John Scalzi's Starter Villain is a delight! Scalzi is as entertaining as ever. I love the cats and the dolphins.
Charlie is down on his luck when he discovers that his mysterious and recently deceased uncle left him a profitable parking ramp business. Or so he thinks. Turns out, as the dust jacket tells us, his uncle was actually a super villain, like something right out of James Bond (or really more Austin Powers). Hilarity and hijinks ensue with plenty of that patented Scalzi snark. I laughed out loud several times while reading this one.
Two points I wanted to discuss here: let's call them "evil is actually dumb" and "animals can talk, and boy, are they hilarious!"
It wasn't that long ago that many people lauded the genius of people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. And many people probably still do. But I feel like in the last few years a tide change has occurred when it comes to the rich and powerful. We've taken a peek behind the curtain... and realized they really are no better than us. Rich powerful assholes are actually just ... kinda dumb (while still being evil and running the world, of course).
Sure, it's sad, if not terrifying, but isn't it also kind of ... funny if you think about it? And maybe that realization is itself a powerful step toward a more just world by showing that the Great Oz of Capitalism is really just a silly man behind a curtain? Or at least this makes for funny John Scalzi novels like this one.
Yet my favorite part of the novel isn't the main character's story at all. It's his feline companions (who can communicate in a way I won't spoil) and his dolphin employees (who engage in some cetacean organized labor). I don't want to say too much more, because these story lines are sheer delights. In fact, if I had any criticism of the novel, it'd be that I wanted a lot more of the cats and dolphins. Maybe there will be a sequel.
The 20th century Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, "If a lion could speak, we could not understand him." His point had something to do with what he called "forms of life" and whether humans communicate with each other because we share a similar form of life that we don't share with animals. I'm never quite sure I bought that. At least I don't always feel like I understand most other humans, while I do maybe occasionally understand animals.
Scalzi creates a fun version of this thought experiment: What would happen if we really could talk to the animals we share this planet with? Would they care about us? What, if anything, would they want from us? What would we say to them?
Do their forms of life make their consciousness fundamentally alien to us, as Wittgenstein maybe thought? (A quick metaphilosophical note on Wittgenstein: despite his oracular status for his many fervent followers, I've never been convinced that any of us really understand him, either!) For that matter, do any creatures of any species really understand one another at the end of the day?
I don't know how to answer these questions, but John Scalzi sure makes thinking about them a lot more fun and hilarious than your average Wittgensteinian.
So far I've read half the nominees for best novel for this year's Hugo Awards, and this one is definitely in the running for my #1 spot. But I have three more to read, so stay tuned!
See also my Goodreads review.
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