Starter Villain - John Scalzi
Honestly the synopsis, cover and title set up completely different expectations for me that the book didn‘t deliver on. It made me think that Charlie would take on the villain mantle from his uncle Jake and become a Starter Villain and rise up the ranks into a proper villain. Instead I got a story in which the MC was used and manipulated for someone else‘s game and again. Charlie not becoming a villain and being (mostly) steadfast in his beliefs and morals it felt like I was tricked and I don‘t enjoy that feeling.
The many twists and turns that happened in the last 10-20% in the novel I did not like and it made me think that every character who was involved in the ploy suuuuuucks. Don‘t care that some of them tried to make up for it by the end. I guess they are the true villains after all.
I do wish the characters hadn‘t been so flat and had actually been more fleshed out. Hera and Seventy-Three had more personality than most of the human characters in the book. Maybe that was the intention all along but eh.
That said I wish Hera and Persephone had featured more in the story. There just wasn‘t enough cat time!
Most of the scenes that I was interested in and wanted to read were skipped over or just mentioned as a short reference which was disappointing to me. Often because those scenes would have had more of an emotional impact on Charlie and therefore me as a reader.
As for the humour I did laugh quite a bit in the first third but after that the jokes just didn‘t land for me anymore. I don‘t know if it was a mood thing or if I had just tired of the humour overall.
All in all I do want to check out other works by Scalzi but I can‘t say that I‘ve been all that impressed with this outing, especially considering how quickly this book will feel outdated with the specific tech mentions and such.
