Starter Villain by John Scalzi

Starter Villain

by John Scalzi

Following the bestselling The Kaiju Preservation Society, John Scalzi returns with another unique sci-fi caper set in the strangest of all worlds, present-day Earth.

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.

Reviewed by Terri M. LeBlanc on

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A comic story about a man who inherits his uncle's supervillain business. It will have you chuckling with it nods to some of the bigger comic book villain tropes.

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Reading updates

  • 21 November, 2023: Started reading
  • 21 November, 2023: on page 0 out of 272 0%
  • 26 November, 2023: Finished reading
  • 31 December, 2023: Reviewed