Synopsis
Inheriting your uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who’s running the place.
Charlie’s life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.
Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.
But becoming a supervillain isn’t all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they’re coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.
It’s up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyperintelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.
In a dog-eat-dog world…be a cat.
Review
“I don’t know what I was hoping for, or expecting,” I said.
“Probably not dolphins who say ‘fuck,’” Morrison said.
“They did seem to use it a lot.”
“If you were a dolphin without options, maybe you’d say ‘fuck’ a lot too, Charlie.”
Without a doubt, the funniest book I’ve read all year. It is light, witty, and clever. John Scalzi has nailed it. I legitimately couldn’t put it down and devoured it in two sittings. It has sentient dolphins and sentient cats. Also the dolphins have read Das Kapital and accuse cats of being class traitors in their pursuit of a labor strike to form a union. I do not think I am going to read something more ingenious this year.
Even if the above does not appeal to you, I still think the majority of the people who pick this up will find they have a great read in their hands. It is definitely of a tongue-in-cheek nature but at the same time it doubles as a carefully constructed satire on corporations, nepotism, villainy, pay disparity, tech bros, etc. It doesn’t get overbearing or preachy in the slightest though. At its heart it is a comedic sci-fi thriller with excellent banter and clever plot twists.
The main character Charlie is very easy to like. He is down on his luck after a divorce, and his father’s recent passing and is in a state of detached cynicism. The only thing he likes are cats and it soon follows that he actually has to take orders from his cat. The author has captured this MC’s voice so perfectly. In fact, the highlight of the whole book is the dialogue for me and it has a ton of dialogue. They feel so natural and realistic that the reader will just breeze through the chapters before they know it.
I’m not able to talk a lot about the book because I feel it would spoil the fun and in my opinion the book is best enjoyed going in blind. The cover alone should be convincing but if not, the book is extremely entertaining and I have ordered a special edition from all the way across the pond. I had an excellent time with this one and am super excited about the upcoming movie adaptation by Paramount and Maximum Effort.
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