(Cover image taken from the Tor/Forge Books blog, used without permission)
Book
Starter Villain by John Scalzi
Synopsis
Charlie Fitzer is a divorced former journalist who’s working as a substitute teacher in suburban Chicago, trying to figure out how to get back on his feet, when he gets news that his estranged uncle Jake — who’d become a billionaire in the parking garage business — has died. Charlie soon discovers that his uncle had not just left him with a simple inheritance, but with the responsibility of taking over the business: his real business, which was being a supervillain, complete with remote lair inside an active volcano.
Notes
I immediately put this book on the to-read list because of its outstanding cover and its clever premise. The next thing I knew, I was already a quarter of the way through it. It is a fun and engaging read, and it keeps you wanting to come back for the next chapter.
I’ve got to admit I’m not the biggest fan of Scalzi’s books, mostly because it’s difficult to get lost in the book instead of hearing every observation and every line of dialogue in the same extremely-online writing voice. Here, the premise isn’t so much a parody of James Bond supervillainy as it is a satire of techbro billionaires and venture capitalists, so the more fantastic elements are tempered with the mundane, with an author more eager to take the piss out of the greedy elite than to indulge in escapist adventure. But there are definitely fantastic elements, which are easily the best part of the book.
My main criticism of the book is a vague spoiler: the protagonist doesn’t have enough agency. He spends the majority of the book going from location to location having things explained to him by characters he acknowledges are smarter or more accomplished than he is. He’s never given an opportunity to prove himself indispensable, so the story ends up feeling very passive.
Verdict
A quick, fun, and often clever read.
Every time I try to be vague about spoilers, I come back years later to have no idea what I was talking about. So here’s exactly what I mean with my main criticism of Starter Villain, with spoilers for the entire book:
It seems evident that the goal was to dismiss the male power fantasy of James Bond stories, and dispel any allure of super villains (or real-life billionaires) as being cool, elegant, geniuses. And I’m all for that. But the book is entirely made up of one scene after another with the protagonist acknowledging that he’s out of his element, that it stopped feeling like “lovable schlub gets in over his head” and it almost started to feel like a different kind of fantasy. “Wait a second… does this guy actually get off on being a beta?”
Even after the parts where Charlie has a unique insight into a situation to actually figure something out (the billionaires are all bankrupt), or to help the other characters (the dolphins), that’s undermined by the ending. Which is structured to make it absolutely clear that Charlie had no real influence on anything that happened, and he accomplished nothing. And for the implausible ending to work, it had to mean that he was surrounded by super-heroes: two super-capable hench people that could do just about anything, and two super-villains (one deceased) who came up with a flawless master plan that accounted for every contingency.
It’s such a baffling choice, because it seemed adamant that Charlie not be allowed to do something genuinely impactful, but any claims to being more realistic or less of a power fantasy were belied by the ending. It just seems like the story chose the worst protagonist, because he doesn’t do anything. Even making Hera the main character would’ve made more sense.