time I was reading it. I simply didn’t want to give it up. It’s too good.

This is starter villain by John Scalzi.

Fun and funny. I don’t know many other books like Scalzi’s recent funny sci-fi. Douglas Adams? Terry Pratchett?
The book is ridiculous and fast-enough-paced that I didn’t spend much time thinking about how bonkers it is.
I loved it!

I was initially drawn to this title because, last year, I ended up receiving a copy of John Scalzi's book, The Kaiju Preservation Society, from NetGalley and it ended up being one of my favorite books. So when I saw this title I was also intrigued.

Just as in the previous title I read, this book was a fun mix of humor and social commentary, only instead of focusing on animals and the preservation of them, this focused on villains and just kind of the whole business industry as a whole.

I really enjoyed the characters, the weird little twists, and the humor. Scalzi is also very great at the kind of serious, but humorous and irreverent dialogue.

Overall I very much enjoyed this book and look forward to anything similar by Scalzi in the future.

I absolutely was not anticipating how much I would love Starter Villain by John Scalzi. I just picked this book up because it was short and was promised to be funny. Starter Villain is about Charlie who is living a sort of dead end life. He is a divorced substitute teacher living in the house his dad left behind -- which his siblings want him to sell so they can split the money. One day Charlie is informed that his Uncle Jake has died. He has not had contact with his uncle since he was five. It turns out his uncle was more than just a parking structure magnate -- he left behind a multibillion dollar empire and was something of a super villain. Now it is on Charlie to figure out how to run the villain empire. He's not alone -- he has the help of super intelligent cats, unionizing dolphins, and his uncle's assistant, Morrison.

Starter Villain is a fast paced read. I walked in thinking it would be slow because the font is small. However, the plot really just zooms on by. Charlie kept surprising me in all the best ways. I loved his unexpected wit and how he handled some of the situations he was placed in. I also loved the cats - surprisingly. There were parts of this book where I laughed out loud too. Also, I felt like there was a nod to Douglas Adams with the whole dolphins thing. Read Starter Villain by John Scalzi for a clever adventure that happens when one comes into a large, unexpected inheritance.

I adored this book. The cover definitely drew me in, but the humor, fast-paced plots, and strange characters kept my attention throughout. If you are looking for a dangerous, yet light-hearted read with dolphins forming a union, references to Austin Powers, poorly-planned villainous schemes, and a plot that truly honors the intelligence of cats, grab this book!

I’m not a huge SciFi fan and I honestly only picked this book because of the cat on the cover. I’ve had this for a few months now but I kept putting off reading it. After seeing that it made the final round of the Goodreads voting, I decided it was time to read it, and I’m glad I did!
Charlie is a divorced 32 year old substitute teacher living in his late Dad’s house, driving his late Dad’s car, and the only other living thing in his life is his cat, Hera. Things aren’t looking so great for him until he learns his uncle, with whom he has no relationship, has died and left his business and all of its assets to Charlie. Charlie is very surprised to learn that his uncle was a super villain and multitrillionaire and being his only heir, he wants Charlie to take over his business including his volcano lair and dealing with the other villains out there.
This was so much more funny than I expected and I would categorize it more as a comedy than a sci-fi. Charlie is extremely likable from the get go and the antics he has to deal with had me laughing out loud quite frequently.
I loved how fast paced this book was and I loved how it kept me guessing. John Scalzi has created an amazing world filled with cats who communicate with humans, dolphins who form a union, and villains who are out for only one thing (and it’s not to conquer the world). I might not be into sci-fi, but Mr, Scalzi has hooked me with this book and I’ll definitely give his other books a try.

Despite the fact that I really like cats (I’ve had cats living with me for about half a century) and I really like science fiction – with John Scalzi being one of my favorite, working writers – I am always leery about picking up a book with cats as a leading or major character. I suspect this comes from reading some Andre Norton books with cats as characters, which I did not enjoy. And so I looked at this new Scalzi novel with a very hesitant eye. Frankly, if it wasn’t Scalzi, I’d have completely ignored it (of course there are presumably many who would pick this up because it has a cat on the cover).

Charlie Fitzer is a bit down on his luck. A former newspaper journalist now teacher at a small college, Charlie lives in his parents’ old home, which irks his siblings terribly. They’d much rather he moved out so they could sell the house and be done with it since they are technically the owners.

Charlie would like very much to buy the local pub – the place he has always gone for a drink ever since his school days, and where the college students still go for their first drink. But Charlie doesn’t have any collateral, and definitely doesn’t have any money.

Until his uncle Jake passes away.

He’s never been close to Jake, but still, Jake Baldwin leaves his nephew an absolute fortune. And … a bit of danger. And … some highly evolved, highly educated, talking animals. Like cats, and dolphins, and whales, and ….

What Jake leaves to his nephew is his business, which is – being a villain. Charlie is going to have to get used to being mean and manipulative and not trust anyone, especially the other villains who want to help him out. Fortunately he’ll have a companion to guide him. His house cat. The cat can’t talk (that would be ridiculous!), but it can type messages for him.

Charlie’s got a lot to learn in very little time.

If you didn’t tell me this was written by John Scalzi I think I’d be able to figure it out within the first couple of pages anyway. This has got Scalzi’s ‘voice’ all over it. From the snarky comments given by some of the characters, to the Tourette’s-like cussing dolphins, to the easily-overcome bad guys (our hero just needs to get a little creative), there are some obvious Scalzi signs here. What’s missing, though, is a story with a bit of a kick.

This story is all surface action. We go from Point A to Point B with everything laid out before us as we go. There’s no hidden surprise or tangent storyline that will intersect at some point. No convoluted characters we need to figure out. It’s all right there, in your face obvious all along.

Charlie is our main character and he’s a lot like any ‘reluctant hero’ in scifi these days. A nobody until he’s needed to be a little better. He’s essentially ‘good’ and maybe a bit too trusting but we know things are going to work out for him in the end, it’s his journey that we’re reading about. But this journey is just too direct. Where’s the conflict? The antagonists are like Keystone Cops. Such bumbling fools we never, ever take them seriously enough to see them as a threat.

There’s an attempt to maybe … MAYBE provide a little twist at the end, but it’s very cliche and predictable.

It’s a John Scalzi book, so I enjoyed it for his voice, but I’d classify this under humor first, fantasy second. This is very much ‘beach read’ material. The sort of book you will read in an afternoon and then leave it for someone else to read and some day you might remember a moment from the book and think to yourself, “But what book was that in?”

Looking for a good book? Starter Villain by John Scalzi is a quick, direct, fun read that won’t change your life but may divert your attention for a couple of hours.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

This was so fun! Typing spy cats who own more real estate than I'll ever own, dolphins that are trying to form a workers union while cursing like sailors, and a main character that doesn't want to be a villain but is thrown into the world that forces him to be. What more could you want?

Caught in a web of lies and plots when thrown into a cabal of villains after his estranged uncle dies and wills his entire evil empire to him Charlie struggles to understand this new life and survive. His new life is complicated by genetically enhanced cats and dolphins and the unspoken rules of the cabal of villains.

I found this book to be slow in developing and tedious. I didn't find much of the story amusing except for occasional bursts of Scalzi's usual snarky conversation. The characters were thinly developed and stereotypical. The story seemed to be developing at the end to only fall flat for me.

I've enjoyed the author's many early books but I found this most recent attempt uninteresting.

I had no idea what to expect going into this book but it's one of my favorites of the year. It's ridiculously smart, super funny and features talking cats. Just read it and thank me later.

Thanks to Tor Books for the copy to review.