But I get ahead of myself. The story follows charlie. He had taken time off/been laid off from being a journalist to care for his sick father until his death. He is now living in his father's old house which his half siblings want to sell. Working as a substitute teacher while looking for any journalism or even writing job. It's not going well.
At the start of the story he's attempting to buy a local pub to break the stalemate (except he can't get approved for a loan). When he is informed that his uncle Jake has died. His uncle was a billionaire but they haven't had any contact since Charlie was a child so he is surprised when he is asked to help with the funeral. He is even more surprised when he finds out he has inherited his uncle's estate and that his uncle was not only the owner of the country's third largest parking garage company but also ran a villainous empire complete with a volcano lair.
Unfortunately he has also inherited his uncles enemies.
My thoughts
I generally like scalzi's books a lot, they are funny, exciting and clever. Starter villain is no different and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. But with the latest two (starter villain and Kaiju preservation society) have taken a turn to be more relatable. At least to me... and I suspect any other millennial in an unsatisfactory work and/or living situation. In this case it's not so much his money trouble but the soul crushing feeling of sending job application after job application into the void and getting nothing back. Of living in a town I didn't like because of circumstances not because I actively chose it.
At the same time it takes the tropes and asks how would that work in reality. So you have the problem of trillion of dollars sitting unused in a bank because moving it would raise all the red flags. The reasons why you can't drown someone in lava and genetically engineered dolphins going on strike.
If you have read it what did you think? Leave a comment. If you haven't read it you can check it out here Starter villain.
