Book Review: Starter Villain - John Scalzi

The bad news is - this book isn't released until September 2023...

The good news is - I have an advance reader copy. So I get to revel in it now!

I appreciate that you might not consider that much of an upside. But sucks to be you, I guess?

Scalzi's writing reminds me why I love to read. It is fast, funny, and filled with righteous ire. The plot is... look, it's identical to Scalzi's other books. "Who? Me? A nerdy guy is called on to save the world? But all I have is my nerdy references and a healthy dose of meta-awareness!"

Much like his last book "The Kaiju Preservation Society" this is a brilliant and funny novel with a delightfully sideways look at the tropes of super-villains. It perfectly explains why villains always have cats on their laps.

I suppose my one criticism is its over-use of "show, don't tell". You know that movie trope where the entire conflict could have been avoided if the characters just explained things to each other - but inexplicably don't? I felt that frustration throughout the entire book. So many chapters were literally just "I could tell you what's going on in a 5 minute chat - but it'll be more dramatic if I just remain enigmatic!" That's fine once or twice, but it gets old fast.

I get that having long passages of exposition don't make for a dramatic or engaging chapter - but it could have used a flashback, or an eavesdropped conversation, or anything other than literally have a character say "I'll let you figure that out yourself."

But, it's a fun popcorny ride. You can't fault Scalzi's zingers and crowd-pleasers. Nor should you - or else he might set his cats on you...

Many thanks to NetGalley for the preview copy.