Book Club May 2024- Starter Villain
By: John Scalzi
Published Year: 2023
Publisher: Tor Books
Pages: 264
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): 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.
What I thought
I was a little hesitant when Meghan picked this book. The cover made me laugh because I’m a cat lover, but it was categorized as sci-fi and the summary didn’t seem like a book I’d be into. But it came to her on recommendation and it was short, so I went into it with a positive attitude.
Charlie is 32 years old, divorced, living in his recently deceased father’s house with his cat and no job. When his rich uncle passes away and his mysterious coworker shows up to talk to Charlie, his life changes. He finds himself drawn into a world of business, villains, and talking cats.
This book made me laugh more than anything I have read recently which I did not expect at all. I guess technically it is sci-fi, but more so in like a James Bond kind of way. I tend to think of sci-fi as more aliens and space. This one has some scientific inventions that I guess qualify it as science fiction, but definitely was more up my alley than I thought it was going to be.
I loved the talking cats. They could’ve been done in a way that was annoying or cheesy, but they hit a soft spot for me. Maybe that’s because I’ve always wished my cat could talk. I liked how Scalzi balanced the ridiculousness of some of the plot with realism. While it did seem a bit over the top that there were laser beams and spy cats, it made sense in a world of cut throat businessmen who were doing everything they could to size each other up.
This book truly surprised me. It’s short, sweet, and to the point. I don’t want to give much away because I enjoyed going along with Charlie for the ride. It made me laugh and I found there to never be a dull moment. Scalzi has never been an author on my radar, and maybe this isn’t his typical style, but I definitely enjoyed his writing and will look into some of his other books.
What book club thought
Everyone seemed to really enjoy this one! We were all pleasantly surprised and enjoyed chatting about the parts we thought were funny. It was fun to be able to talk about the silliness with other people. We didn’t talk much about the commentary on society, but we did discuss it a little bit. I don’t think we had too much to discuss other than the fact that we enjoyed it and recommend it!