Review: Starter Villain by John Scalzi
A fast, humorous read about super villainy that felt a bit bland by the end.
Starter Villain is John Scalzi’s latest novel and in standard Scalzi fashion, it’s packed full of witticisms and social commentary. It follows Charlie, a down-on-his-luck ex-financial reporter turned substitute-teacher after a messy divorce and layoff upends his life. Charlie’s only asset is the house of his late father, which even then is managed by a trust. Only due to some sloppy legal wording in the will does he manage to live there in perpetuity. Life sucks for Charlie.
Charlie’s estranged uncle dies, and leaves behind his fortune attained from his parking garage empire. He is contacted by his uncle’s assistant, who informs him that it was the final wishes of his uncle to purchase his house from the trust and gift it to Charlie outright—but only if he stands for his uncle at the funeral. As far as deals go, that’s a pretty straightforward no-brainer, but then it starts to get a little weird at the funeral.
I didn’t see the knife until the dude was just about to stab it into my uncle’s corpse.
More accurately, I did see it. But my brain didn’t register it as an actual, no-bullshit, holy-shit-that’s-actually-a-knife knife until the dude, who had produced it from an overcoat pocket, cocked back his arm in a windup to drive the frankly rather substantial blade into my uncle’s already cold and lifeless heart.
Things continue apace from there as it’s revealed that Uncle Jake wasn’t just a parking garage magnate, but primarily was a super villain complete with a volcano island base and sapient henchmen cats. Oh, and this is all yours now, Charlie. Stop worrying about the old house and worry about more pressing things, like how the dolphins are on a labor strike.
“I was in a union myself,” I said. “Chicago Tribune Guild.”
“But you’re not anymore, are you? Now you’re management! A suppurating bourgeois fistula of oppression!”
“Bourgeois fistula! Bourgeois fistula!” the rest of the dolphins chimed in unison.
There’s a lot to like in Starter Villain. It’s incredibly readable, has a good amount of humor throughout, and has some solid commentary on venture capitalists, tech bros, and executive culture (one of the main villainous income strategies is selling everything as a service, of course). There’s some cool things here, like class-aware dolphins and feline spies.
But I also found it to have a bit too much of the standard Scalzi weak spots as well. Characterization is shallow, if not entirely non-existent. Everyone is wrapped in witticisms to the point that I was finding myself losing track of what person said what clever line during dialogues. Characters lack unique voices completely, and exist really more as a way for Scalzi to explore the ideas. This is his style, but it worked for me much better in Redshirts than here.
Honestly, outside of some excellent high points (do I need to mention the dolphins again?) I found the book to be sort of.. uneventful. I don’t think I’ll say boring, because I never struggled to read it, but it was far blander than I was expecting. The main stage for the story is an international villain conference that doesn’t really ooze with excitement, and there’s no strong characterization to save the book from the slower parts.
I think Scalzi handicaps himself with limitations that dampen the creativity of the setting. Yes, your uncle was worth a trillion dollars, but his companies and holdings are so massively illiquid that you really only have 5 million bucks or so at any time. And yes, we are incredibly powerful and governments rely on us for a huge swath of services they can’t get anywhere else, but oh my god what do you mean your fingerprints are on a murder weapon, we could be in serious trouble! These decisions managed to strike me as profoundly silly in a book that already didn’t take itself seriously. You either have power, or you don’t. I couldn’t help but thinking there could have been far more creative ways to explore this version of super villainy than worrying about someone planting fingerprints on a pistol. It deflated it a bit for me.
And the ending.. yeah, I couldn’t stand it. I won’t spoil anything here but it felt like a very lazy and bland twist—to the point I would have preferred it if things weren’t explained. It was the final knife in the corpse for me.
But ending aside, I didn’t really ever dislike reading the book. It was fast, there were some exceptionally entertaining parts, and the boring parts were dull but not actively annoying. It just didn’t have the polish it needed to shine.
You should read Starter Villain if:
You want a fast, humorous read for your cross-country airplane flight.
You’re fine with weaker characterization, and heavy witticisms.
You’ve read Scalzi before and like his style.
I've been seeing this book around a lot and have considered picking it up, so I appreciate the overview of what kind of reader would enjoy this book. Very helpful!